by Oui
Thu Mar 6th, 2025 at 12:16:51 AM EST
My diary ... one of dozens on failed foreign policy using NATO expansion in Europe.
NATO Posing the What If Question | 2 June 2023 |
Wishing a favorable outcome and throwing billions to make it happen may not be sufficient as the numbers game at the front just don't improve. The losses in manpower cannot be offset by more and sophisticated weapons. The terror strikes on Russian territory is one more indication the tide isn't turning in Ukraine's favor.
Military strategy is confused as too many diverse voices override one another. The armchair warmongers too are puzzled one the next strategy should be as not all ammunition and promised armor are ready for battlefield action.
Being ready from day one is quite different from a proces of escalation from one summit to the next. Unity is strong as any scepsis will only lead to a timely failure as Russia still occupies nearly 20% of Ukraine. Frustration on all sides in this war is growing. Time is on the side of the aggressor.
Blinken in Finland to tell the world Putin has failed ...
Ivo Daalder, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO, Dutch roots a vocal spokesperson to dehumanize Russians and prepare for war with Russia.
Ivo Daalder: "America and allies should make Russia a pariah state."
Ivo Daalder the true Russophobe has succeeded in a decades long battle for a military confrontation with Russia. Quite unfortunate Ukraine used as a proxy and bleeds on its territory.
Restoring the power and purpose of the NATO alliance | Atlantic Council - 16 June, 2016 |
By Ambassador (Ret.) R. Nicholas Burns and General James L. Jones, Jr., USMC (Ret.)
As NATO leaders prepare to meet in Warsaw this July, the Alliance faces the greatest threat to peace and security in Europe since the end of the Cold War.
Transatlantic leaders must confront a jarring reality: the peace, security, and democratic stability of Europe can no longer be taken for granted. The transatlantic community faces four fundamental strategic challenges--a revanchist Russia, eroding stability in the greater Middle East, a weakened European Union, and uncertain American and European leadership--that threaten the entire community, and by extension global security.
What NATO needs most is determined political leadership backed by a long-term strategy to restore its power and purpose. NATO leaders should agree at their NATO Summit in July on an ambitious set of measures to deter Russia, stabilize threatened allies and partners to NATO's east and south, and strengthen the military capacity of the Alliance in the coming year. NATO nations must resolve, as they did in 1949, to protect and defend Europe and the rules-based international order from these challenges.
From EuroTrib archives key word | Nicholas Burns |
Afghanistan as Pretext for NATO Change: 2003 and Now | 17 Feb. 2008 |
Today Defense Secretary Robert Gates spoke at the annual Munich Conference on Security Policy. He reiterated Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recent comments in London that NATO is at risk of collapse if member nations fail to meet their military obligations in Afghanistan.
In this diary we look back at the NATO takeover of leadership of (International Security Assistance Force) ISAF-Afghanistan in 2003, to see what US officials were saying at the time. What we're going to find is a continuing insistance from the US that the very viability of NATO depends on commitments to security in that non-NATO country. Again and again, we see evidence that the real point of this near-hysterical rhetoric is to solidify a US-urged change in NATO's mandate, from Eurpoean defense to world-wide interventionism.
Starting with Gates' remarks today in Munich, we see a strange-seeming doomsdayism about the importance of NATO participation in Afghanistan.
Diary rescue by Migeru
Serjeant Paul McAleese and Private Johnathon Young killed in Afghanistan | August 2009 |
Pictures have been released of some of the squaddies who've died in battles in Helmand Province this month (12 July 2009)
[paragraph added - Oui]
The Bush administration is using Afghanistan to alter NATO culture and policy, in ways that may last beyond his presidency. If this change is not welcomed by (to use Rice's phrase) "our populations", then they need to be better educated and informed. This is disturbingly anti-democratic and indicates, too, another example of Bush Administration attempts to increase US government dominance over its own citizens, Europe, and the rest of the world.
Bush-Cheney send a clear warning to European allies "to do more heavy lifting" and die in U.S. Imperial wars across the globe.
Allies' refusal to boost Afghanistan troops a threat to NATO, Gates says @MSC | The Guardian - 11 Feb. 2008 |
- Europeans unwilling to fight and die, US says
- Campaign against Taliban 'vital for western security'
The US administration warned yesterday that NATO could be destroyed if European allied troops were not prepared to fight and die in Afghanistan and argued that, unlike the Americans, Europeans were failing to grasp how much was at stake for western security in Afghanistan. The US defence secretary, Robert Gates, also pointed to the dangers of a western alliance divided between US forces who do the fighting and Europeans who follow later to conduct the civilian clean-up operations.
Following weeks of recrimination between Washington and European capitals, particularly Berlin, over troop contributions and fighting capacity in Nato's troubled Afghan mission, Gates told a conference of defence policy-makers and security experts in Munich that NATO's future was on the line in the war against the Taliban in southern and eastern Afghanistan.
What NATO needs is an adversary closer to home ... to Old Europe ... may I suggest the former Soviet Union ⁉️
March/April 2008 ...
Neocon Years and NATO Expansion of 2008
From EuroTrib archive key word | Declaration of War | NATO Bucharest Summit |
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Credentials of non-veterans in the White House .... did not serve in the military 😡
Bill Clinton - George W. Bush - Dick Cheney - Barack Obama - Joe Biden - Donald Trump -
Do we ever learn ⁉️
Troop Deployment (Helmand Province)
Volume 447: debated on Wednesday 21 June 2006
Adam Holloway
Conservative MP for Gravesham
The Government's commitment to Afghanistan is brave and principled. As I am sure the Minister will point out, we cannot allow it again to become a failed state--one from which the likes of Osama bin Laden could plot the murder of thousands of innocent people. One should not invade countries and then run, leaving chaos in one's wake. A stable Afghanistan is in Britain's national interest. Unlike our invasion of Iraq, we had compelling reasons to invade Afghanistan, and for wider strategic reasons we had to play a part in introducing stability and democracy there.
As the Minister is aware, during the Easter recess I went to Afghanistan, and I managed briefly to visit Helmand province while there, so I hope that he will forgive me if I am not completely up to date. I do not pretend to be an expert on the subject and I do not have huge armies of knowledgeable advisers, but during my visit I conducted about 47 substantive interviews with Afghans and other well-informed people, with the emphasis on seeking the thoughts of the ordinary people of Helmand province.
The main headline that emerged from those discussions is that the British public have not been alerted by the Government to the great dangers that confront our troops and officials in the province, nor to the great risk of doing further damage to our reputation in the region. Announcing our deployment, the then Secretary of State for Defence said that he hoped, as we all did, that we would leave Afghanistan without a shot being fired. That was a somewhat optimistic observation.
At the moment, we have more than 5,000 troops in Afghanistan, and more than 2,000 in Helmand province. I am reliably informed that we would be hard pushed to get more than a couple of hundred on the ground--out of camp--at any one time. Helmand has a population of about 1 million, spread over an area the size of Wales and the west midlands. There are more than 1,000 villages.
The area is dominated by the mighty Helmand river, and most of its population live within 10 km of the river banks. As one flies into the province, one is struck by the cultivation along the river banks. The guy in the next seat may shout over the noise of the aircraft, "Down there, look at that green; 80 per cent. of that is opium poppy and it will end up on your streets."
2 Weeks Later: Operations Khanjar and Panther's Claw | by Magnifico @ET - 17 July 2009 |
Gates blasts NATO, questions future of alliance | Atlantic Council - June 2011 |
America's military alliance with Europe -- the cornerstone of U.S. security policy for six decades -- faces a "dim, if not dismal" future, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates in a blunt valedictory address.
In his final policy speech as Pentagon chief, Gates questioned the viability of NATO, saying its members' penny-pinching and lack of political will could hasten the end of U.S. support. ...
"Future U.S. political leaders - those for whom the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me - may not consider the return on America's investment in NATO worth the cost," he told a European think tank on the final day of an 11-day overseas journey. ...
"The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress -- and in the American body politic writ large -- to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense," he said.
Kabul airport massacre and defeat of US campaign in Afghanistan
US Forces Left Bagram Airbase in Stealth of Night Without Informing Commander: Afghan [and Allied] Forces Feel Betrayed
Watch US Marine's GoPro footage that challenges Pentagon's
account of attack at Kabul airport | CNN News |
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PMQ Keir Starmer remembers the fallen British soldiers in Afghan operations alongside NATO allies ...
Britain will "never forget the bravery" of British soldiers who fought and died in Iraq and Afghanistan, Sir Keir Starmer has insisted in an apparent dig at J.D. Vance.
PM pays tribute to UK troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan after Vance 'insulted' their memories
