Romania: U.S. Expands Missile Shield Into Black Sea

Stop NATO
February 6, 2010

Romania: U.S. Expands Missile Shield Into Black Sea
Rick Rozoff

When Romanian President Traian Basescu disclosed on February 4 that his nation’s Supreme Defense Council had “approved a U.S. proposal that Romania takes part in the anti-rocket shield system” and that “Terrestrial interceptors will be located inside the national territory,” [1] many readers may have been taken by surprise.

They need not have been, though, as the expansion of the U.S. global, layered, integrated interceptor missile system into the Black Sea was as foreseeable as it is inevitable.

Previous articles in this series forecast just such an eventuality. Just that certainty. [2]

Later on the 4th when a better translation of Basescu’s comments was available, the New York Times confirmed that the Romanian head of state pledged that his nation “was prepared to negotiate with the United States to accept ground-based interceptors as part of an antiballistic missile defense system. He said it could be working by 2015.”

Basescu added that “the proposal accepted by the Supreme Defense Council came from President Obama, whose under secretary of state for arms control and international security, Ellen O. Tauscher, was in Romania.” [3]

That he stipulated the year 2015 and mentioned the State Department’s Tauscher are both significant facts. Tauscher signed the agreement with Polish Deputy Defense Minister Stanislaw Komorowski last December to deploy American mid-range interceptor missiles and troops to the Eastern European nation. Two weeks ago Komorowski’s ministry announced that U.S. Patriot missiles and troops would be stationed at a Baltic Sea site only 35 miles from Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave.

Russia was no more pleased with that news than about U.S. ground-based missiles being stationed in Romania, as will be seen later.

Keeping in mind Tauscher’s longstanding role in promoting American interceptor missile plans in Europe, which will be examined in detail further on, the State Department nonetheless formally describes her role as Senior Adviser to the President and the Secretary of State for Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament.

Last year, two days after President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced on the same day, September 17, that the U.S. was abandoning plans to station ten ground-based interceptor missiles in Poland and transfer a modified X-band missile radar from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean to the Czech Republic, Gates described in the New York Times the alternative project, what Obama characterized as a “stronger, swifter, and smarter” missile shield program far broader in scope and intent than his predecessor’s.

Gates wrote of a three-phase plan that would begin with “proven, sea-based SM-3 [Standard Missile-3] interceptor missiles – weapons that are growing in capability,” then be followed by a “second phase, which will become operational around 2015″ and “involve putting upgraded SM-3s on the ground in Southern and Central Europe. All told, every phase of this plan will include scores of SM-3 missiles, as opposed to the old plan of just 10 ground-based interceptors….” [4]

While deploying scores – 40, 60, 80, 100? – of SM-3 interceptor missiles adapted for ground deployment in both the south and east of Europe (by Central Europe read Eastern Europe), “our military will continue research and development on a two-stage ground-based interceptor, the kind that was planned to be put in Poland, as a back-up,” Gates added. [5]

The White House and the Pentagon had not retreated an inch on plans to establish an impenetrable missile shield along Russia’s western borders, one that could potentially threaten the nation’s strategic forces and disable its ability to retaliate and so credibly maintain a deterrence capability. In fact, as Gates explicitly stated, plans for ten ground-based midcourse missiles in Poland are to be superseded by several times more SM-3 and Patriot Advanced Capability-3 [PAC-3] anti-ballistic missiles as well as a proposed 50,000-pound mobile missile launcher [6] and ground-based missiles in the final analysis anyway.

Shortly after the official shift in U.S. interceptor plans in Europe – and beyond into the Caucasus, the Middle East and even further – Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs Ellen Tauscher put to rest hopes that even the Polish and Czech locations would be left out of wider-ranging plans. At a symposium hosted by the pro-NATO Atlantic Council, one also addressed by the head of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency Lieutenant General Patrick O’Reilly, Tauscher delivered a speech which the Washington Post commented on as follows:

“The undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, Ellen Tauscher…said discussions are already underway with Poland to base missiles there, and talks have begun with the Czech Republic about making it the headquarters for command and control elements associated with the system.

“Tauscher said European allies, who were initially troubled by the hasty
announcement canceling the George W. Bush-era system, have come to support the Obama administration’s plan, which would permit earlier deployment and provide wider coverage than the earlier one.”

She was quoted saying “Remember, this is a NATO-wide European missile defense system as opposed to a bilateral missile defense system” and paraphrased vowing “there would be additional opportunities for allied countries to participate in missile defense.

“Another land-based radar system, which was also part of the Bush plan, for example, will need to be located in southeastern Europe.” [7]

Not only missile radar but missiles themselves will be based in Southeastern Europe, substantially south of Poland and east of the Czech Republic.

As the last head of the Missile Defense Agency, Lieutenant General Henry Obering, told a Pentagon gathering two years ago, “A powerful, ‘forward based’ X-band radar station could go in southeastern Europe, possibly in Turkey, the Caucasus or the Caspian Sea region.” [8]

There is nothing new and nothing unsurprising about the announcement that American interceptor missiles are headed to Romania.

As for Tauscher, there is no discontinuity with her work, either.

She came to her current position in the State Department from that of chairperson of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee in the U.S. Congress.

During that tenure she was a consistently determined promoter of interceptor missile development and deployment.

A brief chronology from the waning days of the George W. Bush presidency will document the unimpeded continuation of her efforts from the Bush to the Obama administrations.

On missiles in Poland:

“I would feel better if this were a NATO framework we were operating in.” [9]

On global missile shield plans and space war:

“Rejecting the recommendations of a sub-committee, Representatives Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) and John Larson (D-CT) restored $150 million to Pentagon ‘boost phase’ missile defense programs, $48 million for future missile defense systems, including space sensors, $12 million more for sea-based sensors and language to allow $160 million for a highly controversial European missile defense site.” [10]

On expanding Bush’s missile plans to encompass all of Europe:

“This is a crucial element for the US Congress. US missile defense must protect all NATO territories and be fully interoperable with the NATO system. We want more clarity about how these two systems can work together”. [11]

While in the Czech Republic:

“The missile defence system must be fully incorporated in NATO and it must protect Europe and the United States, U.S. Democrat Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher told a press conference today….Tauscher also said that the radar base could not operate without the missile base in Poland.

“She added that the anti-missile system to be stationed in the Czech Republic and Poland is to be connected with another system defending against other type of missiles. ‘We are looking for a system of systems,’ she said.” [12]

Back in Washington:

“House Armed Services strategic forces chair Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) told reporters Nov. 8 that final congressional defense authorization language for fiscal 2008 should hew to her subcommittee’s drive to ‘NATO-ize’ U.S. ballistic missile defense (BMDS) system efforts based in Europe.

“Speaking to defense writers in Washington, Tauscher said she would like to see U.S. ground-based midcourse defense (GBMD) elements there [Europe] – like a proposed radar in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptors for facilities in Poland – become the ‘long-range’ aspect of a NATO system complimented by European short- and medium-range systems.

“Tauscher specifically named NATO’s Active Layered Theater Ballistic Missile Defense (ALT-BMD) program – which could include the PAC-3, THAAD [Terminal High Altitude Area Defense], and Aegis BMD [Ballistic Missile Defense] systems….” [13]

In March of 2009, shortly before assuming her State Department post – for promoting arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament, recall – she remained an avid proponent of missile deployments in Europe and stated “We need to move in a NATOized way. Eventually we will develop a short- and medium-range system….We can certainly bolt on a long-range system once it has been tested.” [14]

She was back in Prague last November and beforehand said “the command for the managing and control of elements of the new version of anti-missile defence could be stationed in the Czech Republic.” [15]

Tauscher’s project for a more sophisticated, diversified, mobile interceptor system in Europe and its expansion into the Middle East, integrated with all 28 NATO member states and doubtlessly with several key partners, is well on the way to realization. Neither Poland nor the Czech Republic are excluded from the designs; rather the number of nations pulled into Washington’s missile shield network will be increased in number and in geographical range.

The first steps have been taken in the Baltic Sea with U.S. PAC-3 missiles and troops to arrive as early as next month and Aegis class warships with Standard Missile-3 interceptors not far behind. The USS Cole, upgraded to an Aegis-equipped guided missile destroyer, made port calls to the capitals of Estonia and Finland in the Baltic Sea region last November.

Also last year the guided-missile destroyer USS Stout visited the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea “in support of Navy Ballistic Missile Defense,” [16] visiting Israel, Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, and Turkey (the last four Black Sea littoral nations) and engaging in maneuvers with the Georgian navy “seen as a show of American support for the former Soviet nation crushed in last year’s war with Russia.” [17]

In the latter half of 2009 the Pentagon’s Joint Task Force-East conducted almost three months of military exercises in Romania and neighboring Bulgaria which included training for U.S. Stryker and airborne units. In October it was reported that the Pentagon will spend $110 million to upgrade two of the seven bases it has acquired in Romania and Bulgaria since 2005; the revamped bases will house over 4,000 U.S. troops.

In October Vice President Joseph Biden was in the Romanian capital on a tour that also took him to Poland and the Czech Republic and met with President Basescu, telling him, “I really appreciate your government’s embrace of the new missile defence architecture we are bringing to Europe. It is a better architecture and has the benefit of protecting you as well as the United States.” [18]

He also reiterated that “Under [NATO's] Article 5, an attack on one is an attack against all,” [19] according to the Pentagon’s website.

At the time of Biden’s Romanian visit a U.S. army official in Romania stated that “an American military base near the Black Sea port of Constanta will become a permanent facility in the spring….” [20]

A Romanian publication ran a column in November of last year that foreshadowed this week’s news concerning U.S. missile shield deployments in the nation. It included a quote that “A strong and modern surveillance system located in Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey could monitor three hot areas at once: the Black Sea, the Caucasus and the Caspian and relevant zones in the Middle East.”

By process of elimination it continued, “Turkey is very unlikely to host a land-based SM-3 system, because it would not dare position itself so aggressively against its Iranian neighbour.

“This would make Greece, Bulgaria or Romania contenders – and with Biden making the recent visit to Bucharest as opposed to Sofia or Athens in the context of discussions on security architecture, Romania appears to be a more likely location.”

It continued: “By 2011 the Pentagon will roll out its naval anti-ballistic missile system on cruisers and destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean. These ships will be equipped with Lockheed Martin’s Aegis system, containing anti-aircraft and anti-missile radar and weaponry. The ships contain mid to long range SM-3 missiles.”

An extension of the ship-based interceptor missiles into the Black Sea may follow because “The [Romanian] Constanta port and naval facilities, plus Bulgaria with its Burgas port, could be good platforms for a military naval base….” [21]

As an indication of how the bases can be used, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq in March of 2003 Agence France-Presse reported that “An air of secrecy surrounds the arrival of thousands of US military personnel at the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanta in preparation for a war on Iraq.

“Ten giant Hercules C-130 transport aircraft and four H-53 helicopters can be seen parked at a military airbase adjacent to the local civilian airport.”

A Romanian source was quoted at the time as saying, “We are NATO’s advance post in the east.” [22]

The base in question is the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base north of Constanta, the main headquarters of the Pentagon’s Joint Task Force-East.

Russian Response

When it first became evident that the U.S. was moving into and taking over four military bases in Romania (and three in Bulgaria) for training and deployment for wars in the east, in 2007 then Russian President Vladimir Putin said, “[A] new base in Bulgaria, another in Romania….What are we supposed to do? We cannot just observe all this.” [23]

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov echoed the concern, stating “Russia finds it hard to understand some decisions of NATO like, for example, the deployment of US military facilities in Bulgaria and Romania.” [24]

When Romania’s President Basescu revealed U.S. missile shield plans for his nation on February 4, Lavrov again spoke out and said “We expect the United States to provide an exhaustive explanation, taking into account the fact that the Black Sea regime is regulated by the Montreux Convention,” [25] which prohibits warships of non-Black Sea nations from staying in the Black Sea longer than 21 days and bans the deployment of outside nations’ aircraft carriers.

Dmitry Rogozin, Russian envoy to NATO, was more detailed and more direct in his assessment. “Maybe it’s against Iran, but that same system can be targeted against any other country, including Russia’s strategic nuclear potential. The U.S. is using Iran’s actions to globalize its system of missile defense….Our military shouldn’t believe some promises or intentions. We need to go on the assumption that a foreign military potential is approaching our borders.” [26]

On February 5 the Russian Information Agency Novosti website quoted the editor-in-chief of the National Defense magazine, Retired Colonel Igor Korotchenko, who said “Russia must warn Romania that if the elements of the U.S. missile shield are placed in the country they will become a target of Russia’s preventive missile strikes.”

He also warned “that with ship-based SM-3s in the North, Black and Mediterranean seas, and mobile land-based SM-3s in Central Europe the western borders of Russia would be surrounded by U.S. missile interceptors by 2015.” [27]

At the same time Pentagon chief Robert Gates arrived in Turkey for two days of meetings with fellow NATO defense chiefs and it was reported that he would “urge European allies…to inject more funding into NATO with a focus on Afghanistan and priorities such as missile defense….” [28]

On February 5 Russian President Dmitry Medvedev approved his nation’s new military doctrine, which according to Reuters identifies “NATO expansion as a national threat….”

“The doctrine identifies the expansion of NATO to Eastern Europe and U.S. plans to create an anti-missile shield in Europe as concerns for national security….” [29]

The two are inextricably connected and unless both are halted U.S. military provocations in the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea and the South Caucasus may lead to a new European conflagration.

1) Reuters, February 4, 2010
2) U.S. Expands Global Missile Shield Into Middle East, Balkans
Stop NATO, September 11, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/u-s-expands-global-missile-shield-into-middle-east-balkans

Balkans Revisited: U.S., NATO Expand Military Role In Southeastern Europe
Stop NATO, September 14, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/266

U.S. Missile Shield Plans: Retreat Or Advance?
Stop NATO, September 17, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/18/u-s-missile-shield-plans-retreat-or-advance

Black Sea, Caucasus: U.S. Moves Missile Shield South And East
Stop NATO, September 19, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/19/283

U.S. Missile Shield System Deployments: Larger, Sooner, Broader
Stop NATO, September 27, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/27/u-s-missile-shield-system-deployments-larger-sooner-broader

Dangerous Missile Battle In Space Over Europe: Fifth Act In U.S. Missile
Shield Drama
Stop NATO, September 29, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/29/dangerous-missile-battle-in-space-over-europe-fifth-act-in-u-s-missile-shield-drama

Bulgaria, Romania: U.S., NATO Bases For War In The East
Stop NATO, October 24, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/bulgaria-romania-u-s-nato-bases-for-war-in-the-east

3) New York Times, February 4, 2010
4) New York Times, September 19, 2009
5) Ibid
6) Pentagon Intensifies Plans For Global Military Supremacy: U.S., NATO Could
Deploy Mobile Missiles Launchers To Europe
Stop NATO, August 22, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/pentagon-intensifies-plans-for-global-military-supremacy-u-s-nato-could-deploy-mobile-missiles-launchers-to-europe/

7) Washington Post, October 8, 2009
8) Turkish Daily News, March 12, 2008
9) Defense News, March 28, 2007
10) Bruce Gagnon, U.S. Space First-Strike Program Is Well Underway
Baltimore Chronicle, May 13, 2007
11) PanArmenian.net, May 28, 2007
12) Czech News Agency, September 14, 2007
13) Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, November 9, 2007
14) Agence France-Presse, March 22, 2009
15) Czech News Agency, November 4, 2009
16) United States Navy, September 25, 2009
17) Associated Press, July 14, 2009
18) Romanian Times, October 22, 2009
19) U.S. Department of Defense, October 22, 2009
20) Associated Press, October 23, 2009
21) The Diplomat, November, 2009
22) Agence France-Presse, March 9, 2003
23) New Europe, Week of June 2, 2007
24) Standart News, December 7, 2007
25) Russian Information Agency Novosti, February 5, 2010
26) Bloomberg News, February 5, 2010
27) Russian Information Agency Novosti, February 5, 2010
28) Bloomberg News, February 4, 2010
29) Reuters, February 5, 2010

Brussels, London, Istanbul: A Week Of Western War Councils

Stop NATO
February 5, 2010

Brussels, London, Istanbul: A Week Of Western War Councils
Rick Rozoff

The defense chiefs of all 28 NATO nations and an undisclosed number of counterparts from non-Alliance partners gathered in Istanbul, Turkey on February 4 to begin two days of meetings focused on the war in Afghanistan, the withdrawal of military forces from Kosovo in the course of transferring control of security operations to the breakaway province’s embryonic army (the Kosovo Security Force) and “the transformation efforts required to best conduct the full range of NATO’s agreed missions.” [1]

Istanbul was the site of the bloc’s 2004 summit which accounted for the largest expansion in its 60-year history – seven new Eastern European nations – and its strengthening military partnerships with thirteen Middle Eastern and African nations under the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative.

The Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe Admiral James Stavridis and the top commander of all U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan – soon to reach over 150,000 – General Stanley McChrystal are also in attendance, as are European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton and United Nations High Representative for Afghanistan Kai Eide as well as the defense and interior ministers of Afghanistan.

The meetings follow by a week the International Conference on Afghanistan held in London, which in turn occurred the day after two days of meetings of the NATO Military Committee with the Chiefs of Defense of the military bloc’s 28 member states and 35 more from what were described as Troop Contributing Nations; presumably NATO partner nations with troops stationed in the Afghan war theater. In all, the military chiefs of 63 countries.

The U.S.’s McChrystal was present there also as were Israeli Chief of General Staff Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi and Pakistani Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. Beforehand the bloc’s website reported that “The various meetings will focus on the progress made in ongoing operations and the New Strategic Concept for NATO.” [2] That 35 top military commanders from non-NATO countries were present to hear plans for the escalation of what is already the largest war in the world is understandable, as their forces are on the ground as part of a 50-nation plus force under NATO military command.

That the same conference discussed the bloc’s 21st century new global military doctrine – former U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright delivered an address on the topic – raises the question of how many of the 35 partner states’ military chiefs may have joined their 28 NATO colleagues for that phase of discussions. That such a high percentage of the world’s leading military commanders attended a two-day affair which deliberated on both the war in South Asia and the expansion of the world’s only military bloc’s activities even further outside the Euro-Atlantic area (when it has already conducted operations in four continents) confirms that the Afghan war serves more than one purpose for the West. It is the laboratory for strengthening military ties with nations on every inhabited continent and for building the nucleus of and foundation for a potential future world army.

The London conference on Afghanistan, presented in the West as a benign undertaking tantamount to an economic development or humanitarian aid planning event – the conference’s website described it as “The international community [coming] together to fully align military and civilian resources behind an Afghan-led political strategy” [3] – was preceded by two days of meetings between top military commanders of almost a third of the world’s nations at NATO headquarters and followed by two days of meetings by NATO and allied defense chiefs this week. Many of the same people – EU foreign policy chief Baroness Ashton and the UN’s Eide (who formerly occupied comparable posts in Bosnia and Kosovo and was Norway’s ambassador to NATO from 2002 to 2006) – attended both the London conference and are attending the Istanbul NATO defense ministers conclave. (Ashton’s predecessor’s Javier Solana was Secretary General of NATO from 1995 to 1999 before becoming the EU’s High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy from 1999 until December of 2009, effecting the transition seamlessly.)

By way of reciprocity, the London conference was addressed by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen who said, inter alia, “with more than 85,000 troops from 44 nations deployed to Afghanistan – and with over 39,000 additional forces arriving over the coming weeks and months – the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force remains NATO’s top priority.” [4]

If any further evidence was required that the United Nations is at the service of NATO and not vice versa, that the EU is NATO’s civilian valet de chambre, and that all three are subordinated to the United States, the last week’s events and the roster of attendees at them should suffice.

The chain of command begins in Washington and orders barked out there work their way down to Brussels and New York City.

The two organizations based in the Belgium capital, the “military alliance of democratic states in Europe and North America” (NATO’s self-definition) and the “European military superstate” (Irish opposition parties’ reference to the effects of the Nice and Lisbon treaties), are afflicted with political echolalia, parroting the U.S. position on conflicts armed and with the potential to become so around the world – Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia-Russia, Georgia-Abkhazia, Georgia-South Ossetia, Russia-Ukraine, Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, Yemen, Colombia, Myanmar, Sudan, Chad, the Central African Republic, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Israel-Lebanon, Lebanon-Syria, Israel-Palestine, Macedonia, Ivory Coast, Djibouti-Eritrea, Transdniester and all those to come – with truly impressive fidelity in this otherwise inconsistent age. Condemnations, tirades and threats issued by the U.S. secretary of state and ambassador to the United Nations may as well be printed in triplicate.

Security Council permanent members Russia and China may occasionally – all too occasionally – block hostile Western actions against defenseless third parties in the United Nations, but Washington always walks away with a mandate and the final say in the selection of viceroys to complement U.S. and NATO military forces on the ground in subjugated nations.

As a recent example, during the second day of the NATO Military Committee meetings in Brussels and the day before the Afghan conference in London, an “international” conference on Yemen was also held in London which “Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for…in response to the failed bomb attack on an airliner over Detroit on December 25.” [5]

That bears repeating. The apprehension in the U.S. of a Nigerian national alleged to have been trained in Yemen led the head of state of the United Kingdom to summon representatives of the Group of Eight (Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the U.S.), the Gulf Cooperation Council (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates), Egypt, Jordan – but not the Arab League – Turkey and the European Union, United Nations, World Bank and International Monetary Fund “to bolster Yemen’s fight against al Qaeda….” [7] Soon 50,000 non-American NATO troops will be bogged down in Afghanistan because the bloc invoked its Article 5 collective defense provision in 2001…to fight against al-Qaeda.

Ever-compliant UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon lent legitimacy to this American and British charade, as he did the following day’s Afghan conference where he delivered a speech in the presence of 28 NATO and perhaps dozens of its International Security Assistance Force non-member states foreign ministers.

Yemen has joined the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq as a target for Western “assistance and stabilization.” NATO will conduct more planning sessions with scores of military chiefs and defense and foreign ministers and not only for the war in Afghanistan.

Its new Strategic Concept knows no geographical bounds.

1) NATO, February 3, 2010

http://www.nato.int/cps/en/SID-07E5106A-22C87D27/natolive/news_61170.htm?]

2) NATO, January 25, 2010

http://www.nato.int/ims/news/2010/n100126e.html

3) Afghanistan: The London Conference http://afghanistan.hmg.gov.uk/en/conference
4) http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/opinions_61101.htm

5) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, January 28, 2010
6) Reuters, January 27, 2010

U.S. Extends Missile Buildup From Poland And Taiwan To Persian Gulf

Stop NATO
February 3, 2010

U.S. Extends Missile Buildup From Poland And Taiwan To Persian Gulf
Rick Rozoff

On January 20 Poland’s Defense Ministry revealed that a U.S. Patriot missile battery previously scheduled to be stationed near the nation’s capital will instead be deployed to a Baltic Sea location 35 miles from Russian territory; on January 29 the White House approved the transfer of 114 Patriot missiles to Taiwan as part of a $6.5 billion arms package that also includes eight warships the receiving nation plans to upgrade for the Aegis Combat System with the capacity for carrying Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) ship-based anti-ballistic missiles.

On January 22 head of the Pentagon’s Central Command General David Petraeus told an audience at the private Institute for the Study of War that two warships equipped with the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System “are in the Gulf at all times now.” [1] A news report on the same day remarked “That statement – along with the stationing of other U.S. air defense assets in the region – sends a strong signal to Iran….” [2]

The New York Times reported on January 30 that the U.S. was expediting the deployment of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) interceptor missiles to four Persian Gulf nations – Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – thereby paralleling the combination of sea-based Aegis and land-based Patriot missiles intended for the Taiwan Strait aimed at China and in the Baltic Sea targeting Russia. The Gulf deployments are intended for use against Iran.

“One senior military officer said that General Petraeus had started talking openly about the Patriot deployments about a month ago, when it became increasingly clear that international efforts toward imposing sanctions against Iran faced hurdles….” [3]

On February 1 The Times of London commented on the coordinated interceptor missile plans: “Tensions in the Gulf between the US and Iran are set to rise further after it emerged that American-made anti-missile systems are to be deployed to Washington’s Arab allies in the region.

“The Obama Administration said yesterday that it was speeding up arms sales to a number of states and that it had also deployed warships in the Gulf….”

As in the Baltic Sea and Taiwan, PAC-3 missiles – “dedicated almost entirely to the anti-ballistic missile mission” [4] and which soon will have their capability increased by 50% with an upgrade called Missile Segment Enhancement – will be used for short- to medium-range and Aegis class warships for medium to long-range missile interceptions. The basic ingredients of a multilayered theater missile shield.

Last May an American news source waxed enthusiastic over Aegis capabilities: “The AEGIS combat system, at its heart, is a computer controlled combat and data system. It can simultaneously launch strikes against missiles or other targets in the air, and on land and sea, either surface or underwater.

“AEGIS is the most capable missile launch system the Navy has ever put to sea. In any weather, including full cyclones, AEGIS can attack multiple targets underwater, and from wave top to directly overhead, at all speeds from subsonic to supersonic.” [5]

Its Standard Missile-3, already in the Persian Gulf and soon to be permanently based in the Baltic, South China, Mediterranean and Black Seas, has an acknowledged range of 500 kilometers but can be enhanced for longer distances and was used by the U.S. to destroy a satellite 130 miles above the Pacific Ocean in February of 2008 in a test inspected by Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. “The satellite was unlike any target the system was designed to go after….The satellite was in orbit rather than on a ballistic trajectory. Also, the satellite was traveling at incredible speeds.” [6]

As to the Patriot missile defense system, it is the only component of the U.S. (and allied) global interceptor project to be used in combat, both times in full-fledged wars.

Patriots were employed in Operation Desert Storm in 1991 against Iraqi Scud missiles and were based in Israel, not a formal belligerent in the war, and Saudi Arabia, which was and which served as a base for a large percentage of the 100,000 sorties by the U.S. and its allies in the air war over Kuwait and Iraq.

The U.S. stationed and used Patriot missiles in Kuwait 2003 during the invasion of Iraq and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization deployed three Patriot batteries (and AWACS) to Turkey before the attack.

Unlike other, longer-range, elements of the layered missile shield system, the Patriot has been proven an effective battlefield weapon. It is only defensive in the sense that a shield was a means of defense for a sword-wielding warrior or armor is for a battle tank. It is designed to protect an aggressor from counterattack.

In commenting on the Pentagon’s plans to move Patriot and SM-3 – and even longer-range – missiles into the Persian Gulf, a newspaper in the region wrote that “US anti-missile systems may be installed in Bahrain to protect the country against possible retaliatory attacks from Iran….” [7] A degree of candor absent in the American press. One which reveals that the U.S. is installing interceptor missiles in the Gulf as it did earlier in 1991 and 2003 to neutralize short- and medium-range missiles fired in response to acts or threats of aggression.

One of the false rationales for the expanded missile deployments dutifully retailed by major American and British newspapers of late is that they are intended in part to prevent rather than encourage attacks on Iran by Israel. That argument is contrary to logic and fact alike. By assuring the second nation and Gulf states Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia which host U.S. infantry, air and naval forces that they are invulnerable to retaliation after attacks on Iran is to increase the risk of unprovoked Israeli and U.S. assaults.

Compared to 1991 and 2003, though, the groundwork for a much broader conflict is being laid, one which will include interceptor missiles several stages more advanced than the Patriot and SM-3.

Last August it was reported that “Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. [United Arab Emirates]…want a wide range of military platforms, with particular interest in missile defense systems such as the U.S. Theater High Altitude Air Defense system [THAAD]. Approval was recently given for the Pentagon to sell this to the U.A.E., THAAD’s first foreign customer.” [8]

THAAD picks up where the SM-3 (which is being transitioned for ground deployment in Europe and the Middle East as part of new – post-September 17, 2009 – U.S. and NATO interceptor missile plans) leaves off and after THAAD comes the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system to intercept missiles in space (the exoatmosphere).

On January 31 the U.S. Missile Defense Agency launched a ground-based interceptor missile from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in what proved to be an unsuccessful test.

Four days before a local newspaper wrote that “A missile-defense system test set for Sunday at Vandenberg Air Force Base will involve a different scenario, this time gauging how the system would react to an Iran-like attack, officials said.”

The report further detailed “a target weapon set to take off from the Kwajalein Atoll, about 4,200 miles southwest of Vandenberg” and that “the launch will be followed about 20 minutes later by a ground-based interceptor launched from an underground silo on north Vandenberg.” [9]

The last such test occurred in 2008 “when [a] target launched from Kodiak, Alaska, was successfully hit by a Vandenberg interceptor.” [10] Staging long-range missile interception tests from Alaska, including from the Aleutian Islands near Russia’s eastern coast, are not limited to plans for Iran.

In mid-January head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency Lieutenant General Patrick O’Reilly visited Fort Greely, Alaska, “the first line in America’s missile defense” and home to ground-based midcourse missiles, and his comments included: “In a time of war we would launch.” [11] Missiles launched from Fort Greely would have to pass over Russia, China or both to reach Iran, incidentally.

News that the U.S. is to deploy a Patriot missile battery in Poland close to its border led to Russia’s ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin stating recently: “Do they really think that we will calmly watch the location of a rocket system, at a distance of 60 km from Kaliningrad?” [12] The deployment of Standard Missile-3s, with several times the reach of the Patriot, on land and sea in the same neighborhood will only makes matters more dangerous.

The official authorization of Patriot transfers to Taiwan – the missiles are produced by Raytheon Company, whose former vice president of Government Operations and Strategy William Lynn is now Deputy Secretary of Defense – resulted in China’s vice foreign minister, He Yafei, saying “We believe this move endangers China’s national security” [13] and to Luo Yuan, senior researcher with the Academy of Military Science, adding “The US action gives China a justified cause to increase its national defense expenditure, to enhance the development and purchase of weapons, and to accelerate its modernization process in national defense….China did nothing to threaten the US, why should the US challenge our core strategic interests?” [14]

China and Russia, by not capitulating to U.S. and Western European pressure to enforce further, even more onerous sanctions against Iran of the type that have in recent years been followed by all-our war against other nations, have frequently been chastised by U.S. leaders, with China lately being dressed down by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, about whom it cannot be said as President John Quincey Adams claimed of the early American republic that “she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.”

China has suspended military contacts with Washington and threatened sanctions against American arms firms involved in the completion of the $6.5 billion deal with Taiwan.

With the release of the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review which calls for a record $708 billion in Pentagon spending next year, Bloomberg News ran a feature titled “China, Iran Prompt U.S. Air-Sea Battle Plan in Strategy Review” which stated “The U.S. military is drawing up a new air-sea battle plan in response to threats such as China’s persistent military build-up and Iran’s possession of advanced weapons.” Pentagon chief Robert Gates was quoted as alluding to – in an obvious reference to China – “the military modernization programs of other countries” and of the Quadrennial Defense Review in general that “This is truly a wartime QDR.” [15]

“The budget underscored the administration’s commitment to a ‘robust defense against emerging missile threats,’ saying it would pay for use of increasingly capable sea- and land-based missile interceptors and a range of sensors in Europe.” [16]

The blatant provocations against Russia and China of late last month are being repeated against Iran.

The Times of London on February 1 reminded its readers that “The UAE and Saudi Arabia have bought more than $25 billion of US arms in the past two years. Abu Dhabi has bought $17 billion of US hardware since 2008, including Patriot anti-missile systems, while the UAE as a whole recently bought 80 F16 jets.”

It also recalled, even more ominously, that “The chairman of the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen…said last month that the Pentagon must have military options ready to counter Iran should Mr Obama call for them.” [17]

An integral part of plans to contain and confront Iran is the Pentagon buildup in and near the Persian Gulf. Last year United Press International published a report that “Middle Eastern countries are expected to spend more than $100 billion over the next five years….Most of the procurement will be carried out by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Israel….The core of this arms-buying spree will undoubtedly be the $20 billion U.S. package of weapons systems over 10 years for the six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council – Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain.” [18]

On January 27 in the United Arab Emirates “The UAE Armed Forces [began] military training with the US Central Command (Centcom) along with armed forces from other GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] and friendly countries.” [19]

Last October and November the U.S. and Israel conducted their largest-ever joint military exercise, Juniper Cobra 2009, which tested five interceptor missile systems in tandem. [20]

On September 17, while announcing plans to abandon ground-based interceptor deployments in Poland in favor of a broader stratified system in Europe based initially on Patriot Advanced Capability-3 and Aegis missiles, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in reference to Iran and its neighbors that “the United States has already formed a Gulf missile defense network that consisted of PAC-3 and the Aegis sea-based systems….The reality is we are working both on a bilateral and a multilateral basis in the Gulf to establish the same kind of regional missile defense that would protect our facilities out there as well as our friends and allies.”

He added: “We have very strong bilateral relationships in developing missile defense with several of the countries in the Gulf. And now what we’re encouraging is to layer on top of that multilateral cooperation as well.” [21]

What Gates was describing is a comprehensive missile shield in the region that integrates all six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states into a single interceptor grid linked with facilities and deployments in Israel and Turkey (if the latter nation permits it) and a continent-wide NATO system in Europe.

The same source reported:

“Officials said the United Arab Emirates has been the most advanced in plans to form a missile defense umbrella. The UAE has ordered the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, designed to destroy nuclear missiles in the exoatmosphere. Over the last two years, the Pentagon has been meeting GCC military chiefs to discuss regional and national missile defense programs….At the same time, the U.S. military has been operating PAC-3 in Kuwait and Qatar. The U.S. Army has also been helping Saudi Arabia upgrade its PAC-2 fleet.” [22]

The Associated Press stated days after last September’s announced change in U.S. global missile shield plans – in which the “Obama administration shift[ed] its focus on missile defense away from Europe and toward the Middle East” – that “Between 2004 and last year, the Emirates bought more weapons than any other country besides China and India, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The majority of those arms came from the U.S. Lockheed and partner Raytheon Corp. of Waltham, Mass., are leading the push to strengthen the Emirates’ missile defense systems….It is not the region’s only U.S. ally to have placed such an order. Saudi Arabia, Israel and Kuwait have all bought Patriot and other missile shield systems….Abu Dhabi is…pushing to become the first country after the U.S. to deploy what Lockheed says is an even more advanced missile defense system known as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD….” [23]

William Lynn, the Pentagon’s second highest ranking official and former lobbyist for the manufacturer of Patriot missiles, Raytheon, delivered a speech in Washington, D.C. On January 21, the contents of which were reported as containing the demand to “put the Defense Department on a permanent footing to fight both low-intensity conflicts to maintaining air dominance and the ability to strike any target on Earth at any time….The next air warfare priority for the Pentagon is developing a next-generation, deep-penetrating strike capability that can overcome advanced air defenses….” [24] The new Prompt Global Strike system is designed to accomplish just those last three objectives. [25]

Were a leading defense official of any other nation to publicly promote that agenda the newspapers of the world would report it and the Pentagon, State Department and White House would not be silent on the matter. The American media and the government alike would condemn it for what it is: A threat to world peace and to the world itself.

1) Wired, January 22, 2010
2) Ibid
3) New York Times, January 30, 2010
4) Wikipedia
5) OnMilwaukee, May 12, 2009
6) American Forces Press Service, February 24, 2010
7) Gulf Daily News, February 1, 2010
8) United Press International, August 25, 2009
9) Lompoc Record, January 27, 2010
10) Ibid
11) Alaska Dispatch, January 13, 2010
12) Radio Poland, January 29, 2010
13) New York Times, January 29, 2010
14) China Daily, February 1, 2010
15) Bloomberg News, February 1, 2010
16) Reuters, February 1, 2010
17) The Times, February 1, 2010
18) United Press International, August 25, 2009
19) Gulf News, January 27, 2010
20) Israel: Forging NATO Missile Shield, Rehearsing War With Iran
Stop NATO, November 5, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/israel-forging-nato-missile-shield-rehearsing-war-with-iran

21) World Tribune, September 30, 2009
22) Ibid
23) Associated Press, September 23, 2009
24) Defense News, January 22, 2010
25) U.S. Accelerates First Strike Global Missile Shield System
Stop NATO, August 19, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/u-s-accelerates-first-strike-global-missile-shield-system/

Militarization Of Space: Threat Of Nuclear War On Earth
Stop NATO, June 18, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/militarization-of-space-threat-of-nuclear-war-on-earth

Hillary Clinton’s Prescription: Make The World A NATO Protectorate

Stop NATO
January 31, 2010

Hillary Clinton’s Prescription: Make The World A NATO Protectorate
Rick Rozoff

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was busy in London and Paris last week advancing the new Euro-Atlantic agenda for the world.

As the top foreign policy official of what her commander-in-chief Barack Obama touted as being the world’s sole military superpower on December 10, she is no ordinary foreign minister. Her position is rather some composite of several ones from previous historical epochs: Viceroy, proconsul, imperial nuncio.

When a U.S. secretary of state speaks the world pays heed. Any nation that doesn’t will suffer the consequences of that inattention, that disrespect toward the imperatrix mundi.

On January 27 she was in London for a conference on Yemen and the following day she attended the International Conference on Afghanistan in the same city.

Also on the 28th she and two-thirds of her NATO quad counterparts, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner (along with EU High Representative Catherine Ashton), pronounced a joint verdict on the state of democracy in Nigeria, Britain’s former colonial possession.

Afterwards she crossed the English channel and delivered an address called Remarks on the Future of European Security at L’Ecole Militaire in Paris on January 29. That presentation was the most substantive component of her three-day European junket and the only one that dealt mainly with the continent itself, her previous comments relating to what are viewed by the United States and its Western European NATO partners as backwards, “ungovernable” international badlands. That is, the rest of the world.

While in Paris, Clinton held a joint press conference with her counterpart Kouchner and said, “we…discussed the results of the London meetings on Yemen and Afghanistan. We have a lot of work ahead of us. We appreciate greatly the support that France has given in developing a European police force mission to support NATO in its effort to train police.

“We will be consulting even more closely. Our work in Africa is particularly important. I applaud France for resuming diplomatic relations with Rwanda, and I also appreciate greatly the work that Bernard and the government here is doing in Guinea and in other African countries.” [1]

Guinea (Conakry) is a former French colony.

Two days before she made a similar joint appearance in London with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr Abdullah al-Qirbi. Yemen is a former British colony. The conference on that country held on January 27 also included the Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, but not Secretary General Amr Moussa or any other representative of the 22-member Arab League.

Having the foreign minister of the unpopular government in Yemen that the U.S. is waging a covert – and not so covert – war to defend against mass opposition in both the north and south of the nation and the foreign minister of the nation that is bombing villages and killing hundreds of civilians in the north was sufficient for the Barack Obama and Gordon Brown governments. A war on the Arabian peninsula whose three major belligerents are the Yemeni government, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. is not viewed by Washington and London as a matter that 20 other Arab nations need to be consulted about.

Clinton delivered comments on the occasion that were exactly what were required to obscure the real state of affairs in Yemen in furtherance of her nation’s military campaign there: “The United States is intensifying security and development efforts with Yemen. We are encouraged by the Government of Yemen’s recent efforts to take action against al-Qaida and against other extremist groups. They have been relentlessly pursuing the terrorists who threaten not only Yemen but the Gulf region and far beyond, here to London and to our country in the United States.” [2]

Bombing Shia civilians in the country’s north and resorting to the preferred “diplomatic” intervention of the last four American secretaries of state – cruise missiles – in the south in the name of protecting London from Osama bin Laden is yet another illustration of how a nation behaves when it doesn’t have a formal diplomatic corps.

In the same breath she added “The Yemeni people deserve the opportunity to determine their own future,” when there was nothing further from her mind.

She acknowledged that “a longstanding protest movement continues” in the south and that fighting in the north “has left many thousands dead and more than 200,000 displaced” – without in any manner alluding to Saudi armed assaults in the north and U.S. cruise missile attacks in the south – but her focus remained firmly on “extremists who incite violence and inflict harm.” American bombs and missiles, of course, are nonviolent and harmless in the Secretary’s us-versus-them view of statecraft.

Clinton didn’t miss an opportunity to dress down her nation’s client Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh – “This must be a partnership if it is to have a successful outcome” – for his failure to adequately “protect human rights, advance gender equity, build democratic institutions and the rule of law.” The U.S. may extend its Afghanistan-Pakistan war into the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa [3] in nominal support of the Yemeni head of state and his Somali counterpart President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, but they and their like – Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai and Pakistan’s Asif Ali Zardari – should not for a minute forget who is in charge and who makes the rules.

The secretary of state had nothing to say about the condition of human rights, gender equality and so forth in Saudi Arabia and America’s other military vassals in the Persian Gulf. Medieval monarchies and hereditary autocracies that host American military bases, buy billions of dollars of advanced weapons from Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman and are home to the U.S. 5th Fleet are not subjected to homilies on human rights and “democratic institutions.”

On the day of the London conference on Afghanistan Clinton, flanked by the foreign ministers of Africa’s two former major colonial masters, Britain’s David Miliband and France’s Bernard Kouchner, also delivered a lecture to the government of Nigeria, ordering it to address “electoral reform, post-amnesty programs in the Niger Delta, economic development, inter-faith discord and transparency.” [4]

At the January 28 International Conference on Afghanistan, attended by the foreign ministers of all 28 NATO member states and dozens of NATO partnership underlings with troops in the South Asian war zone – the “international community” as the West defines it – Clinton complemented the Pentagon’s allies and satraps:

“I think that what we have seen is a global challenge that is being met with a global response. I especially thank the countries that have committed additional troops, leading with our host country, the United Kingdom, but including Italy, Germany, Romania.” [5]

She will need yet more troops in the near future for a far larger conflict than those the U.S. and NATO are currently involved with in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia if the following comments contribute to the results they appear to intend:

“I also had a chance to discuss Iran’s refusal to engage with the international community on its nuclear program. They continue to violate IAEA and Security Council requirements.

“The revelation of Iran’s secret nuclear facility at Qom has raised further questions about Iran’s intentions. And in response to these questions, the Iranian Government has provided a continuous stream of threats to intensify its violation of international nuclear norms. Iran’s approach leaves us with little choice but to work with our partners to apply greater pressure….”

Washington and its main NATO partners Britain, France and Germany along with miscellaneous allies around the world – “rogue” nuclear powers India, Israel and Pakistan among them (who know who to align with and purchase arms from) – dictate the terms on matters ranging from the proper holding of elections to which nation can develop a civilian nuclear power program. Any country outside the “Euro-Atlantic” and “international” communities faces censure, threats, “greater pressure” and ultimately military attack.

The U.S. has a population of 300 million and the European Union of 500 million, combined well under one-eighth that of the world. Yet the two, whose military wing is NATO, hold “international conferences” on Asia, the Middle East and other parts of the world and presume to deliver ultimatums to all other nations.

To cite a recent example, the New York Times reported that “Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned China on [January 29] that it would face economic insecurity and diplomatic isolation if it did not sign on to tough new sanctions against Iran for its nuclear program, seeking to raise the pressure on Beijing to fall in line with an American-led campaign.” [6] On the same day “The Obama administration notified Congress on Friday of its plans to proceed with five arms sales transactions with Taiwan worth a total of $6.4 billion. The arms deals include 60 Black Hawk helicopters, Patriot interceptor missiles, advanced Harpoon missiles that can be used against land or ship targets and two refurbished minesweepers.” [7]

Clinton has joined in the U.S. chorus of hectoring of China since she took up her current post last year, in May even raising the specter of Chinese penetration of Latin America.

China is not Afghanistan or Yemen. It is not even Iran. The last generation’s foreign policy hubris and megalomania of the West, epitomized by its wars in Southeast Europe and South Asia and the Middle East, may be headed into far more dangerous territory.

Grandiosity, arrogance and perceived impunity blind those afflicted with them, whether individuals or nations.

No clearer example exists than Secretary Clinton’s remarks in Paris on January 29.

To demonstrate the worldview of those she represents – that the United States and Europe are the incontestable metropolises and rulers by right of the planet – early in her address Clinton said “I appreciate the opportunity to discuss a matter of great consequence to the United States, France, and every country on this continent and far beyond the borders: the future of European security.” [8]

That is, the U.S. arrogates to itself the prerogative of not only speaking with authority on the security of a continent 3,500 miles away but intervening around the world in its alleged defense.

Flattering her hosts, she further said: “As founding members of the NATO Alliance, our countries have worked side by side for decades to build a strong and secure Europe and to defend and promote democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. And I am delighted that we are working even more closely now that France is fully participating in NATO’s integrated command structure. I thank President Sarkozy for his leadership and look forward to benefiting from the counsel of our French colleagues as together we chart NATO’s future.”

Regarding the phrase “to defend and promote democracy, human rights, and the rule of law,” evocative of almost identical terms used two days earlier in reference to Yemen, Clinton’s Paris speech was fairly overflowing with similar language.

The words recently have been tarnished and debased so thoroughly by the use they have frequently served – justifying war – that they are at risk of deteriorating into not so much noble as suspect abstractions.

Worse yet, they are incantations employed to praise oneself for uniquely possessing them and to castigate others who don’t. ["Our work extends beyond Europe as well....European and American voices speak as one to denounce the gross violations of human rights in Iran." But not in Saudi Arabia, Western Sahara, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, post-"independence" Kosovo, Estonia and Latvia, etc.]

Clinton’s speech contained these terms and phrases in the following sequence:

democracy, human rights, and the rule of law

unity, partnership, and peace

global progress

reconciliation, cooperation, and community

security and our prosperity

importance of liberty and freedom

peace and security

development, democracy, and human rights

human potential

democratic institutions and the rule of law

progress and stability

democracy and stability

accountable, effective governments

economic and democratic development

expanding opportunity

development and greater stability

defend and promote human rights

peace and opportunity and prosperity

defending and advancing our values in the world

a Europe transformed, secure, democratic, unified and prosperous

The last is a variant of A Europe Whole And Free [9] first employed by President George H.W. Bush in 1989 to inaugurate his putative new world order.

As will be seen by further excerpts from her address (as well as its location and context), Clinton’s use of the above expressions was, as noted, both self-congratulatory and in contradistinction to the implied lack of what they pertain to in the world outside of the Euro-Atlantic community and its approved allies elsewhere.

Again taking up the theme of Western superiority and the need for the Euro-Atlantic precedent to be enforced on others, she said “European security is, not only to the individual nations, but to the world. It is, after all, more than a collection of countries linked by history and geography. It is a model for the transformative power of reconciliation, cooperation, and community.”

However, “much important work remains unfinished. The transition to democracy is incomplete in parts of Europe and Eurasia.” The subjugation of Europe’s eastern “hinterlands” will be explored later in relation to her comments on the European Union’s Eastern Partnership and related matters.

“The transatlantic partnership has been both a cornerstone of global security and a powerful force for global progress.

“NATO is revising its Strategic Concept to prepare for the alliance’s summit at the end of this year here at (inaudible). I know there’s a lot of thinking going on about strategic threats and how to meet them. Next week, at the Munich Security Conference, leaders from across the continent will address urgent security and foreign policy challenges.

“The United States, too, has also been studying ways to strengthen European security and, therefore our own security, and to extend it to foster security on a global scale.”

To elite trans-Atlantic policy makers the above paragraphs’ meaning is indisputable: The use of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization military bloc – the true foundation of the “transatlantic partnership” – in waging war in and effectively colonizing the Balkans and in expanding into Eastern Europe, incorporating twelve new nations including former Warsaw Pact members and Soviet republics, is the worldwide paradigm for the West in the 21st century.

That mechanism, using Europe as NATO’s springboard for geopolitical aggrandizement in the east and the south, is being applied at the moment against larger adversaries than the bloc has tackled before now:

“European security remains an anchor of U.S. foreign and security policy. A strong Europe is critical to our security and our prosperity. Much of what we hope to accomplish globally depends on working together with Europe….And so we are working with European allies and partners to help bring stability to Afghanistan and try to take on the dangers posed by Iran’s nuclear ambition.”

“We have repeatedly called on Russia to honor the terms of its ceasefire agreement with Georgia, and we refuse to recognize Russia’s claims of independence for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. More broadly, we object to any spheres of influence claimed in Europe in which one country seeks to control another’s future. Our security depends upon nations being able to choose their own destiny.”

The final sentence is galling beyond endurance, coming as it does from the foreign policy chief of a nation with hundreds of thousands of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and which with its NATO allies waged war against Yugoslavia and tore the nation apart.

The one preceding it is equally absurd, as Clinton repeatedly insists on the right of the U.S. to be not only a major player on the European continent but the main arbiter of military, security, political, energy and other policies there while denouncing Russia – it didn’t need to be named – for alleged designs to establish a “sphere of influence” in neighboring states.

“Security in Europe must be indivisible. For too long, the public discourse around Europe’s security has been fixed on geographical and political divides. Some have looked at the continent even now and seen Western and Eastern Europe, old and new Europe, NATO and non-NATO Europe, EU and non-EU Europe. The reality is that there are not many Europes; there is only one Europe. And it is a Europe that includes the United States as its partner….We are closer than ever to achieving the goal that has inspired European and American leaders and citizens – not only a Europe transformed, secure, democratic, unified and prosperous, but a Euro-Atlantic alliance that is greater than the sum of its parts….” For decades, indeed since the end of World War II, American leaders have been “inspired” by a vision of a Europe transformed and unified – under NATO military command and a European Union serving as the civilian, and increasingly military, complement to the Alliance.

“NATO must and will remain open to any country that aspires to become a member and can meet the requirements of membership,” even Ukraine where the overwhelming majority of its citizens oppose being pulled into the military bloc. ["We stand with the people of Ukraine as they choose their next elected president in the coming week, an important step in Ukraine’s journey toward democracy, stability, and integration into Europe. And we are devoting ourselves to efforts to resolve enduring conflicts, including in the Caucasus and on Cyprus."]

And should a nation be incorporated into the bloc even against the will of its people, then the U.S. “will maintain an unwavering commitment to the pledge enshrined in Article 5 of the NATO treaty that an attack on one is an attack on all. When France and our other NATO allies invoked Article 5 in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11th, 2001, it was a proclamation to the world that our promise to each other was not rhetorical, but real….And for that, I thank you. And I assure you and all members of NATO that our commitment to Europe’s defense is equally strong.

“As proof of that commitment, we will continue to station American troops in Europe, both to deter attacks and respond quickly if any occur. We are working with our allies to ensure that NATO has the plans it needs for responding to new and evolving contingencies. We are engaged in productive discussions with our European allies about building a new missile defense architecture….”

Washington is uncompromisingly bent on expanding NATO even further along Russia’s borders – Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Finland – despite misgivings among some NATO allies in Europe, and will use the Alliance’s Article 5 war clause to “protect” those new outposts. It will also drag all of Europe into its worldwide interceptor missile system.

And not against military threats – there is no military threat to any European nation – but against a veritable plethora of phantom pretexts, including so-called cyber and energy security, both of which are subterfuges for the U.S. to intervene against Russia. A host of other ploys for NATO intervention were added, many from NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s 17-point list of last year [10]: Iran’s nuclear program, “confronting North Korea’s defiance of its international obligations,” “tackling non-traditional threats such as pandemic disease, cyber warfare, and the trafficking of children” and the “need to be doing even more, such as in missile defense, counternarcotics, and Afghanistan.” Anything and everything is grist to the U.S.’s and NATO’s mill.

As Clinton put it, “In the 21st century, the spirit of collective defense must also include non-traditional threats. We believe NATO’s new Strategic Concept must address these new threats. Energy security is a particularly pressing priority. Countries vulnerable to energy cut-offs face not only economic consequences but strategic risks as well. And I welcome the recent establishment of the U.S.-EU Energy Council, and we are determined to support Europe in its efforts to diversify its energy supplies.”

Diversifying energy supplies is a code phrase for driving Russia and keeping Iran out of oil and natural gas deliveries to Europe. If the tables were turned the U.S. would view – and treat – such a policy as an act of war.

The global expansion of the American agenda in Europe was indicated further in Clinton’s remarks that “This partnership is about so much more than strengthening our security. At its core, it is about defending and advancing our values in the world. I think it is particularly critical today that we not only defend those values in the world. I think it is particularly critical today that we not only defend those values, but promote them; that we are not only on defense, but on offense.”

And placing the current world situation in historical perspective, she said: “We are continuing the enterprise that we began at the end of the Cold War to expand the zone of democracy and stability. We have worked together this year to complete the effort we started in the 1990s to help bring peace and stability to the Balkans. And we are working closely with the EU to support the six countries that the EU engages through its Eastern Partnership initiative.”

The Eastern Partnership is a U.S.-backed European Union program to pull six of twelve former Soviet republics that formed the Commonwealth of Independent States into the Western orbit: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. [11] Armenia and Belarus are members with Russia of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a potential counterbalance to NATO’s drive into the former Soviet Union. Along with Serbia and Cyprus, those nations represent the last obstacles to NATO, and behind it the U.S., securing control of all of Europe.

Clinton also had the audacity to raise the issues of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE), the first almost two months beyond its December 5 expiration and the other, in its adapted form, not ratified by a single member state of NATO, which – led by the U.S. – is exploiting its suspension for military buildups in new Eastern European nations.

“Two years ago, Russia suspended the implementation of the CFE Treaty, while the United States and our allies continue to do so. The Russia-Georgia war in 2008 was not only a tragedy but has created a further obstacle to moving forward….” The U.S. and NATO have justified their non-ratification of the Adapted Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty by demanding that Russia withdraw a small handful of peacekeepers it maintains in post-conflict zones in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transdniester. Had those forces been withdrawn earlier under Western pressure, Georgia’s invasion of South Ossetia in 2008, coordinated with an attack on Abkhazia, might have proven successful for its American-trained army.

Part of Clinton’s self-serving interpretation of the CFE Treaty is “the right of host countries to consent to stationing foreign troops in their territory.” That is, U.S. and NATO and decidedly not Russia troops. There can be no spheres of influence in former Soviet space – except the West’s.

Her understanding of an autonomous Europe not “besieged” by Russia and Iran – and North Korea – includes not only stationing American troops on its soil but also nuclear weapons, hundreds of which are still housed in NATO bases in several European countries. “President Obama declared the long-term goal of a world without nuclear weapons. As long as these weapons exist, the United States will maintain a safe, secure, and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and we will guarantee that defense to our allies.

“[W]e are conducting a comprehensive Nuclear Posture Review to chart a new course that strengthens deterrence and reassurance for the United States and our allies….” Clinton didn’t indicate which European nations have requested to be placed under the Pentagon’s nuclear shield.

After her presentation Clinton answered questions from the audience at the French Military Academy.

Her extemporaneous comments were even more revealing that her prepared text.

They included:

“When it comes to NATO, I think that greater integration on the European continent provides even more opportunity for the level of cooperation to increase.

“But I think, given the complexity of the world today, closer cooperation and more complementarity between the EU and NATO is in all of our interests to try to forge common policies – economic and development and political and legal on the one hand in the EU, and principally security on the other hand in NATO. But as I said in my remarks, they are no longer separated. It’s hard to say that security is only about what it was when NATO was formed, and the EU has no role to play in security issues.”

NATO’s new Strategic Concept lays particular emphasis on the advancement – indeed the culmination – of U.S.-EU-NATO global military integration. [12]

Regarding the implementation of that project, Clinton stipulated the issue of energy wars. “[I]t would be the EU’s responsibility to create policies that would provide more independence and protections from intimidation when it comes to energy markets from member nations. But I can also see how in certain cases respecting energy, there may be a role for NATO as well.”

When asked about what in recent years has been referred to as Global NATO “extending the boundaries of NATO to non-Western countries, emerging powers like Brazil, India, other democracies that might fulfill their criteria,” Clinton advocated a series of expanding partnerships in addition to the Partnership for Peace, Adriatic Charter, Mediterranean Dialogue, Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, Contact Country, Trilateral Afghanistan-Pakistan-NATO Military Commission and others that take in over a third of the nations in the world:

“How do we cooperate across geographic distance with countries in other hemispheres, different geopolitical challenges? And there is a modern living example of that with the NATO ISAF commitment in Afghanistan.

“In many ways, it’s quite remarkable, the success of this alliance. Yesterday at the London conference on Afghanistan, as you know, the United States, under President Obama, has agreed to put 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan. And member nations, NATO and ISAF – the international partners – have come up with a total of 9,000 more troops….NATO is leading the way, but NATO has to determine in what ways it can cooperate with others. I think that the world that we face of failing states, non-state actors, networks of terrorists, rogue regimes – North Korea being a prime example – really test the international community. And it’s a test we have to pass. Now, there are some who say this is too complicated, it is out of area, it is not our responsibility. But given the nature of the threats we face, I don’t think that’s an adequate response.

“[C]yber security breaches, concerted attacks on networks and countries, are likely to cross borders. We have to know how to defend against them and we have to enlist nations who are likeminded to work with. Similarly, with energy problems, attacks on pipelines, attacks on container ships, attacks on electric grids will have consequences far beyond boundaries. And it won’t just be NATO nations. NATO nations border non-NATO nations.”

A small consortium of Western nations, two in North America and 26 in Europe – though most of the latter are nothing more than slavishly subservient junior partners – has appointed itself, for its own interests, the arbiter of world affairs in all matters from judging the political legitimacy of governments to who receives energy supplies from whom to the most urgent question of all, when and against whom wars can be launched. [13]

Clinton’s speech in Paris has signaled her country’s intention to formalize and extend that role throughout the world in the 21st century.

1) http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/01/136280.htm
2) http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/01/135930.htm
3) U.S., NATO Expand Afghan War To Horn Of Africa And Indian Ocean
Stop NATO, January 8, 2010

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/u-s-nato-expand-afghan-war-to-horn-of-africa-and-indian-ocean-2

4) http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/01/136151.htm
5) http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/01/136159.htm
6) New York Times, January 29, 2010
7) New York Times, January 30, 2010
8) http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/01/136273.htm
9) Berlin Wall: From Europe Whole And Free To New World Order
Stop NATO, November 9, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/berlin-wall-from-europe-whole-and-free-to-new-world-order

10) Berlin Wall: From Europe Whole And Free To New World Order
Stop NATO, November 9, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/berlin-wall-from-europe-whole-and-free-to-new-world-order

11) Eastern Partnership: The West’s Final Assault On the Former Soviet Union
Stop NATO, February 13, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/eastern-partnership-the-wests-final-assault-on-the-former-soviet-union

12) EU, NATO, US: 21st Century Alliance For Global Domination
Stop NATO, February 19, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/eu-nato-us-21st-century-alliance-for-global-domination

13) EU, NATO, US: 21st Century Alliance For Global Domination
Stop NATO, February 19, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/eu-nato-us-21st-century-alliance-for-global-domination

Pentagon Confronts Russia In The Baltic Sea

Stop NATO
January 28, 2010

Pentagon Confronts Russia In The Baltic Sea
Rick Rozoff

Twelve months ago a new U.S. administration entered the White House as the world entered a new year.

Two and a half weeks later the nation’s new vice president, Joseph Biden, spoke at the annual Munich Security Conference and said “it’s time to press the reset button and to revisit the many areas where we can and should be working together with Russia.”

Incongruously to any who expected a change in tact if not substance regarding strained U.S.-Russian relations, in the same speech Biden emphasized that, using the “New World Order” shibboleth of the past generation at the end, “Two months from now, the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will gather to celebrate the 60th year of this Alliance. This Alliance has been the cornerstone of our common security since the end of World War II. It has anchored the United States in Europe and helped forge a Europe whole and free.” [1]

Six months before, while Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he rushed to the nation of Georgia five days after the end of the country’s five-day war with Russia as an emissary for the George W. Bush administration, and pledged $1 billion in assistance to the beleaguered regime of former U.S. resident Mikheil Saakashvili.

To demonstrate how serious Biden and the government he represented were about rhetorical gimmicks like reset buttons, four months after his Munich address Biden visited Ukraine and Georgia to shore up their “color revolution”-bred heads of state (outgoing Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko is married to a Chicagoan and former Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush official) in their anti-Russian and pro-NATO stances.

While back in Georgia he insisted “We understand that Georgia aspires to join NATO. We fully support that aspiration.”

In Ukraine he said “As we reset the relationship with Russia, we reaffirm our commitment to an independent Ukraine, and we recognize no sphere of influence or no ability of any other nation to veto the choices an independent nation makes,” [2] also in reference to joining the U.S.-dominated military bloc. Biden’s grammar may have been murky, but his message was unmistakeably clear.

Upon his return home Biden gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal, the contents of which were indicated by the title the newspaper gave its account of them – “Biden Says Weakened Russia Will Bend to U.S.” – and which were characterized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies as “the most critical statements from a senior administration official to date vis-a-vis Russia.” [3]

It took the Barack Obama government eight months to make its first friendly gesture to Russia. In September of last year the American president and Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that they were abandoning the Bush administration’s plan to station ten ground-based midcourse interceptor missiles in Poland in favor of a “stronger, smarter, and swifter” alternative.

The new system would rely on the deployment of Aegis class warships equipped with SM-3 (Standard Missile-3) missiles – with a range of at least 500 kilometers (310 miles) – which “provide the flexibility to move interceptors from one region to another if needed,” [4] in Gates’ words.

The first location for their deployment will be the Baltic Sea according to all indications.

The proximity of Russia’s two largest cities, St. Petersburg and Moscow, especially the first, to the Baltic coast makes the basing of American warships with interceptor missiles in that sea the equivalent of Russia stationing comparable vessels with the same capability in the Atlantic Ocean near Delaware Bay, within easy striking distance of New York City and Washington, D.C.

Although Washington canceled the earlier interceptor missile plans for Poland, on January 20 the defense ministry of that country announced that not only would the Pentagon go ahead with the deployment of a Patriot Advanced Capability-3 anti-ballistic missile battery in the country, but that it would be based on the Baltic Sea coast 35 miles from Russia’s Kaliningrad district. [5]

The previous month Viktor Zavarzin, the head of the Defense Committee of the Russian State Duma (the lower house of parliament), said “Russia is concerned with how rapidly new NATO members are upgrading their military infrastructure” and “that Russia was especially concerned with the reconstruction of air bases in the Baltic countries for NATO’s purposes which include signal and air intelligence radio of Russian territory.” [6]

As it should be.

Since the Baltic Sea nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were ushered into NATO as full members in 2004, warplanes from Alliance member states have shared four-month rotations in patrolling the region, with two U.S. deployments to date.

Shortly before the patrols began almost six years ago the Russian media reported that “Relations between Russia and Estonia have been tense ever since NATO built a radar station on the Russian-Estonian border last year. On March 23, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko warned Russia would retaliate ‘if NATO planes fly over Russian borders after the Baltic nations join the alliance.’” [7]

Last year the Obama-Biden administration went ahead with a series of major military exercises in the Baltic region:

The annual BALTOPS (Baltic Operations), the largest international military exercise conducted in the Baltic Sea, run by the U.S. Navy, NATO and the latter’s Partnership for Peace program which included naval forces from twelve nations – Britain, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the United States – led by U.S. Carrier Strike Group 12.

The 10-day Loyal Arrow 2009 NATO military exercises in Sweden with 50 jet fighters (the U.S. Air Force’s F-15 Eagle among them) and NATO AWACS.

The Cold Response 09 NATO exercises in Norway (north and west of the Baltic) with over 7,000 troops from thirteen nations as well as air and naval forces.

“Cold Response 2010 is expected to be even larger” than last year’s war games. [8] The U.S. Marine Corps “is planning Cold Response 2010, an exercise in Norway that could include a company of infantry Marines and a detachment of trainers with Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command.” [9]

“The Corps has used caves carved into the sides of mountains here [Norway] for nearly 20 years, storing vehicles, equipment and ammunition later shipped everywhere from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to training exercises in Africa….[T]he Norwegians plan their security knowing that Marines will defend Norway in an attack using everything from Humvees to Howitzers that are already in place.” [10]

The Defense Professionals website in Germany published a report on January 26 of a meeting of the Nordic-Baltic Chiefs of Defense (Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Norway, Finland. Lithuania and Sweden) to plan the “Baltic Host, Sabre Strike, and Amber Hope exercises to be held in the Baltics this and the following year.”

“Exercise Baltic Host will be held this year in Latvia for participants from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and the US.” [11] Last year’s Baltic Host in Estonia included military personnel from that nation and from Latvia, Lithuania, United States European Command (EUCOM) and Strike Force NATO.

The earlier Amber Hope 07 was held in Lithuania and included the participation of over 1,700 troops from NATO and Partnership for Peace countries: Armenia, Britain, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, as well as representatives from NATO multinational headquarters.

Earlier this month a planning conference was held at the Gen. Adolfas Ramanauskas Warfare Training Center in Lithuania for the Sabre Strike 2010 military drills “where representatives of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and the US prepare[d] documentation and draft plans for the exercise which is scheduled to take place in Latvia in October 2010.”

“Sabre Strike 2010 will be designed to tune together interoperability procedures of the three Baltic States and the US with prospects of participation in the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) operation in Afghanistan and other multinational operations in the future. This exercise for the first time will pull together troops of the Baltic States and the US for a training event of such character.” [12]

2,000 troops from the four nations will take part and the war games will end with “a complex field exercise.” [13]

On January 28 the Helsingin Sanomat announced that “Finland is to play host to what is by far the largest naval military exercise that has ever been seen in Finnish territorial waters” in September which “will be joined by 50 ships and 2,500 persons.”

The Northern Coasts maneuvers will include warships and troops from Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Latvia, Poland, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States and will consist of both sea and land drills, and the “maritime operations will be supported by air and special troops.” [14]

Not only hosting the largest naval war games in its history – ones simulating “a conflict between two countries that has an effect on the surrounding countries as well” – Finland will provide “nearly the entire Navy fleet” for the operation.

A local reported inquired whether the maneuvers were related to Russia’s plans for a natural gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea:

“At least according to the Finnish Navy, the exercise does not have anything to do with the Baltic Sea’s planned underwater gas pipeline, Nord Stream.

“But at least off hand, Annele Apajakari, Chief Public Information Officer at Navy Command Finland, was unable to say why also the United States, the Netherlands, and France will be involved.” [15]

The preceding day the same newspaper ran a story about prospective NATO-Russia military tensions in the Baltic region and quoted retired Lieutenant-General Matti Ahola as warning: “If the United States were to bring its planned anti-missile vessels into the Baltic Sea, it would bring about a reaction.” [16]

That was a week after the announcement that U.S. Patriot missiles and 100 troops were headed to Poland’s – eastern – Baltic coast.

In an article bearing the headline “Thanks to Poland, the alliance will defend the Baltics,” the British weekly the Economist on January 14 wrote that NATO would “stand by its weakest members — the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania” – and was elaborating “formal contingency plans to defend them.”

The magazine reported that “The main push came from Poland, a big American ally in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was the first to gain contingency plans — initially only against a putative (and implausible) attack from Belarus, a country barely a quarter of its size….Poland accelerated its push for a bilateral security relationship with America, including the stationing of Patriot anti-missile rockets on Polish soil in return for hosting a missile-defence base.” [17]

“Formal approval is still pending and the countries concerned have been urged to keep it under wraps. But sources close to the talks say the deal is done: the Baltic states will get their plans, probably approved by NATO’s military side rather than its political wing. They will be presented as an annex to existing plans regarding Poland, but with an added regional dimension. That leaves room for Sweden and Finland (not members of the alliance but increasingly close to it) to take a role in the planning too. A big bilateral American exercise already planned for the Baltic this summer is likely to widen to include other countries.” [18]

Poland is the prototype for and the foundation upon which the Pentagon and NATO are constructing a formidable military – naval, air, ground and interceptor missile – network in the Baltic Sea region on Russia’s northwest frontier.

Late last year Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Vygaudas Usackas delivered a lecture called “The New NATO Strategic Concept: Lithuania’s Vision” to participants of the Higher Command Studies Course of the Baltic Defense College (BALTDEFCOL) in which he stated “NATO is the embodiment of transatlantic relations. NATO should remain open to western countries, such as Finland or Sweden, to eastern countries like Ukraine or Georgia, as well as to the Balkan countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro and other countries.” [19] (The Baltic Defense College is based in Estonia and in addition to instructing officers from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania also trains personnel from other NATO and EU states and countries like Bosnia, Georgia, Moldova, Romania and Ukraine.)

As well as advocating the incorporation of states neighboring Russia to its west and its south into NATO, the Lithuanian foreign minister asserted “that Article 5 was the basis of the organisation and it should remain the cornerstone of NATO in the future.” [20]

NATO’s Article 5 is a mutual military assistance obligation, the main substance of which is in its first paragraph, which reads:

“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”

The outlines of a NATO “defense force” in the Baltic area and beyond were further delineated last November when it was revealed that Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine are to establish a “joint army.” The combined military unit “may have a political objective. It is meant to set up an alternative center of military consolidation for West European projects, a center which could embrace former Soviet republics (above all Ukraine), now outside NATO. There is no doubt who will control this process, considering U.S. influence in Poland and the Baltics.” [21]

Additionally, it will be linked to the Multinational Corps Northeast which was initially formed of Danish, German and Polish troops and later joined by forces from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. And the U.S. “[T]he Baltic military has cooperation experience with Polish troops. The Ukrainian military, too, has cooperation experience with NATO within the Partnership for Peace program….Establishment of a permanent brigade-class joint unit is expected to improve teamwork, allowing Ukrainians to grow into NATO’s command, staff, tactical and logistic culture.” [22]

The Multinational Corps Northeast has been used in Afghanistan where it has acquired direct combat zone experience.

The American client responsible for Ukraine’s abrupt pro-NATO orientation, President Viktor Yushchenko, barely won 5 percent of the vote in this year’s January 17 presidential election and is on his way out of office barring a reprise of the “orange revolution” of six years ago. Though at the NATO Military Committee meeting on January 27 Colonel-General Ivan Svyda, Chief of the General Staff and Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, announced that his nation was training troops for the NATO Response Force, a 25,000-troop global strike force. “The NATO Response Force (NRF) is a highly ready and technologically advanced force made up of land, air, sea and special forces components that the Alliance can deploy quickly wherever needed.

“It is capable of performing missions worldwide across the whole spectrum of operations….” [23]

The Ukrainian military chief announced “We selected 12 detachments that are undergoing training in line with NATO standards and represent all types and branches of troops, including engineer units, the marines, field engineers, chemical and biological defense troops and others. Up to 500 Ukrainian servicemen will participate in the [alliance's response] force.” [24]

The U.S. and NATO intend Ukraine to serve as a bridge between their new outposts on the Baltic Sea to the north and Georgia and Azerbaijan on Russia’s southern border.

Ukraine is being mentored and shepherded into the NATO pen with the U.S. employing the Baltic states of Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as both models and guides. The same mechanism with the same actors is being used for Georgia.

Last month the defense ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania signed a communique on joint military collaboration which “welcomed closer military cooperation in the security sector between the Baltic States and the USA which also included joint exercises in the Baltic region.” [25]

After releasing the statement, the three defense chiefs visited the Adazi Training Base in Latvia and “met with Gen. Roger A. Brady, Commander US Air Forces in Europe and NATO Allied Air Component.

“In the communique the NATO operation in Afghanistan was underscored as a priority of all the Baltic States.” [26]

On January 1 the Trilateral Baltic Battalion (BALTBAT) – with troops from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – began duty in the 14th rotation of the NATO Response Force. “On the same date Lithuanians…also enter[ed] a half-year standby period in the EU Battle Group.” [27]

On the Western end of the Baltic, on January 17 Swedish Defense Minister Sten Tolgfors spoke on the Targeting Decisions on Strengthening Defense Capability (TDSDC) program launched on January 1, pledged that “Sweden will develop its national defense in cooperation with NATO and neighbors Finland, Denmark and Norway” and added:

“Our defense policy adds a new neighborhood perspective. The structure and direction of Sweden’s Armed Forces will continue to have a clear Baltic profile. We have northern Europe’s largest and most qualified Air Force that is twice as large as any of our neighbors, and it has a full operational range.”

“It is the biggest renewal of security and defense policy for decades in Sweden. We will use 2010 to make the requisite decisions to carry out the modernization of our military, and civilian crisis, management capabilities.” [28]

Under the new program all members of the Swedish armed forces, now transitioned from a conscript to an all-volunteer (according to NATO demands for military “professionalization” of member and partner states) status, “are to be available for deployment at home or abroad in five to seven days in situations of ‘heightened alert.’” [29]

“In the old system, a third of the forces – which in 2008 meant 11,400 military personnel – were supposed to be able to deploy within one year from mobilization. In the new defence system, all 50,000 members of the forces would have to be ‘usable and available’ within a week….The soldiers in the conscript army could never be used for missions outside Sweden’s borders, but now that all soldiers will either be full-time employees or on contract, they will be available to deploy anywhere….New is also the focus on the Baltic Sea Region.” [30]

Last autumn a German Luftwaffe Eurofighter intercepted a Russian plane over the Baltic Sea. “After the German jet challenged the radar plane, the Russians scrambled two fighters, which approached at supersonic speed. Finnish jets then escorted the Russians back to international airspace, averting a further escalation of the situation.” [31]

This month NATO extended its Baltic warplane deployments until 2014. “The Baltic skies are presently secured by the so-called NATO air police, which in addition to fighter planes also provide air defense systems and manpower.” [32]

Added to the permanent presence of Western military aircraft are now American Patriot missiles and troops to operate them in Poland, “a demonstrative anti-Russian move” according to a leading general of the latter nation. [33]

Persistent U.S. and NATO military moves are threatening to turn the Baltic Sea region into a powder keg that another hostile encounter between Western and Russian military aircraft could ignite at any time.

As to government officials and the news media in Russia, a year is a sufficiently long period of time to awaken from the illusion of an imaginative rest button that will reverse a decade of NATO penetration of the Baltic Sea and the consolidation of military infrastructure there aimed squarely – and exclusively – at their own nation.

Related articles:

Scandinavia And The Baltic Sea: NATO’s War Plans For The High North

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/scandinavia-and-the-baltic-sea-natos-war-plans-for-the-high-north

Afghan War: NATO Trains Finland, Sweden For Conflict With Russia

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/afghan-war-nato-trains-finland-sweden-for-conflict-with-russia

End of Scandinavian Neutrality: NATO’s Militarization Of Europe

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/end-of-scandinavian-neutrality-natos-militarization-of-europe

ABC Of West’s Global Military Network: Afghanistan, Baltics, Caucasus

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/abc-of-wests-global-military-network-afghanistan-baltics-caucasus

1) Berlin Wall: From Europe Whole And Free To New World Order
Stop NATO, November 9, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/berlin-wall-from-europe-whole-and-free-to-new-world-order

2) Associated Press, July 23, 2009
3) Center for Strategic and International Studies, July 28, 2009
4) Russia Today, September 17, 2009
5) With Nuclear, Conventional Arms Pacts Stalled, U.S. Moves Missiles And
Troops To Russian Border
Stop NATO, January 22, 2010

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/with-nuclear-conventional-arms-pacts-stalled-u-s-moves-missiles-and-troops-to-russian-border

6) Voice of Russia, December 8, 2009
7) RosBusinessConsulting, March 26, 2004
8) Barents Observer, March 4, 2009
9) Marine Corps Times, July 21, 2009
10) Ibid
11) Defense Professionals, January 26, 2010
12) Lithuanian Armed Forces, January 11, 2010
13) Ibid
14) Helsingin Sanomat, January 28, 2010
15) Ibid
16) Helsingin Sanomat, January 27, 2010
17) Economist, January 14, 2010
18) Ibid
19) Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, November 28, 2009
20) Ibid
21) Russian Information Agency Novosti, November 18, 2009
22) Ibid
23) http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_49755.htm
24) Ukrinform, January 28, 2010
25) Defense Professionals, December 14, 2009
26) Ibid
27) Defense Professionals, January 4, 2010
28) Defense News, January 25, 2010
29) Ibid
30) Radio Sweden, January 18, 2010
31) The Local (Germany), November 3, 2009
32) Russian Information Agency Novosti, January 4, 2010
33) Interfax-Ukraine, January 20, 2010

Gefährlicher Scheideweg: Die USA stationieren Raketen und Truppen an der russischen Grenze

Stop NATO
January 28, 2010

Gefährlicher Scheideweg: Die USA stationieren Raketen und Truppen an der russischen Grenze
Rick Rozoff

Atomwaffensperrvertrag und Sperrverträge über konventionelle Waffen sind ausgesetzt

Übersetzung:

http://www.propagandafront.de/gefahrlicher-scheideweg-die-usa-stationieren-raketen-und-truppen-an-der-russischen-grenze.html

Das Jahr 2010 begann auf eine Art, wie es sich eigentlich mehr für den dritten Monat des Jahres, der nach dem römischen Kriegsgott benannt ist, geziemt und nicht für den ersten Monat, dessen Name von einer friedlichen Gottheit herrührt.

Am 13.01.2010 berichtete Associated Press, dass das Weiße Haus am 01.02.2010 seinen Vierjahres-Verteidigungs-Bericht an den Kongress übermitteln will und eine Rekordsumme in Höhe von USD 708 Milliarden für das Pentagon fordert. Das ist der höchste absolute, wie auch inflationsbereinigte Betrag seit 1946, dem Jahr nachdem der Zweite Weltkrieg endete. Nehmen wir noch die anderen Verteidigungsausgaben hinzu, die nicht über das Pentagon laufen, könnte die Gesamtsumme USD 1 Billion übersteigen.

Die USD 708 Milliarden beinhalten zum ersten Mal Gelder für die Kriege in Afghanistan und im Irak, welche in den vorangegangenen Jahren zum Teil durch wiederkehrende ergänzende Anforderungen finanziert wurden, enthalten jedoch nicht die im oben genannten Bericht als erste Notanfrage der neuen Regierung angegebene Forderung für denselben Zweck: Angeblich USD 33 Milliarden.

Diesen Monat haben bereits mehrere NATO-Länder weitere Truppen zugesagt und das sogar noch vor der Londoner Konferenz am 28.01.2010, bei der tausende zusätzlicher Truppen dem Krieg zugeteilt werden könnten, in dem bereits über 150.000 Soldaten unter dem Kommando der USA und NATO dienen oder bald ihren Dienst antreten werden.

Washington hat in Pakistan seine tödlichen Raketenangriffe mit Drohnen verstärkt und fordert, dass dieses Modell auch für den Jemen übernommen wird. Dies wird vor allem durch den Senator Carl Levin, den Vorsitzenden des Militärausschusses des Senats (Senate Armed Services Committee), gefordert, der am 13.01.2010 für Luftangriffe und Operationen durch Sondereinsatzkräfte in dem Land plädierte. [1]

Das Pentagon wird unter einem 10-Jahres Militärabkommen, das am 30.10.2009 unterzeichnet wurde, mit der Entsendung von 1.400 Soldaten nach Kolumbien beginnen um sieben neue Basen einzurichten. [2]

In diesem Jahre werden die USA auch ihre USD 110 Millionen teuren Militärbasen in Bulgarien und Rumänien fertigstellen um dort mindestens 4.000 amerikanische Soldaten zu stationieren. [3]

Das neueste Regionalkommando des Pentagons, Africa Command, wird über die aktuellen Operationen zur Bekämpfung Aufständischer in Somalia, Mali und Uganda hinaus seine Aktivitäten entlang der Küsten des Kontinents ausweiten und von einer neu erworbenen Anlage auf den Seychellen Drohnen aufsteigen lassen. [4]

Aber dieser Monat brachte noch dramatischere Entwicklungen und gefährliche Neuigkeiten mit sich. Das Pentagon bewilligte den Abschluss eines USD 6,5 Milliarden Waffengeschäfts mit Taiwan über die Lieferung von 200 antiballistischen Patriot Raketen. Die Volksrepublik China ist entzürnt, so wie es auch Washington wäre, wenn sich die Situation umgekehrt darstellte und Peking ein vergleichbares Waffenarsenal beispielsweise an das unabhängige Puerto Rico lieferte. [5]

Als wäre diese Aktion nicht provokativ genug gewesen, gab der polnische Verteidigungsminister am 20.01.2010 bekannt, dass eine U.S.-Patriot Raketenbatterie und 100 amerikanische Soldaten, welche diese betreiben, nicht wie ursprünglich vorgesehen an den westlichen Ausläufern der Hauptstadt Warschau, sondern in der an der Ostsee gelegenen Stadt Morag, 60 Kilometer von Polens Grenze zu Russland entfernt [6], stationiert werden.

Es ist geplant, dass die Raketenbatterie und die Truppen zwischen März und April eintreffen. Als Teil von Obamas neuen Raketenschutzschildprojekts werden sie bei der NATO integriert um ganz Europa zu umfassen und bis in den Nahen Osten sowie den Kaukasus hineinzureichen. Den Patriot-Raketen folgt dann die Stationierung von Kriegsschiffen mit Standard-3-Abfangraketen (Standard Missile-3, SM-3) in der Ostsee und, das erste Mal überhaupt, die Aufstellung von bodenbasierten Raketen dieser Art. „Das Pentagon wird Kommandoposten mit SM-3-Raketen verlegen, welche Kurzstrecken- wie auch Mittelstreckenraketen abfangen können…“[7] Eine SM-3 Rakete wurde Februar 2008 vom Pentagon dazu verwendet einen Satelliten in die Umlaufbahn zu schießen, um mal eine Angabe zur Reichweite zu liefern.

Weitere Stationierungen werden folgen.

Das neue Raketenabfangsystem der Nach-George-W.-Bush-Regierung wird „vorhandene auf dem Boden und auf See befindliche Raketen [einsetzen]…Die Stationierung verbesserter Raketenverteidigung würde sich bis 2020 erstrecken. Der erste Schritt ist die Bewaffnung von Zerstörern und Kreuzern mit seebasierten Waffensystemen der Aegis-Klasse.“ [8]

„Anschließend würde in einem europäischen Land ein mobiles Radarsystem stationiert…Später würden auch an anderen Orten in Europa höher entwickelte, mobile Systeme stationiert werden. Ihr Herzstück werden…Lockheeds Terminal High Altitude Defense Abfangraketen und verbesserte Standard-3 IB Raketen von…Raytheon sein.“ [9]

Letzten Dezember unterzeichnete Washington eine Truppenstatutsvereinbarung (SOFA), welche Pläne „zur militärischen Stationierung amerikanischer Truppen und militärischer Ausrüstung auf polnischem Gebiet“ formalisiert und „den Weg für die versprochene Stationierung von Patriot-Raketen und US-Truppen…als Teil einer aufgewerteten NATO-Luftverteidigung in Europa freimacht.“ [10]

Im Oktober, kurz nachdem der US-Vizepräsident Joseph Biden Warschau besuchte um den Plan zum Abschluss zu bringen, traf sich der stellvertretende polnische Verteidigungsminister, Stanislaw Komorowski, mit seinem Gegenüber der USA, dem stellvertretenden Verteidigungsminister für internationale Sicherheitsangelegenheiten, Alexander Vershbow, und gab bekannt, dass amerikanische Raketen „gefechtsbereit sein werden und keine Attrappen, wie Washington zuvor vorschlug.“ In demselben Bericht wird zusätzlich angemerkt, dass „Ukrainische und amerikanische Beamte zuvor mitteilten, dass ukrainisches Gebiet auf irgendeine Art bei dem neuen Antiraketenschild genutzt werden könnte.“ [11] Polen grenzt an die russische Enklave Kaliningrad, wohingegen die Ukraine 1.576 Kilometer Grenze mit Russland hat.

Das US-Außenministerium veröffentlichte eine Presseerklärung zu dem Vertrag über die Stationierung amerikanischer Truppen in Polen, den ersten ausländischen Streitkräften die seit dem Ende des Warschauer Pakts 1991 in Polen stationiert werden sollen: „Die Vereinbarung wird ein Spektrum gemeinsam vereinbarter Aktivitäten erleichtern, wozu gemeinsame Ausbildung und Übungen, Stationierungen von US-Militär und voraussichtlich die Stationierung ballistischer Abwehrraketen gehören.“ [12]

Ein Sprecher des Pentagons sagte: „Die US-Armee wird der polnischen Armee bei der Entwicklung ihrer Luft- und Raketenverteidigung helfen. Wenn man das gemeinsame Training bedenkt, was wir mit der polnischen Armee bereits durchführen, so ist dieses Patriot-Trainingsprogramm nur eine Erweiterung dieser Bemühung.“ [13]

Wenn die früheren Pläne, landbasierte Mittelstreckenraketen in Polen zu stationieren, eine, wenn auch unlogische, iranische Raketenbedrohung heraufbeschworen, so können die Patriot-Raketen nur für Russland gemeint sein.

Der russische Generalleutnant Aitech Bizhev, früherer Kommandant der Luftabwehrsysteme der Gemeinschaft Unabhängiger Staaten, teilte einer der großen Nachrichtenagenturen seines Landes mit:

„Es ist völlig unklar, warum die Luftverteidigungsgruppe der NATO-Nordflanke eine Stärkung braucht – die NATO hat mannigfaltige Überlegenheit gegenüber der bestehenden konventionellen Militärtechnik Russlands.

Es kann nicht ausgeschlossen werden, dass der Stationierung von Patriot-Raketen in Polen eine Reihe weiterer Aktionen folgen um die militärische Infrastruktur der Amerikaner in Osteuropa weiter auszubauen…“ [14]

Der Vertrag zur Verringerung strategischer Nuklearwaffen (START) über die Reduzierung und Begrenzung strategischer Offensivwaffen, der zum 05.12.2009 auslief, ist verlängert worden. Aber nach 48 Tagen ist immer noch kein neuer Vertrag zustande gekommen.

Ende letzten Jahres ist der russische Staatspräsident Vladimir Putin zur Verzögerung befragt worden und identifizierte das Haupthindernis, das einer Lösung entgegensteht: „Was ist das Problem? Das Problem ist, dass unsere amerikanischen Partner ein Antiraketenschild errichten und wir keins aufbauen.“

Er führte weiter aus: „Wenn wir kein Antiraketenschild entwickeln, dann besteht die Gefahr, dass sich unsere Partner durch die Schaffung eines solchen „Schirmes“ völlig sicher fühlen werden und es sich daher erlauben können zu tun, was sie wollen, das Gleichgewicht zu stören und die Aggressivität wird umgehend ansteigen.“

Bezüglich der Aussichten, wie es um eine Reduzierung, viel weniger um eine Abschaffung, nuklearer Waffen in Europa und Amerika stünde, ergänzte Putin: „Um das Gleichgewicht zu erhalten…müssen wir ein offensives Waffensystem entwickeln.“ [15] Er wiederholte damit die in der Woche zuvor gemachte Aussage seines ersten stellvertretenden Ministerpräsidenten Medwedew. Das Timing der Ankündigung, dass das Pentagon bald mit der Stationierung von Patriot-Raketen nahe russischen Gebiets beginnt, wird der Sache nicht dienlich sein. Genauso wenig, wie die Behauptung des US-Außenministeriums, dass „die START Nachfolgevereinbarung nicht das geeignete Mittel zur Adressierung“ des Themas von „Raketenangriff und Raketenverteidigung“ ist. [16]

Einen Monat zuvor enthüllten russische Medien, dass „Russlands Strategische Raketenstreitkräfte (SMF), die landbasierte Komponente der nuklearen Dreiergruppe, bis Ende 2009 ein zweites mit einem mobilen Topol-M Raketensystem ausgestattetes Regiment in Gefechtsbereitschaft versetzen werden.

Von der Topol-M-Rakete, mit einer Reichweite von rund 11.000 Kilometern, wird gesagt, dass sie gegenüber der aktuellen und künftigen U.S.-ABM [Antiballistische Raketen] Verteidigung immun sei. Sie ist in der Lage Ausweichmanöver durchzuführen um in der Anflugphase eine Zerstörung durch Abfangraketen [zum Beispiel Patriot-Raketen] zu vermeiden und verfügt über Gegenmaßnahmen und Täuschziele zur Zielablenkung.“ [17]

Genauso, wie die Belieferung Taiwans mit kampfwertgesteigerten antiballistischen Patriot-Raketen (PAC-3) China dazu veranlasste am 11.01.2010 eine bodenbasierte Mittelstreckenabfangübung durchzuführen, ist die Verlegung von US-Militärtechnik und Soldaten an Russland heran ein schlechtes Vorzeichen für einen Vertrag zur Verringerung von Nuklearwaffen.

An der nichtstrategischen Front wird der Vertrag über Konventionelle Streitkräfte in Europa (KSE-Vertrag), der die Menge und Ausweitung von Rüstungsgütern auf dem Kontinent begrenzt, durch die Pläne der USA und der NATO für ein Raketenschild ebenfalls ernsthaft aufs Spiel gesetzt. Der adaptierte KSE-Vertrag von 1999 ist von keinem NATO-Mitgliedsland ratifiziert worden, was sie mit den sogenannten „gefrorenen Konflikten“ der früheren Sowjetunion in Verbindung brachten. Der Georgisch-Russische Krieg im August 2008 war eine Folge dieser quertreiberischen und angriffslustigen Politik. Die Etablierung von ständigen U.S.- und NATO-Militärbasen im Kosovo, in Bulgarien, Rumänien, Litauen und jetzt in Polen ist ein grober Verstoß und könnte sich als Todesstoß für den KSE-Vertrag erweisen.

Russland hat die Einhaltung seiner Verpflichtungen unter dem KSE-Vertrag am 14.07.2007 wegen „außerordentlicher Umstände [ausgesetzt]…, welche die Sicherheit der Russischen Föderation beeinträchtigen und umgehender Maßnahmen bedürfen.“ [18]

Bei den Umständen, auf die angespielt wurde, handelte es sich um das U.S.-Projekt zur Schaffung von Raketenabfanganlagen in Osteuropa und der allgemeinen Verschiebung von NATO-Basen und Streitkräften in die Regionen der Ostsee und Schwarzen Meeres.

Am 29.11.2009 „veröffentlichte [Russland] einen Vorschlagsentwurf für eine neue europäische Sicherheitsvereinbarung, welche, so der Kreml, die veralteten Institutionen, wie die NATO und die Organisation für Sicherheit und Zusammenarbeit in Europa (OSZE), ersetzen soll.“ [19]

Die chinesischen Analysten Yu Maofeng und Lu Jingli behaupteten, dass Moskau von Sorgen über die Raketenpläne der USA und der NATO, der Ausweitung der NATO in Richtung Osten an die russischen Grenzen, den Jugoslawien Krieg im Jahre 1999, die westlich finanzierten „farbigen Revolutionen“ in früheren Sowjetstaaten sowie die Nichtratifikation des Vertrages über Konventionelle Streitkräfte in Europa (KSE-Vertrag) angetrieben wurde.

Seit den vergangenen dreißig Jahren hat jeder nachfolgende Präsident einen vorgeblichen Plan zur Abschaffung von Nuklearwaffen bekanntgegeben, wenn zuvor auch noch keiner von ihnen während seiner Amtszeit den Friedensnobelpreis erhielt. [21] Dafür hatte Jeder von ihnen unbesorgt die Aufrüstung und die bewaffneten Aggressionen im Ausland in dem Bestreben ausgeweitet die weltweite militärische Vorherrschaft zu erlangen. Da ist der gegenwärtige US-Oberbefehlshaber mit seiner außenpolitischen Gefolgschaft von Robert Gates, James Jones und Hillary Clinton keine Ausnahme.

1) Yemen: Pentagon’s War On The Arabian Peninsula
Stop NATO, December 15, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/yemen-pentagons-war-on-the-arabian-peninsula

2) Rumors Of Coups And War: U.S., NATO Target Latin America
Stop NATO, November 18, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/rumors-of-coups-and-war-u-s-nato-target-latin-america

3) Bulgaria, Romania: U.S., NATO Bases For War In The East
Stop NATO, October 24, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/bulgaria-romania-u-s-nato-bases-for-war-in-the-east

4) AFRICOM Year Two: Seizing The Helm Of The Entire World
Stop NATO, October 22, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/africom-year-two-taking-the-helm-of-the-entire-world

5) U.S.-China Military Tensions Grow
Stop NATO, January 19, 2010

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/u-s-china-military-tensions-grow

6) New York Times, January 21, 2010

7) Voice of Russia, December 14, 2009

8 ) U.S. Missile Shield System Deployments: Larger, Sooner, Broader
Stop NATO, September 27, 2009
Black Sea, Caucasus: U.S. Moves Missile Shield South And East
Stop NATO,September 19, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/19/283

U.S. Expands Global Missile Shield Into Middle East, Balkans
Stop NATO, September 11, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/u-s-expands-global-missile-shield-into-middle-east-balkans

9) Bloomberg News, January 14, 2010

10) Polish Radio, December 11, 2009

11) Russia Today, October 16, 2009

12) Stars and Stripes, December 21, 2009

13) Ibid

14) Interfax Ukraine, January 20, 2010

15) Reuters, December 29, 2009

16) Ibid

17) Russian Information Agency Novosti, November 18, 2009

18) Time, July 14, 2007

19) Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, November 30, 2009

20) Strategic considerations behind Russian proposal for new European security treaty
Xinhua News Agency, December 1, 2009

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-12/02/content_12571639.htm

21) Obama Doctrine: Eternal War For Imperfect Mankind
Stop NATO, December 10, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/obama-doctrine-eternal-war-for-imperfect-mankind

22) White House And Pentagon: Change, Continuity And Escalation
Stop NATO, March 19, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/white-house-and-pentagon-change-continuity-and-escalation

Bases, Missiles, Wars: U.S. Consolidates Global Military Network

Stop NATO
January 26, 2010

Bases, Missiles, Wars: U.S. Consolidates Global Military Network
Rick Rozoff

———-
Afghanistan is occupying center stage at the moment, but in the wings are complementary maneuvers to expand a string of new military bases and missile shield facilities throughout Eurasia and the Middle East.

The advanced Patriot theater anti-ballistic missile batteries in place or soon to be in Egypt, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Poland, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates describe an arc stretching from the Baltic Sea through Southeast Europe to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, the Caucasus, the Persian Gulf and beyond to East Asia. A semicircle that begins on Russia’s northwest and ends on China’s northeast.
———-

Over the past decade the United States has steadily (though to much of the world imperceptibly) extended its military reach to most all parts of the world. From subordinating almost all of Europe to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization through the latter’s expansion into Eastern Europe, including the former Soviet Union, to arbitrarily setting up a regional command that takes in the African continent (and all but one of its 53 nations). From invading and establishing military bases in the Middle East and Central and South Asia to operating a satellite surveillance base in Australia and taking charge of seven military installations in South America. In the vacuum left in much of the world by the demise of the Cold War and the former bipolar world, the U.S. rushed in to insert its military in various parts of the world that had been off limits to it before.

And this while Washington cannot even credibly pretend that it is threatened by any other nation on earth.

It has employed a series of tactics to accomplish its objective of unchallenged international armed superiority, using an expanding NATO to build military partnerships not only throughout Europe but in the Caucasus, the Middle East, North and West Africa, Asia and Oceania as well as employing numerous bilateral and regional arrangements.

The pattern that has emerged is that of the U.S. shifting larger concentrations of troops from post-World War II bases in Europe and Japan to smaller, more dispersed forward basing locations south and east of Europe and progressively closer to Russia, Iran and China.

The ever-growing number of nations throughout the world being pulled into Washington’s military network serve three main purposes.

First, they provide air, troop and weapons transit and bases for wars like those against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, for naval operations that are in fact blockades by other names, and for regional surveillance.

Second, they supply troops and military equipment for deployments to war and post-conflict zones whenever and wherever required.

Last, allies and client states are incorporated into U.S. plans for an international missile shield that will put NATO nations and select allies under an impenetrable canopy of interceptors while other nations are susceptible to attack and deprived of the deterrent effect of being able to retaliate.

The degree to which these three components are being integrated is advancing rapidly. The war in Afghanistan is the major mechanism for forging a global U.S. military nexus and one which in turn provides the Pentagon the opportunity to obtain and operate bases from Southeast Europe to Central Asia.

One example that illustrates this global trend is Colombia. In early August the nation’s vice president announced that the first contingent of Colombian troops were to be deployed to serve under NATO command in Afghanistan. Armed forces from South America will be assigned to the North Atlantic bloc to fight a war in Asia. The announcement of the Colombian deployment came shortly after another: That the Pentagon would acquire seven new military bases in Colombia.

When the U.S. deploys Patriot missile batteries to that nation – on its borders with Venezuela and Ecuador – the triad will be complete.

Afghanistan is occupying center stage at the moment, but in the wings are complementary maneuvers to expand a string of new military bases and missile shield facilities throughout Eurasia and the Middle East.

On January 28 the British government will host a conference in London on Afghanistan that, in the words of what is identified as the UK Government’s Afghanistan website, will be co-hosted by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Afghanistan’s President Karzai and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and co-chaired by British Foreign Minister David Miliband, his outgoing Afghan counterpart Rangin Spanta, and UN Special Representative to Afghanistan, Kai Eide.

The site announces that “The international community are [sic] coming together to fully align military and civilian resources behind an Afghan-led political strategy.” [1]

The conference will also be attended by “foreign ministers from International Security Assistance Force partners, Afghanistan’s immediate neighbours and key regional player [sic].”

Public relations requirements dictate that concerns about the well-being of the Afghan people, “a stable and secure Afghanistan” and “regional cooperation” be mentioned, but the meeting will in effect be a war council, one that will be attended by the foreign ministers of scores of NATO and NATO partner states.

In the two days preceding the conference NATO’s Military Committee will meet at the Alliance’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. “Together with the Chiefs of Defence of all 28 NATO member states, 35 Chiefs of Defence of Partner countries and Troop Contributing Nations will also be present.” [2]

That is, top military commanders from 63 nations – almost a third of the world’s 192 countries – will gather at NATO Headquarters to discuss the next phase of the expanding war in South Asia and the bloc’s new Strategic Concept. Among those who will attend the two-day Military Committee meeting are General Stanley McChrystal, in charge of all U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan; Admiral James Stavridis, chief U.S. military commander in Europe and NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander; Pakistani Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Israeli Chief of General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi.

Former American secretary of state Madeleine Albright has been invited to speak about the Strategic Concept on behalf of the twelve-member Group of Experts she heads, whose task it is to promote NATO’s 21st century global doctrine.

The Brussels meeting and London conference highlight the centrality that the war in Afghanistan has for the West and for its international military enforcement mechanism, NATO.

During the past few months Washington has been assiduously recruiting troops from assorted NATO partnership program nations for the war in Afghanistan, including from Armenia, Bahrain, Bosnia, Colombia, Jordan, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Ukraine and other nations that had not previously provided contingents to serve under NATO in the South Asian war theater. Added to forces from all 28 NATO member states and from Partnership for Peace, Mediterranean Dialogue, Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, Adriatic Charter and Contact Country programs, the Pentagon and NATO are assembling a coalition of over fifty nations for combat operations in Afghanistan.

Almost as many NATO partner nations as full member states have committed troops for the Afghanistan-Pakistan war: Afghanistan itself, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Colombia, Egypt, Finland, Georgia, Ireland, Jordan, Macedonia, Mongolia, Montenegro, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates.

The Afghan war zone is a colossal training ground for troops from around the world to gain wartime experience, to integrate armed forces from six continents under a unified command, and to test new weapons and weapons systems in real-life combat conditions.

Not only candidates for NATO membership but all nations in the world the U.S. has diplomatic and economic leverage over are being pressured to support the war in Afghanistan.

The American Forces Press Service featured a story last month about the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force’s Regional Command East which revealed: “In addition to…French forces, Polish forces are in charge of battle space, and the Czech Republic, Turkey and New Zealand manage provincial reconstruction teams. In addition, servicemembers and civilians from Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates work with the command, and South Korea runs a hospital in the region.”

With the acknowledgment that Egyptian forces are assigned to NATO’s Afghan war, it is now known that troops from all six populated continents are subordinated to NATO in one war theater. [3]

How commitment to the Alliance’s first ground war relates to the Pentagon securing bases and a military presence spreading out in all directions from Afghanistan and how worldwide interceptor missile plans are synchronized with both developments can be shown region by region.

Central And South Asia

After the U.S. Operation Enduring Freedom attacks on and subjugation of Afghanistan began in October of 2001 Washington and its NATO allies acquired the indefinite use of air and other military bases in Afghanistan, including Soviet-built airfields. The West also moved into bases in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and with less fanfare in Pakistan and Turkmenistan. It has also gained transit rights from Kazakhstan and NATO conducted its first military exercise in that nation, Zhetysu 2009, last September.

The U.S. has lobbied the Kazakh government to supply troops for NATO in Afghanistan (as it had earlier in Iraq) under the bloc’s Partnership for Peace provisions.

The Black Sea

The year after Romania was brought into NATO as a full member in 2004 the U.S. signed an agreement to gain control over four bases in Romania, including the Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base. The next year a similar pact was signed with Bulgaria for the use of three military installations, two of them air bases. The Pentagon’s Joint Task Force-East (which operates from the above-named base) conducted nearly three-month-long joint military exercises last summer in Bulgaria and Romania in preparation for deployment to Afghanistan.

On January 24 eight Romanian and Bulgaria soldiers were wounded in a rocket attack on a NATO base in Southern Afghanistan. Three days earlier Romania announced that it would deploy 600 more troops to that nation, bringing its numbers to over 1,600. Bulgaria has also pledged to increase its troop strength there and is considering consolidating all its forces in the country in Kandahar, one of the deadliest provinces in the war zone.

Late last November Foreign Minister Rumyana Zheleva of Bulgaria was in Washington, D.C. to “hear the ideas of US President Barack Obama’s administration on the strategy of the anti-missile defense in Europe.” [4]

During the same month Bogdan Aurescu, State Secretary for Strategic Affairs in the Romanian Foreign Ministry, stated that “The new variant of the US anti-missile shield could cover Romania.” [5] A local newspaper at the time commented on Washington’s new “stronger, smarter, and swifter” missile shield plans that “A strong and modern surveillance system located in Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey could monitor three hot areas at once: the Black Sea, the Caucasus and the Caspian and relevant zones in the Middle East.” [6]

Also last November a Russian news source wrote that “Anonymous sources in the Russian intelligence community say that the United States plans to supply weapons, including a Patriot-3 air defense system and shoulder-launched Stinger missiles, worth a total of $100 million, to Georgia.” [7] In October the U.S. led the two-week Immediate Response 2009 war games to prepare the first of an estimated 1,000 Georgian troops for counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan, prompting neighboring Abkhazia – which knew who the military training was also aimed against – to stage its own exercises at the same time.

American Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptor missiles in Georgia would be deployed against Russia, as they will be 35 miles from its border in Poland.

Former head of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency Lt. Gen. Henry Obering stated two years ago that Georgia and even Ukraine were potential locations for American missile shield deployments.

Middle East

Last October and November the U.S. and Israel held their largest-ever joint military exercise, Operation Juniper Cobra 10, which established another precedent in addition to the number of troops and warships involved: The simultaneous testing of five missile defense systems. An American military official present at the war games was one of several sources acknowledging that the exercises were in preparation for the Barack Obama administration’s more extensive, NATO-wide and broader, missile interception system. Juniper Cobra was the initiation of the U.S. X-Band radar station opened in 2008 in Israel’s Negev Desert. Over 100 American service members are based there for the foreseeable future, the first U.S. troops formally deployed in that nation.

In December the Jerusalem Post quoted an unnamed Israeli defense official as saying “The expansion of the war in Afghanistan opens a door for us.”

The same source wrote “the NATO-U.S. plan to deploy a cross-continent missile shield in Europe also represents an opportunity for the Jewish state to market its military platforms….” [8]

“Meanwhile, recent months have seen several senior NATO officials travel to Israel for discussions that reportedly focused on, among other things, how Israel could help NATO troops fight in Afghanistan.” [9]

Last June Israeli President Shimon Peres led a 60-member delegation that included Defense Ministry Director-General Pinhas Buchris to Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, on opposite ends of the Caspian Sea. A year ago “Kazakhstan’s defense ministry said…it had asked Israel to help it modernize its military and produce weapons that comply with NATO standards.” [10]

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is the first Arab country to provide troops to NATO for Afghanistan. It has a partnership arrangement with NATO under provisions of the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative for Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members.

Early this month a local newspaper announced that “the UAE became the largest foreign purchaser of US defence equipment with sales of $7.9bn, ahead of Afghanistan ($5.4bn), Saudi Arabia ($3.3bn) and Taiwan ($3.2bn).

“The spending included orders for munitions for the UAE’s F-16 fighter jets as well as a new Patriot defensive missile system and a fleet of corvettes for the navy.” [11]

Nine days later the same newspaper reported on a visit by Lt. Gen. Michael Hostage, commander of the U.S. Air Force Central Command, to discuss “the possibility of setting up a shared early warning system and enhancing the region’s ballistic-missile deterrence.”

Hostage was quoted as saying “I am attempting to organize a regional integrated air and missile defense capability with our GCC partners.” [12]

An Emirati general added, “The GCC needs a national and multinational ballistic missile defence (BMD) to counter long-range proliferating regional ballistic missile threats.” [13]

The missile shield is aimed against Iran.

Last September Pentagon chief Robert Gates said, “The reality is we are working both on a bilateral and a multilateral basis in the Gulf to establish the same kind of regional missile defense [as envisioned for Europe] that would protect our facilities out there as well as our friends and allies.” [14]

“In a September 17 briefing, Gates said…the United States has already formed a Gulf missile defense network that consisted of PAC-3 and the Aegis sea-based systems.” The exact system soon to be deployed in the Baltic Sea and Mediterranean and afterwards the Black Sea.

In addition, the “UAE has ordered the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, designed to destroy nuclear missiles in the exoatmosphere.

“Over the last two years, the Pentagon has been meeting GCC military chiefs to discuss regional and national missile defense programs….At the same time, the U.S. military has been operating PAC-3 in Kuwait and Qatar. The U.S. Army has also been helping Saudi Arabia upgrade its PAC-2 fleet.” [15]

Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News reported at the end of last year that “Turkey is set to make crucial defense decisions in 2010 as the U.S. offer to join a missile shield program and multibillion-dollar contracts are looming over the country’s agenda.

“If a joint NATO missile shield is developed, such a move may force Ankara to join the mechanism despite the possible Iranian reaction….U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has invited Ankara to join a Western missile shield system….” [16]

An account of the broader strategy adds:

“U.S. officials are also urging Turkey to choose the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) against Russian and Chinese rivals competing for a Turkish contract for the purchase of high-altitude and long-range antimissile defense systems….[A] new plan calls for the creation of a regional system in southeastern Europe, the Mediterranean and part of the Middle East.

“In phase one of the new Obama plan, the U.S. will deploy SM-3 interceptor missiles and radar surveillance systems on sea-based Aegis weapons systems by 2011. In phase two and by 2015, a more capable version of the SM-3 interceptor and more advanced sensors will be used in both sea-and land-based configurations. In later phases three and four, intercepting and detecting capabilities further will be developed.” [17]

One of Russia’s main news agencies reported on U.S. plans to incorporate Turkey into its new missile designs, with Turkey as the only NATO state bordering Iran serving as the bridge between a continent-wide system in Europe and its extension into the Middle East: “According to the Milliyet daily, U.S. President Barack Obama last week proposed placing a ‘missile shield’ on Turkish soil….Both Russia and Iran will perceive that [deployment] as a threat,’ a Turkish military source was quoted as saying.” [18]

A broader description of the interceptor missile project in progress includes: “Obama’s team has…sought to ‘NATO-ise’ the US plan by involving other allies more closely in its development and deployment. The idea is to create a NATO chain of command similar to that long used for allied air defences. That would involve a NATO ‘backbone’ for command-and-control jointly funded by the allies, into which the US sea-based defences and other national assets, such as short-range Patriot missile interceptors purchased by European nations including Germany, the Netherlands and Greece, could be ‘plugged in’ to the NATO system creating a multi-layered defence shield.” [19]

The advanced Patriot theater anti-ballistic missile batteries in place or soon to be in Egypt, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Poland, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates describe an arc stretching from the Baltic Sea through Southeast Europe to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, the Caucasus, the Persian Gulf and beyond to East Asia. A semicircle that begins on Russia’s northwest and ends on China’s northeast.

Baltic Sea

Poland’s Defense Ministry revealed on January 20 that the U.S. will deploy a Patriot Advanced Capability-3 anti-ballistic missile battery and 100 troops to a Baltic Sea location 35 miles from Russian territory.

The country’s foreign minister – former investment adviser to Rupert Murdoch and resident fellow of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. -Radek Sikorski, recently pledged to increase Polish troop numbers in Afghanistan from the current 1,955. “We will be at 2,600 by April and 400 additional troops on standby, which we will deploy if there is a need to strengthen security.” [20]

Fellow Baltic littoral states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania combined have almost 500 troops in Afghanistan, a number likely to rise. The Lithuanian Siauliai Air Base was ceded to NATO in 2004 after the three Baltic states became full members. The Alliance has flown regular air patrols in the region, with U.S. warplanes participating in four-month rotations, ever since. Within a few minutes flight from Russia.

The three nations will be probable docking sites for U.S. Aegis-class warships and their Standard Missile-3 interceptors under new Pentagon-NATO missile shield deployments.

Far East Asia

South Korea pledged 350 troops for NATO’s Afghan war last year and in late December Seoul announced that it would send a ranking officer for the first time “to attend a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) conference to seek ways to strengthen cooperation with other nations in dispatching troops to Afghanistan and coordinate military operations there,” [21] likely a reference to the January 26-27 Military Committee meeting.

In the middle of January the U.S. conducted Beverly Bulldog 10-01 exercises in South Korea which “involved more than 7,200 U.S. airmen at Osan and Kunsan air bases and other points around the peninsula in an air war exercise” and “about 125 soldiers of the U.S. Army’s Patriot missile unit in South Korea….” [22]

On January 14 the new government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama ended Japan’s naval refuelling mission carried out in support of the U.S. war in Afghanistan since 2001. However, pressure will be exerted on Tokyo at the January 28 conference in London, particularly by Hillary Clinton, to reengage in some capacity.

On last year’s anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, the U.S. and Japan held joint war games, Yama Sakura (Mountain Cherry Blossom), on the island of Hokkaido in northernmost Japan, that part of the country nearest Russia on the Sea of Japan. North Korea was the probable alleged belligerent.

Over 5,000 troops participated in drills that included “battling a regional threat that includes missile defenses, air defense and ground-forces operations….”

“Japan’s military has been actively developing its anti-missile defenses in cooperation with the United States. It currently has deployed Patriot PAC-3 missile defenses at several locations and also has two sea-based Aegis-equipped Kongo-class warships with anti-missile interceptors,” [23] the latter having engaged in joint SM-3 missile interceptions with the U.S. off Hawaii.

If support for the war in Afghanistan is linked with deployment of tactical missile shield installations in Israel and Poland, in the first case aimed at Iran and in the second at Russia, the case of Taiwan is even more overt.

Almost immediately after announcements that the U.S. would provide it with over 200 Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles and double the amount of frigates it had earlier supplied, with Taiwan planning to use the warships for Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System upgrades, the nation’s China Times newspaper wrote that “Following a recent US-Taiwan military deal, the Obama administration has demanded that Taiwan provide non-military aid for troops in Afghanistan….The US wants Taiwan to provide medical or engineering assistance to US troops in Afghanistan that will be increased….” [24] Dispatching troops to Afghanistan would be too gratuitous an incitement against China (which shares a narrow border with the South Asian nation), but Taiwan will nevertheless be levied to support the war effort there.

Wars: Stepping Stones For New Bases, Future Conflicts

The 78-day U.S. and NATO air war against Yugoslavia in 1999, Operation Allied Force, allowed the Pentagon to construct the mammoth Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo and within ten years to incorporate five Balkans nations into NATO. It also prepared the groundwork for U.S. Navy warships to dock at ports in Albania, Croatia and Montenegro.

Two years later the attack on Afghanistan led to the deployment of U.S. and NATO troops, armor and warplanes to five nations in Central and South Asia. The war in Afghanistan and Pakistan has also contributed to the Pentagon’s penetration of the world’s second most populous nation, India, which is being pulled into the American military orbit and integrated into global NATO. The U.S. and Israel are supplanting Russia as India’s main arms supplier and U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently returned from India where his mission included “lifting bilateral military relations from a policy-alignment plane to a commercial platform that will translate into larger contracts for American companies.” [25]

With the quickly developing expansion of the Afghanistan-Pakistan war into an Afghanistan-Pakistan-Yemen-Somalia theater, NATO warships are in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean and the U.S. has stationed Reaper drones, aircraft and troops in Seychelles. [On the same day as the London conference on Afghanistan a parallel meeting on Yemen will be held in the same city.]

After the 2003 invasion of Iraq the Pentagon gained air and other bases in that nation as well as what it euphemistically calls forward operating sites and base camps in Jordan, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

In less than a decade the Pentagon and NATO have acquired strategic air bases and ones that can be upgraded to that status in Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania and Romania.

Global NATO And Militarization Of The Planet

The January 26 Chief of Defense session of NATO’s Military Committee with top military leaders of 63 countries attending – while the bloc is waging and escalating the world’s largest and lengthiest war thousands of miles away from the Atlantic Ocean – is indicative of the pass that the post-Cold War world has arrived at. Never in any context other than meetings of NATO’s Military Committee do the military chiefs of so many nations (including at least five of the world’s eight nuclear powers), practically a third of the world’s, gather together.

That the current meeting is dedicated to NATO operations on three continents and in particular to the world’s only military bloc’s new Strategic Concept for the 21st century – and for the planet – would have been deemed impossible twenty or even ten years ago. As would have been the U.S. and its NATO allies invading and occupying a Middle Eastern and a South Asian nation. And the elaboration of plans for an international interceptor missile system with land, air, sea and space components. In fact, though, all have occurred or are underway and all are integrated facets of a concerted drive for global military superiority.

1) http://afghanistan.hmg.gov.uk/en/conference
2) NATO, Allied Command Transformation, January 22, 2010
3) http://www.isaf.nato.int/en/article/news/u.s.-chairman-of-the-joint-chiefs-of-staff-tours-bases-outposts.html
4) Standart News, November 25, 2009
5) ACT Media, November 16, 2009
6) The Diplomat, November, 2009
7) RosBusinessConsulting/Komsomolskaya Pravda, November 10, 2009
8) Jerusalem Post, December 3, 2009
9) Xinhua News Agency, December 3, 2009
10) Agence France-Presse, January 22, 2009
11) The National, January 2, 2010
12) The National, January 11, 2010
13) Gulf News, January 12, 2010
14) World Tribune, September 30, 2009
15) Ibid
16) Hurriyet Daily News, December 30, 2009
17) Ibid
18) Russian Information Agency Novosti, December 16, 2009
19) Europolitics, January 20, 2010
20) Sunday Telegraph, January 17, 2010
21) Xinhua News Agency, December 22, 2009
22) Stars and Stripes, January 16, 2010
23) Washington Times, December 3, 2009
24) China Times, December 27, 2009
25) The Telegraph (Calcutta), January 2, 2009

Aumenta la tensión militar entre Estados Unidos y China

Stop NATO
January 26, 2010

Aumenta la tensión militar entre Estados Unidos y China
Rick Rozoff

Traducido del inglés para Rebelión por Beatriz Morales Bastos

http://rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=99296

———-
A pesar de que el presupuesto militar de Estados Unidos es casi diez veces el de China (que tiene una población más de cuatro veces mayor) y de que Washington planea un presupuesto de defensa récord de 708.000 millones de dólares para el próximo año en comparación con el de Rusia, que el año pasado gastó en el suyo menos de 40.000 millones, China y a Rusia son retratados como amenazas para Estados Unidos y sus aliados.

China no tiene tropas fuera de sus fronteras; Rusia tiene unas pocas en sus antiguos territorios de Abjazia, Armenia, Osetia del Sur y Transdniester. Estados Unidos tiene cientos de miles de soldados estacionados en seis continentes.

Cuando [Robert] Gates era el responsable de las guerras en Afganistán e Iraq, y de casi la mitad del gasto militar internacional, le pareció inadmisible que la nación más poblada del mundo aspirase a “negar a los demás países la capacidad de amenazarla”.
———-

El 23 de diciembre del año pasado la Compañía Raytheon anunció que había recibido un contrato de 1.100 millones de dólares con Taiwán para la compra de 200 misiles antibalísticos Patriot. A principios de junio el Departamento de Defensa estadounidense autorizó la transacción “a pesar de la oposición de su rival China, donde un oficial militar propuso sancionar a las empresas estadounidenses que vendieran armas a la isla” [1].

La venta completa era un paquete por valor de 6.500 millones de dólares, aprobada por la anterior administración de George W. Bush a finales de 2008. En palabras de la agencia principal en Asia de Defense News, “ésta es la última pieza que Taiwán estaba esperando” [2].

Defense News era la primera en informar sobre el acuerdo y recordaba a sus lectores que “Raytheon ya había logrado contratos más pequeños con Taiwán en enero de 2009 y en 2008 para mejorar los sistemas Patriot que poseía el país. Estos contratos eran para mejorar los sistemas hasta llegar a la Configuración 3, la misma mejora que la compañía está llevando a cabo para el ejército estadounidense”.

La fuente también describía en qué consiste la capacidad mejorada Patriot: “Configuración 3 es el sistema Patriot de Raytheon más avanzado y permite el uso de misiles Patriot de Capacidad 3 Avanzada (PAC-3, en sus siglas en inglés, como las demás que vienen a continuación) de Lockheed [y] misiles de Táctica de Orientación de Misiles Mejorada [Patriot-2 mejorada] de Raytheon [...]” [3].

El PAC-3 es el último y más avanzado diseño de misiles Patriot y el primero capaz de derribar misiles balísticos tácticos. Es el primer nivel de sistema del escudo de misiles escalonado que incluye también el Área de Defensa Terminal de Gran Altitud (THAAD), el Interceptor de Base en Tierra (GBI), el Interceptor de Base en Tierra de Medio Curso (GMD), el Área de Defensa Terminal de Gran Altitud (THAAD), la Defensa de Misiles Balísticos Aegis basado en barcos equipados con interceptores de Missile Estandar-3 (SM-3), el Radar de Banda-X Delantero (FBXB) y componentes del Vehículo Asesino Exoatmosférico (EKV). Una red integrada que abarca desde el campo de batalla hasta los cielos.

El sistema es modular y altamente móvil, y de este modo sus baterías son capaces de evitar más fácilmente la detección y el ataque. También aumenta varias veces el alcance de las versiones anteriores de Patriot.

“Los interceptores PAC-3, mejorados con un radar avanzado y un comando central, son capaces de proteger una zona aproximadamente siete veces mayor que el sistema Patriot original” [4].

Si, como el resto del mundo, las autoridades chinas previeron una reducción, por no decir una detención, del ritmo de la expansión militar global estadounidense con la llegada de una nueva administración estadounidense hace un año, como todos los demás ellos también se han sentido bruscamente desengañados.

A principios de este mes, en la sexta advertencia oficial en una semana, el viceministro de Exteriores He Yafei urgió a Estados Unidos a reconsiderar el paquete de armas para Taiwán en una declaración a la agencia oficial de noticias Xinhua: “China ha protestado enérgicamente ante la reciente decisión del gobierno estadounidense de permitir que la Compañía Raytheon y a Lockheed Martin Corp. venda armas a Taiwán” y “la venta de armas de Estados Unidos a Taiwán mina la seguridad nacional de China” [5].

Una información posterior se sumó a lo que ya existía y a la ira de China cuando se reveló que “la administración Obama pronto anunciaría la venta a Taiwán de un paquete por valor de miles de millones de dolares, con helicópteros Black Hawk, sistemas antimisiles y planos de submarinos diesel, en una medida posiblemente tomada para enfurecer a China” [6].

Además, el China Times informó de que Taiwán iba a obtener de Estados Unidos fragatas de clase Oliver Hazard Perry de segunda mano, además de 200 misiles Patriot. Los barcos de guerra se diseñaron en la década de 1970 como alternativas comparativamente baratas a los destructores de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. El nuevo trato duplicará la cantidad de fragatas clase Perry estadounidenses que Taiwán ya posee hasta llegar a 16.

También incluirán una defensa de misiles de alto nivel, ya que “la isla espera armarlos con una versión del Sistema de Combate Aegis avanzado (véase más arriba), que utiliza ordenadores y radar para eliminar múltiples objetivos, así como una sofistica tecnología de lanzamiento de misiles [...]” [7].

Aunque Washington y Taipei presentarán las transacciones de armas como de una naturaleza estrictamente defensiva, merece la pena recordar que el pasado otoño Taiwán llevó a cabo sus “mayores pruebas realizadas hasta entonces de lanzamiento de misiles desde una base secreta y rigurosamente custodiada en el sur de Taiwán” con misiles “capaces de alcanzar a las principales ciudades chinas” [8].

El president Ma Ying-jeou asistió al lanzamiento de misiles que “incluía la prueba de lanzamiento de un misil tierra-tierra top secret y desarrollado recientemente, con un alcance de 3.000 kilómetros, capaz de atacar las ciudades principales en el centro, norte y sur de China” [9].

El PAC y el interceptor de misiles SM-3 que Estados Unidos está proporcionado a Taiwán se podría utilizar perfectamente para un contraataque desde China continental o al menos para proteger los lugares de lanzamiento de misiles de Taiwán de medio alcance que, como se ha señalado antes, son capaces de atacar la mayoría de las principales ciudades chinas.

El 11 de enero Beijing respondió llevando a cabo una prueba de intercepción de misiles de tierra de curso medio en su territorio.

El professor Tan Kaijia, de la Universidad de Defensa Nacional del Ejército de Liberación del Pueblo (PLA), declaró a Xinhua: “Si se considera el misil balístico una lanza, ahora hemos logrado construir un escudo para defendernos” [10].

La revista Time describió la importancia de la prueba al escribir: “No hay posibilidad de que la táctica de China disuada a Estados Unidos de respaldar a Taiwán [...]. Pero la prueba indica un paso más en las tensiones entre Beijing y Washington [...]” [11].

Tanto China como Estados Unidos destruyeron satélites en órbita, el primero en 2007 y el segundo al año siguiente, con un Misil-3 Estándar lanzado desde una fragata Aegis situada en el océano Pacífico en el caso estadounidense. Había empezado el alba de la guerra del espacio.

Un artículo del 15 de enero, publicado en una página web rusa, titulado “Posible guerra del espacio en un futuro próximo”, proporcionaba los siguientes antecedentes: “Es difícil sobrestimar el papel desempeñado por los sistemas de satélites militares. Desde la década de 1970 una cantidad cada vez mayor de procesos de control de tropas, telecomunicaciones, adquisición de objetivos, navegación y otros procesos depende de naves espaciales que desde entonces se están volviendo más importantes [...]. El papel del escalón espacial es directamente proporcional al nivel de desarrollo de cualquier nación y de sus fuerzas armadas” [12].

Durante años China y Rusia han defendido la prohibición del uso del espacio para propósitos militares y plantean anualmente el problema en las Naciones Unidas. Estados Unidos simplemente se ha opuesto con la misma persistencia a las iniciativas.

Para entender el contexto en el que han ocurrido los acontecimientos recientes, durante tres años Washington ha incluido cada vez más y de forma tendenciosa a China y Rusia, con Irán y Corea del Norte, como [países] agresivos en posibles conflictos futuros

La campaña empezó a principios de febrero de 2007, cuando el todavía jefe del Pentágono Robert Gates testificó ante el Comité de Servicios Armados Estadounidense sobre la Solicitud de Presupuesto del Departamento de Defensa para el año fiscal y dijo entre otras cosas: “Además de luchar la guerra global contra el terrorismo nos enfrentamos también al peligro planteado por las ambiciones nucleares de Irán y Corea del Norte, y a la amenaza que plantean no sólo a sus vecinos sino también globalmente debido a su historial de proliferación; a los inciertos caminos de China y Rusia, que siguen ambos con sofisticados programas de modernización militar; y a toda una serie de otros puntos álgidos y de desafíos [...]. Nosotros mismos necesitamos capacidad para conflictos fuerza a fuerza regulares porque no sabemos qué se va a desarrollar en lugares como Rusia y China, en Corea del Norte, en Irán y en cualquier otro lugar” [13].

Si se objetara que Gates sólo estaba aludiendo a unos planes de eventualidades generales que se podrían aplicar a cualquier nación importante, desde entonces ni sus comentaristas ni ninguno de los altos cargos estadounidenses de defensa han mencionado a potencias nucleares amigas como Gran Bretaña, Francia, India e Israel, pero han reiterado su preocupación por Rusia y China con una regularidad alarmante. De hecho, China y Rusia han sustituido a Iraq en la antigua categoría del eje del mal.

A pesar de que el presupuesto militar de Estados Unidos es casi diez veces el de China (que tiene una población más de cuatro veces mayor) y de que Washington planea un presupuesto de defensa récord de 708.000 millones de dólares para el próximo año en comparación con el de Rusia que el año pasado gastó en el suyo menos de 40.000 millones, China y a Rusia son retratados como amenazas para Estados Unidos y sus aliados.

Tanto Rusia como China reaccionaron severamente ante las declaraciones de Gates en febrero de 2007 y sólo tres días después el presidente ruso Vladímir Putin pronunció un discurso, con Gates en la audiencia, en la Conferencia anual de Seguridad de Munich, en el que advirtió:

“¿Qué es un mundo unipolar? Se embellezca como se embellezca el término, a fin de cuentas se refiere a un tipo de situación, a saber, un centro de autoridad, un centro de fuerza, un centro de toma de decisiones.

Es un mundo en el que hay un amo, un soberano. Y a fin de cuentas esto es pernicioso no sólo para aquellos que están dentro del sistema, sino también para el propio soberano, porque se destruye a sí mismo desde dentro.

Las acciones unilaterales y con frecuencia ilegítimas no han resuelto ningún problema. Es más, han causado nuevas tragedias humanas y creado nuevos centros de tensión. Juzguen ustedes mismos: no han disminuido las guerras ni los conflictos locales y regionales [...]. Y no muere menos gente en estos conflictos, sino que mueren incluso más que antes, ¡considerablemente más, considerablemente más!

Hoy somos testigos de un uso desmedido de la fuerza (de la fuerza militar) casi incontrolado en las relaciones internacionales, fuerza que está sumiendo al mundo en un abismo de conflictos permanentes.

Un Estado y, por supuesto, el primero y más importante, Estados Unidos, ha sobrepasado sus límites nacionales en todos los sentidos. Esto es visible en las políticas económicas, políticas, culturales y educativas que impone a otras naciones [...]” [14].

En Washington no se tuvo en cuenta la advertencia.

Tres meses después el jefe del Pentágono reanudó sus anteriores acusaciones. En mayo de 2007 el Departamento de Defensa publicó su informe anual sobre la capacidad militar de China que citaba “los continuos esfuerzos de proyectar poder chino más allá de su región inmediata y de desarrollar sistemas de alta tecnología que pueden desafiar a lo mejor de mundo. El Secretario de Defensa estadounidense Robert Gates afirma que le preocupan algunos de los esfuerzos de China”.

El informe afirmaba: “China está llevando a cabo una transformación a largo plazo y total de sus fuerzas militares” para “permitirle proyectar poder y negar a otros países la posibilidad de amenazarla” [15]. Cuando Gates era el responsable de las guerras en Afganistán e Iraq, y de casi la mitad del gasto militar internacional, le pareció inadmisible que la nación más poblada del mundo aspirase a “negar a los demás países la capacidad de amenazarla”.

Un año después de que Gates vinculara a China y Rusia con los países sospechosos supervivientes del “eje del mal” Irán y Corea del Norte, el Director Nacional de Inteligencia Michael McConnell señaló a China, Rusia y la Organización de Países Exportadores de Petróleo (OPEC) como las mayores amenazas para Estados Unidos, más incluso que al-Qaeda.

Voice of Russia respondió a las acusaciones de McDonnell en un comentario en el que se incluían los siguientes extractos:

“Rusia ha exigido una explicación a Estados Unidos por un informe del Director de la Inteligencia estadounidense en el que se mencionaba a Rusia, China, Iraq, Irán, Corea del Norte y al-Qaeda como fuentes de amenazas estratégicas para Estados Unidos [...]. Muy posiblemente, el informe de la comunidad de inteligencia estadounidense equivale a dar cuentas por la increíble cantidad de dinero que cada año se asigna a su mantenimiento. Podría haber otras razones que explicaran por qué se ha incluido a Rusia entre los Estados que plantean una amenaza para Estados Unidos” [16].

Gates ha permanecido como Secretario de Defensa de la nueva administración estadounidense y lo mismo su retórica antichina y antirrusa.

El pasado 1 de mayo la Secretaria de Estado Hillary Clinton afirmó que “la administración Obama está trabajando para mejorar las deterioradas relaciones con varias naciones de América Latina para contrarrestar la creciente influencia iraní, china y rusa en el hemisferio occidental [...]” [17]. El mes después de pronunciar estas palabras se dio un golpe de Estado en Honduras, dos semanas después de que Estados Unidos se asegurara el uso de siete bases militares en Colombia.

En septiembre el Director de la Inteligencia Nacional Dennis Blair dio a conocer el informe de Estrategia de Inteligencia Nacional de Estados Unidos, publicado cada cuatro años, en el que se afirmaba que “Rusia, China, Irán y Corea de Norte plantean los mayores desafíos para los intereses nacionales de Estados Unidos” [18].

La agencia France-Presse afirmó que “el 15 de septiembre Estados Unidos situó a la emergente superpotencia China y al enemigo de la Guerra Fría, Rusia, al lado de Irán y Corea del Norte en la lista de las cuatro principales naciones que desafían los intereses estadounidenses” y citaba del informe de Blair: se señalaba a China por su “ diplomacia cada vez más centrada en las fuentes naturales y su modernización militar. Rusia es un socio de Estados Unidos en importantes iniciativas, como garantizar material físil y luchar contra el terrorismo nuclear, pero puede que continúe buscando vías para reafirmar poder e influencia de una manera que complica los intereses estadounidense” [19].

A China no se le permite negar a otras naciones la posibilidad de amenazarla y a Rusia no se le permite complicar los intereses estadounidenses.

Esta tendencia, cuya persistencia no presagia nada bueno, ha continuado este año.

El vicepresidente del Sistema de Defensa de Misiles de Lockheed Martin, John Holly, promocionó el papel de su compañía en el Sistema de Defensa de Misiles Balísticos Aegis (cuyos componentes se están entregando a Taiwán) como “la estrella resplandeciente” de la cartera de interceptores de misiles de Lockheed, y según un periódico de la ciudad que alberga la Agencia de Defensa de Misiles del Pentágono, “al señalar a los programas de misiles de Corea del Norte, Irán, Rusia y China, Holly dijo: ‘el mundo no es un mundo muy seguro [...] y nos incumbe a nosotros en la industria proporcionar [al Pentágono] las mejores capacidades’” [20].

Tres días después del Asesor del Pentágono del Secretario de Defensa para Cuestiones de Seguridad para Asia y el Pacífico, Wallace Gregson, “expresó sus dudas acerca de la insistencia de China en que su uso del espacio es para medios pacíficos” y afirmó que “los chinos han afirmado que se oponen a la militarización del espacio. Sus acciones parecen indicar la intención contraria” [21].

Al día siguiente el almirante Robert Willard, jefe del Comando Estadounidense del Pacífico, declaró en un testimonio ante el Comité de los Servicios Armados que “la poderosa maquinaria económica de China también está financiando el programa de modernización militar que ha suscitado preocupación en la zona, una preocupación también compartida por el Comando Estadounidense del Pacífico” [22].

La Armada estadounidense tienen seis flotas y once grupos de ataque con portaaviones repartidos en todo el mundo o preparados para el despliegue, pero China con sólo una armada de “aguas marrones”* en sus propias costas es causa de preocupación para Estados Unidos.

Como escribió el pasado mes de septiembre Alan Mackinnon, presidente de la Campaña Escocesa por el Desarme Nuclear:

“El mundo de la guerra hoy está dominado por una única superpotencia. En términos militares Estados Unidos se asienta en el mundo como un coloso. Un país con sólo el 5% de la población mundial es responsable de casi el 50% del gasto global en armamento.

Sus once flotas navales con portaaviones patrullan cada océano y sus 909 bases militares están repartidas estratégicamente por todos los continentes. Ningún otro país tiene bases recíprocas en el territorio estadounidense, sería impensable e inconstitucional. Hace veinte años que acabó la Guerra Fría y Estados Unidos y sus aliados no se enfrentan hoy a ninguna amenaza militar significativa. Entonces, ¿por qué no hemos tenido el esperado dividendo de paz? ¿Por que la nación más poderosa de la tierra sigue aumentando su presupuesto militar, que supera ahora los 1,2 trillones de dólares en un año en términos reales? ¿Qué amenaza se supone que va a contrarrestar todo eso?

La respuesta estadounidense ha sido en gran parte militar, la expansión de la OTAN y encerrar a Rusia y China dentro de un anillo de bases y alianzas hostiles. Y sigue presionando para aislar y debilitar Irán” [23].

Unas observaciones que la gente tendrá que tener muy presentes mientras China es presentada cada vez más como un desafío para la seguridad (y una amenaza estratégica) de la única superpotencia militar del mundo.

Artículos relacionados:

U.S. Expands Asian NATO Against China, Russia
Stop NATO, October 16, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/u-s-expands-asian-nato-against-china-russia

Broader Strategy: West’s Afghan War Targets Russia, China, Iran
Stop NATO, September 8, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/broader-strategy-wests-afghan-war-targets-russia-china-iran

U.S. Accelerates First Strike Global Missile Shield System
Stop NATO, August 19, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/u-s-accelerates-first-strike-global-missile-shield-system

Australian Military Buildup And The Rise Of Asian NATO
Stop NATO, May 6, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/australian-military-buildup-and-the-rise-of-asian-nato

Notas:

1) Reuters, 7 de enero de 2010.

2) Ibid.

3) Defense News, 23 de diciembre de 2009.

4) http://www.missilethreat.com/missiledefensesystems/id.41/system_detail.asp

5) Agencia Rusa de Información Novosti, 9 de enero de 2010.

6) Taiwan News, 4 de enero de 2010.

7) Agencia France-Presse, 11 de enero de 2010.

8) Radio Taiwan Internacional, 14 de octubre de 2009.

9) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 14 de octubre de 2009.

10) Asian Times, 20 de enero de 2010.

11) Time, 13 de enero de 2010.

12) Russian Information Agency Novosti, 15 de enero de 2010.

13) http://www.sras.org/news2.phtml?m=908

14) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/12/AR2007021200555.html

15) Voice of America News, 26 de mayo de 2007.

16) Voice of Russia, 8 de febrero de 2008.

17) Associated Press, 1 de mayo de 2009.

18) Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 16 de septiembre de 2009.

19) Agencia France-Presse, 15 de septiembre de 2009.

20) Huntsville Times, 10 de enero de 2010.

21) Agencia France-Presse, 13 de enero de 2010.

22) Washington Post, 14 de enero de 2010.

* El término “armada de aguas marrones” [a "brown water" navy] lo creó la armada estadounidense para designar a los barcos pequeños usados en ríos y por extensión a aquellas armadas que sólo tienen capacidad para llevar a cabo operaciones militares en ríos, lagos o cerca del litoral [n. de la t.].

23) Scottish Left Review, 17 de noviembre de 2009.

With Nuclear, Conventional Arms Pacts Stalled, U.S. Moves Missiles And Troops To Russian Border

Stop NATO
January 22, 2010

With Nuclear, Conventional Arms Pacts Stalled, U.S. Moves Missiles And Troops To Russian Border
Rick Rozoff

2010 is proceeding in a manner more befitting the third month of the year, named after the Roman god of war, than the first whose name is derived from a pacific deity.

On January 13 the Associated Press reported that the White House will submit its Quadrennial Defense Review to Congress on February 1 and request a record-high $708 billion for the Pentagon. That figure is the highest in absolute and in inflation-adjusted, constant (for any year) dollars since 1946, the year after the Second World War ended. Adding non-Pentagon defense-related spending, the total may exceed $1 trillion.

The $708 billion includes for the first time monies for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq which in prior years were in part funded by periodic supplemental requests, but excludes what the above-mentioned report adds is the first in the new administration’s emergency requests for the same purpose: A purported $33 billion.

Already this month several NATO nations have pledged more troops, even before the January 28 London conference on Afghanistan when several thousand additional forces may be assigned for the war there, in addition to over 150,000 already serving or soon to serve under U.S. and NATO command.

Washington has increased lethal drone missile attacks in Pakistan, and calls for that model to be replicated in Yemen have been made recently, most notably by Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who on January 13 also advocated air strikes and special forces operations in the country. [1]

The Pentagon will begin the deployment of 1,400 personnel to Colombia to man seven new bases under a 10-year military agreement signed last October 30. [2]

This year the U.S. will also complete the $110 million dollar construction of new military bases in Bulgaria and Romania to house at least 4,000 American troops. [3]

The Pentagon’s newest regional command, Africa Command, will expand its activities on and off the coasts of that continent beyond current counterinsurgency operations in Somalia, Mali and Uganda and drone flights from a newly acquired site in Seychelles. [4]

But this month has brought even more dramatic and dangerous news. The Pentagon has authorized the completion of a $6.5 billion arms deal with Taiwan with an agreement to deliver 200 Patriot Advanced Capability anti-ballistic missiles. The People’s Republic of China is infuriated, as Washington would be if the situation were reversed and Beijing provided a comparable arsenal of weapons to, for example, an independent Puerto Rico. [5]

As though that action was not provocative enough however, on January 20 the Polish Defense Ministry announced that a U.S. Patriot missile battery, and the 100 American soldiers who will operate it, would not be based on the outskirts of the capital of Warsaw as previously announced but in the Baltic Sea city of Morag, 35 miles [6] from Poland’s border with Russia.

The missile battery and troops are scheduled to arrive in March or April. As part of the Obama administration’s new missile shield project, one which will be integrated with NATO to take in all of Europe and extend into the Middle East and the Caucasus, the Patriots will be followed by Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptor deployments on warships in the Baltic Sea and, for the first time ever, a land-based version of the same. “The Pentagon will deploy command posts of SM-3 missiles, which can intercept both short- and mid-range missiles….” [7] An SM-3 was used by the Pentagon to shoot a satellite out of orbit in February of 2008 to give an indication of its range.

Further deployments will follow.

The new, post-George W. Bush administration, interceptor missile system will employ “existing missile systems based on land and at sea….Deployment of the revised missile defense would extend through 2020. The first step is to put existing sea-based weapons systems on Aegis-class destroyers and cruisers. [8]

“Subsequently, a mobile radar system would be deployed in a European nation….More advanced, mobile systems would be put in place later elsewhere in Europe. Their centerpiece would be…Lockheed’s Terminal High Altitude Defense interceptor missiles and improved Standard Missile-3 IB missiles made by…Raytheon.” [9]

Last December Washington signed a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that formalizes plans for “the United States military to station American troops and military equipment on Polish territory” and “opens the way for the promised Patriot missiles and US troops to be stationed in Poland…as part of an upgrading of NATO air defences in Europe.” [10]

In October, shortly after U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden visited Warsaw to finalize the plan, Polish Deputy Defense Minister Stanislaw Komorowski met with his opposite number from the U.S., Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Alexander Vershbow, and announced that the American missiles “will be combat-ready, not dummy varieties as Washington earlier suggested.” The same report added that “Earlier, Ukrainian and American officials stated that Ukrainian territory may be used in some way in the new antimissile shield.” [11] Poland borders Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave, but Ukraine has a 1,576 kilometer (979 mile) border with Russia.

The State Department issued a press release on the agreement to deploy American troops to Poland, the first foreign forces to be based there since the end of the Warsaw Pact in 1991, which stated “The agreement will facilitate a range of mutually agreed activities including joint training and exercises, deployments of U.S. military personnel, and prospective Ballistic Missile Defense deployments.” [12]

A Pentagon spokesperson said “U.S. Army Europe will help the Polish Armed Forces develop their air and missile defense capabilities. Considering the cooperative training we already do with the Polish Armed Forces, this Patriot training program is just another extension of that effort.” [13]

If earlier plans to deploy ground-based midcourse missiles to Poland evoked, however implausibly, an alleged Iranian missile threat, the Patriots can only be meant for Russia.

Russian Lieutenant-General Aitech Bizhev, former commander of the United Air Defense System of the Commonwealth of Independent States, told one of his nation’s main news agencies:

“It’s completely unclear why the air defense group of the northern flank of NATO needed strengthening – NATO has manifold superiority over Russian conventional armaments as it is.

“It can’t be ruled out that the stationing of the Patriots in Poland may be followed by other actions in building up the American military infrastructure in Eastern Europe….” [14]

The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms expired on December 5 and has been extended, but no agreement has been reached on a new pact, 48 days later.

At the end of last year Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was asked about the delay and identified the main impediment to resolving it: “What is the problem? The problem is that our American partners are building an anti-missile shield and we are not building one.”

He further defined the problem: “If we are not developing an anti-missile shield, then there is a danger that our partners, by creating such ‘an umbrella,’ will feel completely secure and thus can allow themselves to do what they want, disrupting the balance, and aggressiveness will rise immediately.”

In respect to how prospects for the reduction, much less elimination, of nuclear arms in Europe and North America were faring, Putin added, “In order to preserve balance…we need to develop offensive weapons systems,” [15] reiterating a statement by his nation’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, a week before. The timing of the announcement that the Pentagon will soon station Patriot missiles so close to Russian territory will not help matters. Nor was the State Department’s contention that “the START follow-on agreement is not the appropriate vehicle for addressing” the issue of “missile offense and defense.” [16]

A month before, Russian news media revealed that “Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces (SMF), the land-based component of the nuclear triad, will put on combat duty a second regiment equipped with Topol-M mobile missile systems by the end of 2009.

“The Topol-M missile, with a range of about 7,000 miles (11,000 km), is said to be immune to any current and future U.S. ABM [Anti-Ballistic Missile] defense. It is capable of making evasive maneuvers to avoid a kill using terminal phase interceptors [for example Patriot missiles], and carries targeting countermeasures and decoys.” [17]

Just as supplying Taiwan with Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) theater anti-ballistic missiles led China to conduct a ground-based, midcourse missile interception on January 11, so moving U.S. military hardware and troops nearer Russia bodes poorly for a nuclear arms reduction agreement.

On the non-strategic front, the 1990 Treaty On Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) limiting the amount and expansion of major armaments on the continent is also seriously jeopardized by U.S. and NATO missile shield plans. The adapted CFE (Agreement on Adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe) of 1999 has not been ratified by any member of NATO, which has linked it with so-called frozen conflicts in the former Soviet Union. The August 2008 Georgia-Russia war was a consequence of that obstructionist and belligerent policy. The establishment of permanent U.S. and NATO military bases in Kosovo, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania and now Poland is a gross violation of and may prove the death knell for the CFE.

Russia suspended the observance of its treaty obligations under the CFE on July 14, 2007 because of “extraordinary circumstances…which affect the security of the Russian Federation and require immediate measures.” [18]

The circumstances alluded to were the U.S. project of establishing missile interception facilities in Eastern Europe and the general movement of NATO bases and forces to the Baltic and Black Sea regions.

On November 29 of last year Russia “released a draft of a proposal for a new European security agreement the Kremlin says should replace outdated institutions such as NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).” [19]

Chinese analysts Yu Maofeng and Lu Jingli contend that Moscow was motivated by its concerns over U.S. and NATO missile plans, NATO’s eastward expansion to its borders, the 1999 war against Yugoslavia, Western-sponsored “color revolutions” in other former Soviet states and NATO members’ non-ratification of the Treaty On Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. [20]

For the past thirty years each successive American president has unveiled an ostensible plan to eliminate nuclear weapons, if none before now has received the Nobel Peace Prize while in office [21]. Each in turn then escalated reckless arms buildups and armed aggression abroad in an effort to achieve global military dominance. The current U.S. commander-in-chief with his foreign policy entourage of Robert Gates, James Jones and Hillary Clinton is no exception. [22]

1) Yemen: Pentagon’s War On The Arabian Peninsula
Stop NATO, December 15, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/yemen-pentagons-war-on-the-arabian-peninsula

2) Rumors Of Coups And War: U.S., NATO Target Latin America
Stop NATO, November 18, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/rumors-of-coups-and-war-u-s-nato-target-latin-america

3) Bulgaria, Romania: U.S., NATO Bases For War In The East
Stop NATO, October 24, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/bulgaria-romania-u-s-nato-bases-for-war-in-the-east

4) AFRICOM Year Two: Seizing The Helm Of The Entire World
Stop NATO, October 22, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/africom-year-two-taking-the-helm-of-the-entire-world

5) U.S.-China Military Tensions Grow
Stop NATO, January 19, 2010

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/u-s-china-military-tensions-grow

6) New York Times, January 21, 2010
7) Voice of Russia, December 14, 2009
8) U.S. Missile Shield System Deployments: Larger, Sooner, Broader
Stop NATO, September 27, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/27/u-s-missile-shield-system-deployments-larger-sooner-broader

Black Sea, Caucasus: U.S. Moves Missile Shield South And East
Stop NATO,September 19, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/19/283

U.S. Expands Global Missile Shield Into Middle East, Balkans
Stop NATO, September 11, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/u-s-expands-global-missile-shield-into-middle-east-balkans

9) Bloomberg News, January 14, 2010
10) Polish Radio, December 11, 2009
11) Russia Today, October 16, 2009
12) Stars and Stripes, December 21, 2009
13) Ibid
14) Interfax Ukraine, January 20, 2010
15) Reuters, December 29, 2009
16) Ibid
17) Russian Information Agency Novosti, November 18, 2009
18) Time, July 14, 2007
19) Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, November 30, 2009
20) Strategic considerations behind Russian proposal for new
European security treaty
Xinhua News Agency, December 1, 2009

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-12/02/content_12571639.htm

21) Obama Doctrine: Eternal War For Imperfect Mankind
Stop NATO, December 10, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/12/11/obama-doctrine-eternal-war-for-imperfect-mankind

22) White House And Pentagon: Change, Continuity And Escalation
Stop NATO, March 19, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/white-house-and-pentagon-change-continuity-and-escalation

U.S.-China Military Tensions Grow

Stop NATO
January 19, 2010

U.S.-China Military Tensions Grow
Rick Rozoff

———-
Even though the U.S. military budget is almost ten times that of China’s (with a population more than four times as large) and Washington plans a record $708 billion defense budget for next year compared to Russia spending less than $40 billion last year for the same, China and Russia are portrayed as threats to the U.S. and its allies. China has no troops outside its borders; Russia has a small handful in its former territories in Abkhazia, Armenia, South Ossetia and Transdniester. The U.S. has hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in six continents.

While Gates was in charge of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and responsible for almost half of international military spending he was offended that the world’s most populous nation might desire to “deny others countries the ability to threaten it.”
———-

On December 23 of last year Raytheon Company announced that it had received a $1.1 billion contact with Taiwan for the purchase of 200 Patriot anti-ballistic missiles. In early January the U.S. Defense Department cleared the transaction “despite opposition from rival China, where a military official proposed sanctioning U.S. firms that sell arms to the island.” [1]

The sale completes a $6.5 billion weapons package approved by the previous George W. Bush administration at the end of 2008. In the words of the Asia bureau chief of Defense News, “This is the last piece that Taiwan has been waiting on.” [2]

Defense News first reported on the agreement and reminded its readers that “Raytheon already won smaller contracts for Taiwan in January 2009 and in 2008 for upgrades to the Patriot systems the country already had. Those contracts were to upgrade the systems to Configuration 3, the same upgrade the company is completing for the U.S. Army.”

The source also described what the enhanced Patriot capacity consisted of: “Configuration 3 is Raytheon’s most advanced Patriot system and allows the use of Lockheed Martin’s Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles [and] Raytheon’s Guidance Enhanced Missile-Tactical [Patriot-2 upgrade] missiles….” [3]

The PAC-3 is the latest, most advanced Patriot missile design and the first capable of shooting down tactical ballistic missiles. It is the initial tier of a layered missile shield system which also includes Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), Ground Based Interceptor (GBI), Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD), Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), ship-based Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense equipped with Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors, Forward Based X-Band Radar (FBXB) and Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) components. An integrated network that ranges from the battlefield to the heavens.

The system is modular and highly mobile and its batteries are thus more easily able to evade detection and attack. It also extends the range of previous Patriot versions several fold.

“[T]he PAC-3 interceptors, enhanced by [an] advanced radar and command center, are capable of protecting an area approximately seven times greater than the original Patriot system.” [4]

If like the rest of the world Chinese authorities anticipated a reduction if not halt in the pace of American global military expansion with the advent of a new administration in Washington a year ago, like everyone they else have been rudely disabused of the notion.

Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei urged the United States to reconsider the Taiwan arms package in the sixth official Chinese warning in a week earlier this month, telling his nation’s Xinhua News Agency that “China had strongly protested the U.S. government’s recent decision to allow Raytheon Company and Lockheed Martin Corp. to sell weapons to Taiwan” and “The U.S. arms sales to Taiwan undermine China’s national security.” [5]

Later information added to the inventory and to China’s ire when it was revealed that “the Obama Administration would soon announce the sale to Taiwan of a package worth billions of U.S. dollars including Black Hawk helicopters, anti-missile systems and plans for diesel-powered submarines in a move likely to anger China.” [6]

In addition, the China Times reported that Taiwan was to obtain eight second-hand Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates from the U.S. in addition to the 200 Patriot missiles. The warships were designed in the 1970s as comparatively inexpensive alternatives to World War II-era destroyers. The new deal will double the amount of U.S. Perry-class frigates that Taiwan already possesses to 16.

They will also factor into missile defense and at a higher level, as “The island hopes to arm them with a version of the advanced Aegis Combat System (see above), which uses computers and radar to take out multiple targets, as well as sophisticated missile launch technology….” [7]

While both Washington and Taipei will present the weapons transactions as strictly defensive in nature, it is worth recalling that last autumn Taiwan conducted its “largest-ever missile test…launched from a secretive and tightly guarded base in southern Taiwan” with missiles “capable of reaching major Chinese cities.” [8]

President Ma Ying-jeou observed the missile launches which “included the test-firing of a top secret, newly developed medium-range surface-to-surface missile with a range of 3,000 kilometres, capable of striking major cities in central, northern and southern China.” [9]

The Patriot Advanced Capability and SM-3 interceptor missiles the U.S. is providing Taiwan could well be employed to counter a mainland Chinese counterattack or at the least protect the launch sites of Taiwanese medium range missiles which, as noted above, are capable of hitting most of China’s major cities.

Beijing responded on January 11 by conducting a ground-based midcourse interceptor missile test over its territory.

Professor Tan Kaijia of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) National Defense University told Xinhua “If the ballistic missile is regarded as a spear, now we have succeeded in building a shield for self-defense.” [10]

Time Magazine characterized the significance of the test in writing: “There’s no chance China’s gambit will deter the U.S. from backing Taiwan….But the test does signal a ratcheting up of tensions between Beijing and Washington….” [11]

Both China and the U.S., the first in 2007 and the second the following year, with a Standard Missile-3 fired from an Aegis-class frigate in the Pacific Ocean in the American case, destroyed satellites in orbit. The dawn of space war had begun.

A January 15 feature on a Russian website titled “Possible space wars in the near future” provided background information. “It is hard to overestimate the role played by military satellite systems. Since the 1970s, an increasingly greater number of troop-control, telecommunications, target-acquisition, navigation and other processes depend on spacecraft which are therefore becoming more important…The space echelon’s role is directly proportional to the development level of any given nation and its armed forces.” [12]

China and Russia for years have been advocating a ban on the use of space for military purposes, annually raising the issue in the United Nations. The U.S. has just as persistently opposed the initiatives.

To comprehend the context in which recent developments have occurred, Washington has for three years increasingly and tenaciously included China and Russia with Iran and North Korea as belligerents in prospective future conflicts.

The campaign began in earnest in February of 2007 when then and still Pentagon chief Robert Gates testified before the U.S. House Armed Services Committee on the Defense Department Fiscal Year 2008 Budget Request and said among other matters:

“In addition to fighting the global war on terror, we also face the danger posed by Iran and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and the threat they pose not only to their neighbors, but globally because of their record of proliferation; the uncertain paths of China and Russia, which are both pursuing sophisticated military modernization programs; and a range of other flashpoints and challenges….We need both the ability for regular force-on-force conflicts because we don’t know what’s going to develop in places like Russia and China, in North Korea, in Iran and elsewhere.” [13]

If it be objected that Gates was only alluding to general contingency plans, ones that could apply to any major nation, neither his comments nor any by U.S. defense officials since have mentioned fellow nuclear powers Britain, France, India and Israel in a similar vein, but have reiterated concerns about Russia and China with an alarming consistency. In fact China and Russia have been substituted for Iraq in the former axis of evil category.

Even though the U.S. military budget is almost ten times that of China’s (with a population more than four times as large) and Washington plans a record $708 billion defense budget for next year compared to Russia spending less than $40 billion last year for the same, China and Russia are portrayed as threats to the U.S. and its allies. China has no troops outside its borders; Russia has a small handful in its former territories in Abkhazia, Armenia, South Ossetia and Transdniester. The U.S. has hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in six continents.

Russia and China both reacted harshly to Gates’ statements in February of 2007 and only three days afterward, with Gates in the audience, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech at the annual Munich Security Conference in which he warned:

“[W]hat is a unipolar world? However one might embellish this term, at the end of the day it refers to one type of situation, namely one centre of authority, one centre of force, one centre of decision-making.

“It is world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And at the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within.”

“Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centres of tension. Judge for yourselves: wars as well as local and regional conflicts have not diminished….And no less people perish in these conflicts – even more are dying than before. Significantly more, significantly more!

“Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force – military force – in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts.”

“One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations….” [14]

The warning was not heeded in Washington.

Three months later the Pentagon chief resumed his earlier accusations. In May of 2007 the Defense Department issued its annual report on China’s military capability, citing “continuing efforts to project Chinese power beyond its immediate region and to develop high-technology systems that can challenge the best in the world.”

“U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says some of China’s efforts cause him concern.”

The report said “China is pursuing long-term, comprehensive transformation of its military forces” to “enable it to project power and deny other countries the ability to threaten it.” [15] While Gates was in charge of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and responsible for almost half of international military spending he was offended that the world’s most populous nation might desire to “deny others countries the ability to threaten it.”

A year after Gates linked China and Russia with surviving “axis of evil” suspects Iran and North Korea, National Director of Intelligence Michael McConnell singled out China, Russia and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as the main threats to the United States, even more than al-Qaeda.

The Voice of Russia responded to McDonnell’s accusations in a commentary that included these excerpts:

“Russia has demanded an explanation from America over a report by the Director of American national intelligence in which Russia, China, Iraq, Iran, North Korea and al-Qaida are described as sources of strategic threats to the U.S….Quite possibly, the report by the U.S intelligence community amounts to accounting for the staggering sums of money that is allocated yearly for its upkeep. There could be other reasons to explain why Russia has been included among states posing a threat to America.” [16]

Gates has remained as defense secretary for the new American administration and so has the anti-Chinese and anti-Russian rhetoric.

On May 1 of last year Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that “The Obama administration is working to improve deteriorating U.S. relations with a number of Latin American nations to counter growing Iranian, Chinese and Russian influence in the Western Hemisphere….” [17] The month after she spoke those words a military coup was staged in Honduras and two weeks after that the U.S. secured the use of seven military bases in Colombia.

In September Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair issued the U.S.’s quadrennial National Intelligence Strategy report which said “Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea pose the greatest challenges to the United States’ national interests. [18]

Agence France-Presse said that “The United States on [September 15] put emerging superpower China and former Cold War foe Russia alongside Iran and North Korea on a list of the four main nations challenging American interests” and quoted from Blair’s report:

China was fingered for its “increasing natural resource-focused diplomacy and military modernization.”

“Russia is a US partner in important initiatives such as securing fissile material and combating nuclear terrorism, but it may continue to seek avenues for reasserting power and influence in ways that complicate US interests.” [19]

China is not allowed to deny other nations the ability to threaten it and Russia is not permitted to complicate U.S. interests.

The trend, ominous in its relentlessness, continues into this year.

The vice president of Lockheed Martin’s Missile Defense Systems, John Holly, touted his company’s role in the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System – components of which are being delivered to Taiwan – as “the shining star” of Lockheed’s interceptor missile portfolio, and according to a newspaper in the city which hosts the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency “Pointing to missile programs in North Korea, Iran, Russia and China, Holly said, ‘the world is not a very safe world … and it is incumbent upon us in industry to provide [the Pentagon] with the best capabilities.’” [20]

Three days afterward the Pentagon’s Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Wallace Gregson “voiced doubts about China’s insistence that its use of space is for peaceful means” and stated “The Chinese have stated that they oppose the militarization of space. Their actions seem to indicate the contrary intention.” [21]

The next day Admiral Robert Willard, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, stated in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee that China’s “powerful economic engine is also funding a military modernization program that has raised concerns in the region — a concern also shared by the U.S. Pacific Command.” [22]

The U.S. Navy has six fleets and eleven aircraft carrier strike groups in or available for deployment to all parts of the world, but China with only a “brown water” navy off its own coast is a cause for concern to the U.S.

As Alan Mackinnon, the chairman of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, wrote last September:

“The world of war is today dominated by a single superpower. In military terms the United States sits astride the world like a giant Colossus. As a country with only five per cent of the world’s population it accounts for almost 50 per cent of global arms spending.

“Its 11 naval carrier fleets patrol every ocean and its 909 military bases are scattered strategically across every continent. No other country has reciprocal bases on US territory – it would be unthinkable and unconstitutional. It is 20 years since the end of the Cold War and the United States and its allies face no significant military threat today. Why then have we not had the hoped-for peace dividend? Why does the world’s most powerful nation continue to increase its military budget, now over $1.2 trillion a year in real terms? What threat is all this supposed to counter?

“The US response has been largely military – the expansion of NATO and the
encirclement of Russia and China in a ring of hostile bases and alliances. And continuing pressure to isolate and weaken Iran.” [23]

Observations to be kept in the forefront of people’s minds as China is increasingly presented as a security challenge – and a strategic threat – to the world’s sole military superpower.

Related articles:

U.S. Expands Asian NATO Against China, Russia
Stop NATO, October 16, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/u-s-expands-asian-nato-against-china-russia

Broader Strategy: West’s Afghan War Targets Russia, China, Iran
Stop NATO, September 8, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/broader-strategy-wests-afghan-war-targets-russia-china-iran

U.S. Accelerates First Strike Global Missile Shield System
Stop NATO, August 19, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/u-s-accelerates-first-strike-global-missile-shield-system

Australian Military Buildup And The Rise Of Asian NATO
Stop NATO, May 6, 2009

http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/australian-military-buildup-and-the-rise-of-asian-nato

1) Reuters, January 7, 2010
2) Ibid
3) Defense News, December 23, 2009
4) http://www.missilethreat.com/missiledefensesystems/id.41/system_detail.asp
5) Russian Information Agency Novosti, January 9, 2010
6) Taiwan News, January 4, 2010
7) Agence France-Presse, January 11, 2010
8) Radio Taiwan International, October 14, 2009
9) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, October 14, 2009
10) Asian Times, January 20, 2010
11) Time, January 13, 2010
12) Russian Information Agency Novosti, January 15, 2010
13) http://www.sras.org/news2.phtml?m=908
14) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/12/AR2007021200555.html
15) Voice of America News, May 26, 2007
16) Voice of Russia, February 8, 2008
17) Associated Press, May 1, 2009
18) Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, September 16, 2009
19) Agence France-Presse, September 15, 2009
20) Huntsville Times, January 10, 2010
21) Agence France-Presse, January 13, 2010
22) Washington Post, January 14, 2010
23) Scottish Left Review, November 17, 2009