With NATO you are never alone. NATO is your friend and protector. When it is most needed, NATO is there. Sleep peacefully, NATO is protecting you. That was the message of US President Barack Obama in the capital of Estonia, Tallinn, right before the start of the "historic" NATO summit in Wales. Not exactly in those words, but it sounded like an advertising campaign by US Army recruiting centers, which promise you that as a Marine, a SEAL, or an ordinary dustman, you will travel the world and meet interesting people.
Obama went to Estonia to "pacify" the Baltic countries, which are afraid of Russian aggression based on the Ukrainian scenario. Not that Moscow has so far shown any ambitions to annex some new piece of land in one of the neighboring states where the majority speak Russian, but you never know. Russian President Vladimir Putin is characterized as "unaccountable", the Kremlin is accused of leading an aggressive expansionist policy, and the only one that can guarantee the independence of the states that emerged after the collapse of the USSR is NATO.
Obama promised NATO partners in the Baltics support that is "unbreakable, rock solid and eternal", and that Estonia "will never be alone again" and that "the defense of Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius is as important as the defense of Berlin, Paris and of London". If anyone is wondering what the role of NATO is after the fall of the Berlin Wall, they have received an answer. Obama underscored his determination to stand in the way of Vladimir Putin's aggression with the words: "You have already lost your independence once." As a member of NATO, you will never lose it again." In contrast to Ukraine, which is passing by because it is not a NATO member.
On the fact that NATO strategists warned back in May that the Baltic countries would not be able to defend themselves against a possible Russian attack with conventional weapons, hardly anyone commented on Obama's speech in Tulin. So how then, asks the columnist of the German weekly "Spiegel" Jakob Augstein - with nuclear weapons? Augstein writes that we will remember the NATO summit in Wales as "the restart of the Cold War", that from now on "crazy military logic reigns again", and that we are left with "the ruins of the de-escalation policy, the fruits of which we enjoyed for barely 25 years". He blames both parties for the new situation. At the NATO summit, however, there is only one person to blame - Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. And not everything is so black.
STRIKE UNIT: In Newport, Wales, representatives of all 28 NATO members agreed that Putin is a scoundrel. The focus of the summit was the crisis in Ukraine, but there was also talk of measures to be taken against the terrorist group Islamic State, which is attacking Syria and Iraq, and whose members recently beheaded two American journalists. In the words of NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmunsen: "We are facing a dramatic change in the security environment." In the east, Russia is attacking Ukraine. In the southeast, we see the advance of a terrorist organization, the so-called Islamic State, which has committed atrocious acts." (see box)
One of the concrete measures of "prevention and deterrence", agreed upon by 28 heads of government and NATO member states, is the formation of a "strike" unit that should number up to 5000 people and be ready for combat operations within two to three days. . This unit is an integral part of the already existing rapid response force of the NRF (Born Response Force), which needs several weeks, some say even longer, to be ready for action. The details, according to Rasmunsen, should be agreed upon in the coming weeks and months.
Although the "strike" unit is quite symbolic in terms of the number of personnel and otherwise, it is part of NATO's strategy to increase its presence in the eastern member states. As written by the Western media, it is a signal to the Kremlin that the West will not sit idly by after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, just like the appeasement of Poland and the Baltic states, which express fear about Russia's "expansionist" policy. In the event of an intervention, the soldiers of the strike unit would move only with light equipment, while vehicles, equipment and heavier weapons would be stationed in eastern NATO members. Where exactly, has not yet been specified in public.
The formation of a shock unit was a compromise solution. The President of Poland, Bronjislav Komorowski, had no choice but to express his "satisfaction" with this decision, although the "hawks" expected more: the cancellation of the Basic Act between NATO and Russia from 1997, on the basis of which NATO guarantees to Russia that in the former states of Warsaw the pact will not permanently station "substantial" combat troops. The termination of this contract would lead to an escalation of the conflict, which was opposed by the majority of European members, first and foremost the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel.
STRONG, BUT DON'T SLAM THE DOOR: For the first time at a NATO summit, Germany was in the center of attention. Barack Obama is the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military force in the world, and yes, the USA pays three-quarters of the costs of the Alliance, so the secretaries-general of NATO were actually in the function of secretaries of the White House, but without German money, the position of European countries within NATO cannot is changing, and without Berlin's consent, even the tightening of economic sanctions against Russia is not possible. "Spiegel" writes that Rasmussen's successor at the head of NATO, the Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg, has a chance to be less dependent on America and to turn more towards European members.
In her manner, the German chancellor vaguely said that the partners within NATO must agree on a "security architecture focused on certain values", but that this should in no way stop the dialogue with Vladimir Putin. It was Merkel who insisted that the Basic Act between NATO and Russia not be terminated, and - at least temporarily - resisted the demands of Eastern NATO members for a greater presence of the Alliance in Poland and the Baltic states, because that would be too much of a provocation for Moscow.
Angela Merkel explained her strategy by being "firm, but leaving the door open." It is precisely because of this performance of the chancellor, according to the German media, that the NATO summit cannot be qualified as an announcement of conflict with Russia. The summit was balanced: Eastern members "frightened" by Russian aggression in Ukraine were appeased, without Putin being completely isolated. One got the impression that the USA and its eternal follower Great Britain did not play a dominant role at this summit. This was best seen when the fight over the couple started.
ARGUMENT ABOUT MONEY: Of the 28 NATO members, 26 are European countries. For years, the White House has been asking European partners, sometimes quite harshly, to get more involved in the Alliance, the US administration says that only NATO can be the backbone of European security policy, and without security there is no common foreign policy. It is not just about the participation of Europeans in NATO actions around the world, but about the fact that European members, in Washington's opinion, do not allocate a satisfactory amount of money to the military budget. Only four countries adhere to the agreement that the goal is to allocate at least two percent of GDP to the military budget: Estonia and over-indebted Greece, Great Britain, and of course the USA, which allocates 4,4 percent, which makes up three quarters of the total expenditure for the military budgets of all NATO members together.
"Europeans clearly need to do more, including increasing military budgets and tightening sanctions against Russia, to force Mr. Putin to reverse his dangerous course in Ukraine," writes the New York Times, and that Europeans must finally move from words to action. , not only on the issue of Russian aggression, but also on the issue of worldwide engagement within NATO.
However, not only on the issue of the Basic Act between NATO and Russia, which remains in force, but also on the issue of allocating money to military budgets, Angela Merkel's position prevailed at the summit. European countries, especially in the middle of the crisis in the Eurozone and with the drastic austerity measures introduced in many of them, either will not, or simply are not able to increase their military budgets, because it would be at the expense of education, health or social policy.
Spain, for example, allocates only 0,9 percent of GDP to the military, and Italy 1,2 percent. Canada allocates only one percent, and the USA has reduced its military budget by 2009 percent compared to 0,9, just as Britain is approaching the quota of two percent from above. Even the economically most powerful European member of NATO, Germany allocates only 1,3 percent of GDP to the army. Barack Obama's attempt to oblige European partners to a two percent quota failed.
"We are working to achieve the financial goals," said Angela Merkel at the NATO summit. In the next ten years, she added, however, and consoled the Americans: even if the allocations for the army are not reduced. It's called an "organized retreat," Spiegel commented.
Although the principle at the summit was about preserving the territorial integrity of Ukraine and establishing peace in the east of the country, it never occurred to anyone alive that Russia's withdrawal from Crimea, where the Russian Black Sea Fleet is anchored, is conditional on anything. If the USA is ready for a new cold war, they are not ready for the Third World War. And NATO's military exercises in Bulgaria right after the end of the summit, and the announced exercises in Ukraine until the end of 2014, are just mild fanning of the fire that does not fundamentally change anything.
Ten countries have formed an alliance to fight the Islamic State: USA, Great Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Poland, Turkey and Germany. It is believed that IS does not pose a threat only in Iraq and Syria, but also to NATO members, and that this terrorist organization should be destroyed with financial and military means, said Barack Obama. Some Arab countries should join the alliance of these ten countries. Obama said that US ground troops would not be deployed in Syria, but that the US would support the "moderate" rebels there. The American Congress should provide 500 million dollars for this purpose.
