Tag: nato

The United States-Ukraine Security Pact Is Lipstick on a Bloody Defeat for NATO

The United States and Ukraine are moving toward signing a 10-year bilateral security pact. But former Pentagon analyst David Pyne sees it as a sign that Washington realizes Russia is near to outright victory in the conflict.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has this week renewed talk about signing a long-term security alliance with the United States. The Biden administration seems to be amenable to signing off on the pact.

Such a move may appear to give the U.S. a long-term foothold in Ukraine but, says Pyne, it is being proposed from a position of weakness, not strength.

Russia has all but won the war that escalated in February 2022. Earlier predictions by NATO states that Ukraine would defeat Russia are shown to be a cruel fantasy.

Despite massive supplies of weapons to Ukraine from the United States and its NATO allies, Russia is prevailing militarily. David Pyne reckons that Russia’s anticipated offensive over the summer dry period will result in a decisive victory before the end of the year.

The signing of a security pact between the U.S. and Ukraine is a way to put lipstick on what is otherwise a crushing defeat for the NATO side.

Pyne points out that Russia will be in a dominant position to make sure that Ukraine does not become a member of NATO. That has always been a key demand by Moscow

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US General Says NATO Could Surge Troops into Eastern Europe

A top US commander told Congress that NATO was prepared for a massive troop surge into Eastern Europe. The alliance has already positioned thousands of troops in its most eastward states. 

Gen. Christopher Cavoli, head of US European Command, told Congress on Wednesday that NATO is prepared to triple its troop deployments to Eastern Europe. “In the immediate aftermath of the invasion, NATO took the decision to establish new battlegroups on a standing basis,” he said. “By design, they can all go up to brigade size at a time of need. And a number of nations have already elected to go up to that.”

After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the North Atlantic alliance engaged in a massive eastward buildup, adding l battle groups in four additional countries it dubs its “eastern flank.”

NATO now has battlegroups consisting of at least 1,000 soldiers in each country. Generally, a brigade is 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers, meaning the NATO deployments could be more than tripled. The general explained that the deployments are a part of “a definite shift eastward.”  

The US now has over 100,000 troops in Europe. Other countries, such as Germany, have also moved troops eastward. Earlier this week, Berlin announced it had permanently moved troops into Lithuania for the first time since World War II. 

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German Troops Arrive in Lithuania for First Permanent Deployment Since WWII

On Monday, Germany began deploying troops to Lithuania, where they will be stationed permanently, marking the first deployment of its kind for the German military since World War II.

Only two dozen German soldiers have arrived in Lithuania so far, and the force will increase to 4,800 by 2027. Germany already leads a NATO deployment in Lithuania with 1,000 troops, but the new force will be permanent.

“This is the first time that we have permanently stationed such a unit outside of Germany,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said at a farewell ceremony in Berlin, according to The Associated Press. He said the deployment was “an important day for the German army.”

Lithuania shares a border with Kaliningrad, the Russian Oblast on the Baltic Sea that’s separated from the Russian mainland. The country also borders Belarus, a treaty ally of Russia that now hosts Russian nuclear weapons.

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Ukraine May Have To Compromise With Russia, NATO Chief Admits

In a rare moment following more than two years of war, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has belatedly admitted the Ukraine may have to compromise with Russia at the negotiating table.

He made the remarks in a fresh interview with BBC at a moment he’s urging Western allies to commit to approving his proposed five-year, 100 billion euro fund for Ukraine. As we’ve underscored before, this is largely about “Trump-proofing” NATO funding for Kiev for years to come, in anticipation that he could be in the White House next year.

Stoltenberg is still playing up the narrative that Ukraine needs major backing from the West in order to build leverage going into any potential future negotiations. Battlefield gains enabled with strong Western support could lead to an “acceptable result” for the Ukrainian side, he said.

“At the end of the day, it has to be Ukraine that decides what kind of compromises they’re willing to do, we need to enable them to be in a position where they actually achieve an acceptable result around the negotiating table,” he told BBC.

He sought to clarify that he’s not urging Ukraine to offer any concessions at this point, but said that “real peace” will only be achievable when “Ukraine prevails”.

And yet, by all accounts Ukraine forces have not made any forward advances, instead the opposite. BBC commented on Stoltenberg’s rare talk of ‘compromise’ as follows: 

But his language is notable because President Volodymyr Zelensky has always been adamant that he would never negotiate with Putin despite some calls on him to do so, including from the Pope.

Mr Stoltenberg refused to be drawn on whether he was concerned about the possible return of Donald Trump to the White House, saying only that he was sure the US would continue to be an important ally, whoever was in charge.

Zelensky’s consistent position throughout the war has been to say that he’ll never negotiate with Moscow so long as Vladimir Putin is in power.

As for Stoltenberg, he had this to say only a few weeks ago in response to Pope Francis’ position that the warring sides need to urgently find compromise and end all fighting…

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NATO Countries Will Have to Send Troops to Ukraine or “Accept Catastrophic Defeat”

State Department consultant Edward Luttwak says that NATO countries will have to send soldiers to Ukraine or “accept catastrophic defeat,” and that Britain and France are already making preparations to do so.

Luttwak is a military strategy expert and has served as a consultant to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council, the Department of State and the US Army.

In an article for Unherd, Luttwak warns that Ukraine’s 800,000 active personnel figure is too low to be successful in a war against Russia and that the country will continue “losing soldiers in the process who cannot be replaced” without major support.

“This arithmetic of this is inescapable: Nato countries will soon have to send soldiers to Ukraine, or else accept catastrophic defeat,” writes Luttwak.

Apparently, it’s already in process.

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Every NATO Country Already Has Troops In Ukraine, Estonia Says

Estonia has long been no friend of Russia, and a leading anti-Moscow hawkish voice within the Baltics, and that’s why a fresh interview by Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur in European media is raising eyebrows as he issued some very revealing statements.

The defense chief said in the interview with the Austrian newspaper Die Presse that all NATO countries already have NATO personnel stationed in Ukraine, but that they aren’t directly engaged in hostilities as they are there in advisory roles. He was responding to recent provocative statements by France’s Macron.

“The reality is that every NATO member country already has military personnel in Ukraine, such as military attaches or people who travel to Ukraine from time to time,” the Estonian defense chief said. “What [French] President [Emmanuel] Macron said mainly related to personnel training,” he added, according to a translation in Russian media.

Starting in late February Macron had told a gathering of top defense officials in Paris that Western boots on the ground in Ukraine should be an option as “we cannot exclude anything” in the pursuit of preventing Russia from winning the war.

Still, in the interview Pevkur emphasized that currently there’s no serious talk of NATO troops directly participating in fighting and that “this has already been ruled out.”

However, he did preview a very dangerous potential plan which would certainly lead to escalation: “Western defense officials are currently planning to set up training camps in Ukraine in a bid to avoid issues with border crossings and to speed up the preparation process,” Pevkur said to the Vienna-based publication.

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Terrorism and Kosovo Independence: NATO’s Aggression in 1999. “The First Legalized European Mafia State”

25 years commemoration of NATO’s military intervention against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (the FRY) in March−June 1999 once again opened the question of the Western foundation for Kosovo’s secession from Serbia and its unilateral proclamation of a quasi-independence in February 2008. Kosovo became the first and only European state today that is ruled by the terroristic warlords as a party’s possession – the (Albanian) Kosovo Liberation Army (the KLA). This article aims to investigate the nature of NATO’s war on Yugoslavia in 1999 which has as an outcome the creation of the first terroristic state in Europe – the Republic of Kosovo.  

Terrorism and Kosovo Independence

The KLA terrorists with support from the US and the EU’s administrations launched full-scale violence in December 1998 for the sole purpose of provoking NATO’s military intervention against the FRY as a precondition for Kosovo secession from Serbia hopefully followed by internationally recognized independence. To finally resolve the “Kosovo Question” in the favor of the Albanians, the US Clinton administration brought two confronting sides to formally negotiate in the French castle of Rambouillet in France in February 1999 but in fact to impose an ultimatum to Serbia to accept de facto secession of Kosovo. Even though the Rambouillet ultimatum de iure recognized Serbia’s territorial integrity, the disarmament of terroristic KLA and did not mention Kosovo’s independence from Serbia, as the conditions of the final agreement were in essence highly favorable to the KLA and its secessionist project towards independent Kosovo, Serbia simply rejected them. The US’s answer was a military action led by NATO as a “humanitarian intervention” in order to directly support the Kosovo Albanian separatism. Therefore, on March 24th, 1999 NATO started its military operation against the FRY which lasted till June 10th, 1999. Why the UN’s Security Council was not asked for the approval of the operation is clear from the following explanation:

“Knowing that Russia would veto any effort to get UN backing for military action, NATO launched air strikes against Serbian forces in 1999, effectually supporting the Kosovar Albanian rebels”.[1]  

The crucial feature of this operation was a barbarian, coercive, inhuman, illegal, and above all merciless bombing of Serbia for almost three months. Nevertheless, NATO’s military intervention against the FRY – Operation Allied Force, was propagated by its proponents as a purely humanitarian operation, it is recognized by many Western and other scholars that the US and its client states of NATO had mainly political and geostrategic aims that led them to this military action. 

The legitimacy of the intervention in the brutal coercive bombing of both military and civilian targets in Kosovo province and the rest of Serbia became immediately controversial as the UN’s Security Council did not authorize the action. Surely, the action was illegal according to international law but it was formally justified by the US administration and the NATO’s spokesman as legitimate for the reason that it was unavoidable as all diplomatic options were exhausted to stop the war. However, a continuation of the military conflict in Kosovo between the KLA and Serbia’s state security forces would threaten to produce a humanitarian catastrophe and generate political instability in the region of the Balkans. Therefore, “in the context of fears about the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Albanian population, a campaign of air strikes, conducted by US-led NATO forces”[2] was executed with a final result of the withdrawal of Serbia’s forces and administration from the province: that was exactly the main requirement of the Rambouillet ultimatum. 

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Hawaii is only U.S. state not covered by NATO defense agreement

Sweden became the newest member of NATO earlier this month, joining 31 nations in the security alliance, including the United States.

Well, make that 49 of the 50 United States.

Because, in a quirk of geography and history, Hawaii is not technically covered by the NATO pact.

If a foreign power attacked Hawaii — say the U.S. Navy’s base at Pearl Harbor or the headquarters of the Indo-Pacific Command northwest of Honolulu — the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would not be obligated to rise to the Aloha State’s defense.

“It’s the weirdest thing,” says David Santoro, president of the Pacific Forum think tank in Honolulu, who added that even most Hawaii residents have no idea their state is technically adrift of the alliance.

“People tend to assume Hawaii is part of the U.S. and therefore it’s covered by NATO,” he says.

But, he concedes, the tip-off is in the alliance’s name – North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Hawaii is, of course, in the Pacific and, unlike California, Colorado or Alaska, the 50th state is not part of the continental U.S. that reaches the North Atlantic Ocean on its eastern shores.

“The argument for not including Hawaii is simply that it’s not part of North America,” Santoro says.

The exception is spelled out in the Washington Treaty, the document that established NATO in 1949, a decade before Hawaii became a state.

While Article 5 of the treaty provides for collective self-defense in the event of a military attack on any member state, Article 6 limits the geographic scope of that.

“An armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America,” Article 6 says. It also says any island territories must be in the North Atlantic, north of the Tropic of Cancer.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson confirmed that Hawaii is not covered by Article 5 but said Article 4 — which says members will consult when “the territorial integrity, political independence or security” of any member is threatened — should cover any situation that could affect the 50th state.

The spokesperson also said any treaty amendment to include Hawaii would be unlikely to gain consensus because other members have territories outside of the boundaries set in Article 5.

For instance, NATO did not join founding member the United Kingdom’s 1982 war with Argentina after Argentine troops invaded the Falkland Islands, a disputed British territory in the South Atlantic.

NATO has not responded to a CNN request for comment.

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French Defense Chief Won’t Rule Out Ukraine Deployment

France’s defense minister said Paris is still exploring its options for a military presence in Ukraine, but stressed that troops would not have a direct combat role. The comments came after French opposition leaders warned that President Emmanuel Macron is planning to step up the country’s involvement in the war.

Speaking to local broadcaster BFMTV on Friday, Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu explained that while Macron did not intend to become a “co-belligerent” in the conflict, France could still deploy forces to perform other tasks in Ukraine.

“Between the transfer of arms and co-belligerence – in other words direct war with Russia – have we done everything within that space? Are there paths that we can explore? And notably paths involving a military presence?” he said, suggesting French soldiers could assist with mine-clearance or training troops on Ukrainian soil.

“The more Ukraine needs to conscript, to raise up its army, the greater the need will be to ramp up training,” the minister continued, also noting that three French military contractors would soon begin producing weapons inside the country.

Lecornu’s remarks followed a meeting between President Macron and French party leaders one day prior, after which multiple opposition figures sounded alarms about the risk of direct military intervention in Ukraine.

According to Fabien Roussel, national secretary of the French Communist Party, during the meeting Macron outlined a scenario “which could initiate an intervention,” and proposed a troop deployment should Russian forces advance “towards Odessa or towards Kiev.” He did not say whether that would involve combat operations.

Speaking after the same meeting, National Rally leader Jordan Bardella warned that Macron had “no limits and no red lines,” while La France Insoumise coordinator Manuel Bompard said he “arrived worried” and “left more worried.”

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F-35A Is Officially Certified For Nuclear Strike

The F-35A has been fully certified to carry the B61-12 thermonuclear bomb. Confirmation comes after we reported late last year that Dutch-operated F-35As had received “initial certification for the deterrence mission” — a reference to their ability to carry the same weapons.

F-35As being able to deliver nuclear strikes will add major credibility to NATO’s nuclear deterrence posture in Europe. The aircraft’s unique ability to pierce enemy air defense networks and defend itself on the way to its target will be a standing capability Russia has never had to deal with. The F-117 was capable of delivering nuclear strikes and could have been called upon to do so, but that was not part of its normal mission purview and the aircraft remained deeply classified during the tail end of the Cold War, complicating its use in such a role and its deterrence value. You can read more about this in our special feature here.

The F-35’s added survivability will complicate Moscow’s ability to defend against these strikes and change whatever predictive modeling they have on the probability of those strikes succeeding will have to be adjusted accordingly. This capability can also be used in other theaters, including the Korean Peninsula and the larger Pacific region, but there isn’t a similar standing tactical nuclear weapons delivery mission there like there is in Europe.

A spokesman from the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO), Russ Goemaere, said today that the certification was achieved on October 12, according to a report from Breaking Defense. The milestone was achieved earlier than planned — the U.S. Air Force had previously announced that it aimed to have the F-35A certified to carry the B61-12 by January 2024.

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