NATO Activates Allied Land Command In Turkey

Stars and Stripes
November 30, 2012

NATO activates Allied Land Command in Turkey
By John Vandiver

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“It is not an accident that NATO decided to put Land Command here. Rather, it represents recognition by all 28 Nations of Turkey’s strategic importance to NATO.”

“These last 17 years of operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have created a level of experience and interoperability within NATO that is higher than it has ever been in its history.”

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Admiral James Stavridis, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, makes remarks during a ceremony on November 30 marking the activation of the new Allied Land Command in Izmir, Turkey

STUTTGART, Germany: NATO Allied Land Command, the alliance’s new headquarters in charge of land force planning, officially activated Friday at its new home in Izmir, Turkey.

“Turkey has been essential to the effectiveness and viability of NATO since it joined the Alliance because of its geography and its very large military contribution,” U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Frederick “Ben” Hodges, the new commander of the headquarters, said during the ceremony in Izmir. His comments were made available by the headquarters public affairs office.

“It is not an accident that NATO decided to put Land Command here,” Hodges said, according to the remarks provided. “Rather, it represents recognition by all 28 Nations of Turkey’s strategic importance to NATO.”

The headquarters was established in connection with NATO’s transformation, aimed at trimming a bloated and costly command structure.

Adm. James Stavridis, commander of U.S. European Command and NATO’s supreme allied commander, was on hand during the ceremony.

“Izmir has been the junction of cultures for centuries,” Stavridis said, according to the public affairs office. “Ultimately, NATO is a bridge connecting 28 countries in the alliance. Therefore, I believe the Land Command being in Izmir has a symbolic meaning.”

The roughly 350-person headquarters in Izmir assumes the responsibilities of Force Command Heidelberg in Germany, and Force Command Madrid in Spain, which are being deactivated as part of NATO’s transformation. A similar merger of Air Command headquarters formerly in Turkey with one in Germany is taking place at Ramstein Air Base.

The Allied Land Command is responsible for ensuring readiness of NATO forces, conducting land operations and synchronizing land force command and control.

Hodges said in an interview with Stars and Stripes last week that a major focus for his headquarters will be to ensure that the tactical lessons learned during a decade of fighting in Afghanistan aren’t lost as the war winds down.

He reiterated that during Friday’s activation ceremony, also citing earlier conflicts as key to bolstering the know-how of troops in the field.

“These last 17 years of operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have created a level of experience and interoperability within NATO that is higher than it has ever been in its history,” Hodges, according to the comments provided to Stars and Stripes.

Going forward, Hodges said his command intends to capitalize on the experiences of noncommissioned officers in particular.

“Indeed, a 25- or 30-year-old sergeant today is much more technically savvy than are any of the officers of my generation,” Hodges said. “We must take advantage of that experience and competence by increasing the level of authority we give them, empowering them to do more.”

Anatole France and Michel Corday: The press fans the flames of war’s blast furnace

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

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Anatole France: Selections on war

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Anatole France
From a letter to L’Humanité in 1922
Translated by J. Lewis May

I hope you will call the attention of your readers to Michel Corday’s new book, Les Hauts Fourneaux. They ought to know of it.

It contains ideas about the origins and the conduct of the war that you will appreciate, even now, are too little known in France. In particular we shall see that the World War was essentially the work of the capitalists. We shall see that it was the great manufacturers of the various European countries who, first of all, willed the war, then made it inevitable, and, finally, prevented it from coming to an end. They made it their trump card; they put all their money on it, reaped immense profits, and prosecuted it with such ardour that they brought ruin on Europe, on themselves, and put the whole world out of joint.

Hear what Corday has to say on the subject; for it is a subject on which he concentrates all the force of his convictions, all the resources of his talent.

“Those men,” he says, “are like their own blast furnaces, like those feudal towers which stand up face to face along the frontiers, things whose insatiable maws must unceasingly be filled, day and night, with ore and fuel, so that a constant stream of molten metal may pour from beneath them. With unappeasable voracity they cry aloud for fuel, yet more fuel, and demand that all the riches of the soil, all the fruits of labour, ay, and men too, men in herds, in armies, should be flung pell-mell into the gaping furnace, so that the smelted ore may accumulate in ever-growing masses at their feet. Yes, such is their emblem, the device by which we may know them. They it is, who are real blast furnaces.”

And so those who died in the war knew not why they died. It is the same in all wars. But not to the same degree. The men who fell at Jemmapes [1792] were not deceived as to the cause for which they gave their lives. This time the ignorance of the victims is tragic. They think that they are dying for their country: in reality, they are dying for the manufacturers.

These, our present-day masters, possess the three things necessary for great modern enterprises: factories, banks and newspapers. Michel Corday shows us how they employed these three mighty engines. And in particular he explains a phenomenon which had caused us great surprise, not so much from its nature as from its excessive intensity, an intensity unparalleled in history; I mean how it was the hatred of a nation, whole nation, spread abroad throughout France with unprecedented violence, a violence far transcending the hatred engendered in this same country by the wars of the Revolution and the Empire. I am not speaking of the wars of olden days. They bred no hatred in the hearts of the French people. But with us, this time, it was a hatred that did not die away with the coming of peace; a hatred that made us forget our own interests and lose all sense of reality, without our even feeling the passion which possessed us, save perhaps now and again to find it not violent enough.

Michel Corday shows us quite clearly that this hatred was worked up by the newspapers, the same newspapers which, at this very hour, are guilty of fostering a state of mind which is luring, not only France, but the whole of Europe, to irremediable disaster. “The spirit of vengeance and hatred,” says Michel Corday, “is kept alive by the Press, whose uncompromising dogmatism will brook no questionings, no lukewarmness. Those who do not agree with it are branded as cowards or criminals.”

Sweden and Finland Join NATO’s Militarization in the Arctic North

Space Alert!
Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space
December 2012

Sweden and Finland Join NATO’s Militarization in the Arctic North
By Agneta Norberg

My intervention here is about Sweden and Finland, two countries in NATO’s “Partnership for Peace.” The US National Security Directive #66 states: “The US has broad and fundamental national security interests in the Arctic region and is prepared to operate either independently or in conjunction with other states to safeguard these interests.

“These interests include missile defense and early warning; deployment of sea and air systems for strategic sealift, strategic deterrence, maritime presence and maritime security operations; and freedom of navigation and over-flight.”

In November 2009 the US Navy released a paper called “Navy Arctic Roadmap.” The paper refers to the directive quoted above and the roadmap speaks about the intent to “Preserve the global mobility of US military and civilian vessels and aircrafts throughout the Arctic region.”

Less than three weeks after unveiling this Arctic strategy, NATO held a two-day meeting in Iceland attended by US/NATO top-military commanders and the NATO Secretary General. They proclaimed that the high north is going to get more NATO attention. (Now that Arctic ice is melting due to climate change and energy corporations can drill for oil.) Russia was not invited to send an observer.

Norway has now moved its operational command into the Arctic, the only command centre above the polar circle, and purchased 48 F–35 fighter jets for Arctic patrol. Denmark is said to have plans to establish an Arctic Command, an Arctic response force and military buildup at the Thule airbase in Greenland. The US and Britain are conducting joint submarine warfare exercises under the shrinking Polar ice cap.

Today all countries bordering Russia are members of NATO or in the Partnership for Peace, which most people describe as an antechamber to NATO.

US military airfields are set up in all Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Hungary. Fighters from the US, Great Britain, Germany, Turkey, Spain, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, The Netherlands, Belgium, Czech Republic, Romania and Sweden are training on daily missions close to St Petersburg, Russia. All this is a breach of the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe. Russia is today totally encircled by hostile installations and some of these are radars, which will serve the dangerous missile defense program.

Also for this purpose huge radar installations are installed in northern Norway (at Vardö), Romania and in Turkey.

How do Sweden and Finland fit into this pattern? Both countries have taken part in numerous recent war exercises held in northern and southern Sweden and northern Norway with the NATO countries as well and in the waters in the Baltic Sea.

On the December 15, 2004 the Swedish parliament passed a decision about Sweden’s adjustment to NATO, and the US military’s need for a large training area for their many wars. A large part of Northern Sweden will be opened up for military training of combat vehicles, fighter planes, weapons and drones.

At North European Aerospace Test range (NEAT), weapons corporations were invited to test systems of different kinds and join war exercises. The new type of satellite-directed war requires larger areas for training as do weapon systems like AMRAAM (Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile).

The area is ideal because it’s as large as the country of Macedonia. In July 2010, The US Air Force conducted bomb training for a couple of weeks at NEAT and British Royal Air Force was allowed to train almost the entire year 2011. But already in 2002 Israel got permission to train their drones, which later were used in the war on Gaza.

Esrange, the world’s biggest downloading station for satellites, not far from the city of Kiruna, is situated within NEAT. Every state or corporation, which are ready to pay, can buy maps from Esrange over any area on the earth.

When in South Korea, I came to know that Esrange serves the South Korean Air Force with maps covering North Korean territory. Another example of Esrange´s role in warfare is the following story: At a lecture in Kiruna, by Bruce Gagnon a couple of years ago about how space is used in modern warfare, one young woman in the audience confessed that she as a student trainee at Esrange, had questioned the practice of downloading maps of Russian territory. She asked why these maps were sent to receivers in the US. She never got a good explanation, she told us.

There is a rather strong resistance towards joining NATO in both Sweden and Finland according to recent polls. What can the governments do to circumvent these anti-NATO sentiments and bring us into this dangerous alliance?

One way is to drag non-NATO countries into the alliance without mentioning NATO. This was done in 2011 when British Prime Minister Cameron hosted a meeting in London and invited all Nordic countries, including the Baltic states, to consolidate common interests with the Nordic nations. The common interests were about air space, sea areas, security in Northern regions, cyber security, training in equipment and of troops.

“Interoperability” it is called. The reason for this cooperation was said to be the increasing tensions in the Arctic area. We have to understand these realities and make pressures on the parliamentarians in political parties who proclaim in their party programme that they are against NATO membership. We have to start a serious debate about these dangerous step-by-step developments.

Many Swedish and Finnish people still believe we are non-aligned and neutral countries.

We who see the dangerous developments have to work together with other Nordic activists to counter these war preparations and stop it. One step we are planning is to hold the 21st annual Global Network space organizing conference in Kiruna, Sweden on June 27–30, 2013. By bringing key peace movement leaders from around the world to northern Sweden we intend to shine a bright light on these offensive and destabilizing NATO plans for war to control Arctic resources. Please plan to join us.

Agneta Norberg is vice chair of Swedish Peace Council, a member of the IPB Steering Committee and serves on the Global Network board.

NATO, U.S. Tighten Grip on Georgia

Trend News Agency
November 29, 2012

Parliament holds discussion on relations between Georgia and NATO
N. Kirtzkhalia

Tbilisi: The relations between Georgia and NATO were discussed in the Parliament.

Members of the committees of international relations, European integration and defense and security, together with representatives of the NATO liaison office in Tbilisi, discussed relations between Georgia and the alliance and policy partnership during the joint event, which was held behind closed doors.

“It is the first time that the parliament of Georgia hosts a committee hearing on the relations between Georgia and NATO and their prospects. It is important that friend of Georgia, head of the NATO liaison office William Lahue, will participate in the event,” Parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Tedo Japaridze said before the meeting.

“It is the first such meaning and we will discuss relations between Georgia and EU, Georgia and the regions and so on in the future,” Japaridze added.

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Rustavi 2
November 29, 2012

U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary completes his visit in Georgia

U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary Eric Rubin has completed his visit in Georgia. He held today his last meeting within the U.S.-Georgia Charter on partnership and strategic relations and the working group on defense and security.

Georgia`s deputy foreign minister and deputy defense minister attended the meeting.

At the meeting of the working group, the issues of Georgia`s integration into NATO, the country`s contribution to the ISAF operation in Afghanistan and its transit potential.

The U.S. side reiterated at the meeting its support to Georgia`s sovereignty and territorial integrity. They said after the assessment and analysis of the ongoing cooperation in security, the two countries are moving to the implementation stage.

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Trend News Agency
November 29, 2012

Georgian president, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State discuss strategy
N. Kirtskhalia

Tbilisi: Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Eric Rubin discussed strategic cooperation between Georgia and the U.S. in Tbilisi.

As the Georgian presidential administration said, special attention was paid to the continuation of the partnership under the Strategic Cooperation Charter and ensuring the defence capability and security of Georgia.

Rubin stressed Georgia’s contribution to international security and gave thanks for the participation of the Georgian contingent in the NATO peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan.

Saakashvili reiterated that Georgia remains a priority for integration into European and Euro-Atlantic structures.

Rubin acknowledged Georgia’s success in this direction and supported enhancing cooperation to achieve the country’s goals and providing it with assistance.

Saakashvili and Rubin also paid attention to the Geneva process, as well as settlement of Georgian-Russian relations. Rubin said the U.S. strictly adheres to all the negotiations on the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Georgia.

Rubin stressed that parliamentary elections in Georgia were held in accordance with democratic norms.

“The United States will closely monitor and evaluate the processes that take place in Georgia after the transfer of power,” he said.

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Civil Georgia
November 30, 2012

Secretary Clinton, Georgian FM Meet in Washington

Tbilisi: Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was “very clear” about “rule of law expectations” in Georgia when she met Georgian Foreign Minister, Maia Panjikidze, in Washington no November 29, the U.S. Department of State said.

In remarks made before the meeting, the Secretary of State said the October 1 parliamentary election was “a successful and important step on the further development of democracy in Georgia, and the move toward fulfilling the Euro-Atlantic aspirations that Georgia has.”

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Panjikidze, who is visiting Washington five weeks after becoming Georgia’s new foreign minister and three weeks after visiting Brussels, said in her remarks before the meeting that she was grateful to the Secretary of State for inviting her “so soon after the elections in Georgia.”

“We are very proud that the United States are our strategic partner,” the Georgian Foreign Minister said…

A spokesperson for the Department of State, Victoria Nuland, said at a daily press briefing, that Clinton and Panjikidze had “a very good meeting.”

Nuland said that Georgian new government’s “commitment to continuity in foreign policy” was among the issues discussed at the meeting, including in respect to Georgia’s NATO and EU integration and participation in the Afghanistan operation, including its contribution to the post-2014 NATO mission in Afghanistan. The State Department spokesperson said that the U.S. was “very gratified” to hear that the new government was committed to continuity in foreign policy.

“The Secretary was very clear about our rule of law expectations,” Nuland said.

“The Secretary was very clear in her public statements that this is something that the international community is watching and that undergirds our support for Georgia – democratic values that we share, and rule of law being key among them, are vital to our support for Georgia,” she said when asked about series of arrests of officials from the previous government in Georgia.

“In the bilateral meeting the Foreign Minister [Panjikidze] both began and ended the meeting with reassurances with regard to the way these cases will go forward and was very clear in understanding that they know the world is watching,” Nuland added.

PM Bidzina Ivanishvili, who paid his first official visit abroad to Brussels this month, said on November 22 that he was initially planning to pay a visit to the U.S. by late November, but “upon my request, which was shared by the American side, arrangements for my visit to the United States will start next year in due course.” Ivanishvili cited “too much work” internally as a reason behind his decision to postpone the U.S. trip.

The Department of State’s spokesperson said on November 29 that PM Ivanishvili “will be the guest of the White House” when he visits the United States.

Meanwhile in Tbilisi, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, Eric Rubin concluded his three-day visit to Georgia on November 29. He met President Saakashvili, PM Ivanishvili and other senior officials and participated in the defense and security working group meeting, held in frames of strategic partnership commission.
The working group on defense and security is one of those four inter-agency bilateral groups, which were established to address priority areas of the U.S.-Georgia Strategic Partnership Charter, which was signed in January, 2009. Other priority areas of cooperation identified by the charter are democracy, economic and people-to-people relations.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Philip H. Gordon, was in Tbilisi two weeks ago, who also met with both the President and the Prime Minister.

Arnold Zweig: War’s hecatomb from the air, on land and at sea

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

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Arnold Zweig: Conducting the business of murder with embittered reluctance

Arnold Zweig: Education Before Verdun

Arnold Zweig: No joy to be born into world of war

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Arnold Zweig
From Young Woman of 1914 (1931)
Translated by Eric Sutton

The night, pulsating with the roar of aeroplane engines, brooded in unearthly clarity between the hills. The moon, in her last quarter, poured a mild radiance over the roofs of the hutments. It was on such nights as these that the airmen went out after their prey. Not a shimmer of light appeared in the close-curtained windows.

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[A] sinister high-pitched humming could be heard above them in the air…Ah! a searchlight darted the milk-white tongue of a spectral beast of prey across the sky. A second followed, and a third; they swung in half-circles through the black firmament, tongues broadening at the end with which they caught their prey. Suddenly, with a sharp hoarse scream something shot up out of the night; far above them a red splash burst against the darkness, and three or four seconds later they heard the detonation.

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The night seemed to be falling silent; very far away Bertin could hear the familiar thud and crackle of the aeroplane motors. Toward Douaumont, where there had been heavy fighting yesterday and the day before, there was a constant flicker of rifle fire and the rattle of machine-guns. No peace in that direction.

“I wonder how many poor devils are laying dead out yonder, eh? Several thousand, I shouldn’t be surprised,” said Hildebrand grimly.

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In those days, in that summer, the German battleships left Wilhelmshaven to try to break through the British stranglehold on Germany. Wireless messages flashed back and forward, and those from Germany were deciphered by the British. With streaming funnels the ships dashed out to sea; they would drown those upstart squadrons like dangerous young cats, who thought they could one day get the better of their elders. They met, and many ships were sunk. Vast elaborate steel structures, produced at the cost of better schools, hospitals, and pensions for the poor, turned over in the lashing North Sea waves, and plunged keel upwards to the bottom, with their crews, and more of them were German than English. The English long-range guns reached farther, and did more damage than the latest German guns. When the fleets parted, both believed that the battle had been drawn, but later on each side announced by wireless that they alone had won the victory. The world believed the British; and the blockade still held, in spite of all the bloodshed and brave deeds, and the drowning of more than eight thousand red-cheeked German lads and English boys. In the deep currents of the treacherous sea, dead men swung dumbly to and fro; they could not praise the German nor the English admiral, for they were being slowly eaten by the fishes, or lay perhaps imprisoned in corroding steel.

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At the moment, the A.S.C. men were possibly burying the dead, Germans, Russians, and Austrians of all races. This process they did not describe; they announced that they were confident that Germany would be victorious, just as a cow gives forth milk, when its udders are properly squeezed. At the same moment, the allies of two very Christian Emperors, the Turks, were exterminating one million three hundred thousand Christian Armenians, including three hundred and thirty thousand children…A great mass of the German people, the educated classes more especially, the readers of the newspapers, the professors and their satellites, the female intellectuals, doctors, judges, teachers, authors, bankers, industrialists, and great land-owners, both men or women, all these had long ceased to live in the war as it really was. Those who lived in the real war were the survivors of the killed, the women-folk of men on service, and the workmen and workwomen in businesses and factories who were expected to work very hard on very short rations. But the others all lived for the realization of the ideals of Germany, by which they meant the control of mineral deposits, Channel ports, Russian provinces, Turkish concessions, and oil as far as Persia…If an officer went forth into this offensive and fell, what then? Lieutenant Lederer (one of the many thousands), Dr. Theodor Lederer, a man of trained intelligence and an expert on the arts. The mountain fighting had failed to kill him, but he fell very promptly in the new offensive. Returned from leave, assigned to a fresh unit, sent to the front and into action, shot dead and buried – finished. Who would take up this man’s work, half-achieved? No one. Was this man, so deeply versed in religious art and the Christian myths, no longer needed in the West? Surely…But Lieutenant Lederer was mouldering to dust with a horde of his comrades in a common grave; centuries later, perhaps, someone would dig up that finely moulded skull and marvel at its contours. What, in the meantime, had become of that high-hearted woman, Mela Hartig-Lederer, the pianist? She did not recant her views, she wept in secret, she held that Tirol peasant’s head of hers as high as ever – but she grew gradually silent. She was less and less able to play in public. Her memory began to fail her strangely; the notes she was actually playing, the next bar, the onward rush of a Beethoven theme, slipped suddenly from her mind. Her existence was corroded by grief, her great impulsive heart was turned to stone, she shut up her house, crept away into the mountains with her young son, and her aspect vanished from the memory of her contemporaries.

NATO Missiles in Turkey: Threat to Syria and Russia

Voice of Russia
November 29, 2012

Deployment of Patriot missiles fraught with destabilization

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Deployment of German units and German-made Patriot batteries means that the Syrian conflict is going international and could reach a hot phase. This is particularly relevant amid moves to recognize the Syrian opposition on the part of the EU and NATO.

Plans to supply Ankara with Patriot batteries put Russia’s security at risk, Vladimir Kozin of the Strategic Research Institute, says. These missiles could become part of the global system for intercepting ballistic missiles…

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A group of military experts consisting of representatives of Turkey and the NATO command has got down to surveying the sites for the deployment of Patriot anti-missile batteries on the Turkish-Syrian border. Germany has expressed readiness to supply two batteries, while the Netherlands will supply one.

According to official reports, Patriot missile batteries are deployed to thwart missile attacks from Syria. Experts say, however, that they are deployed to shut the Syrian air space for any flights as part of preparations for a ground invasion of Syria. An anti-missile battery is designed to shoot down aircraft rather than address missile defense problems.

NATO has provided no clear answer to Russia’s questions concerning the deployment of missiles, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Denisov said.

Moscow wants a full explanation as to who poses a threat; why, for how long and for what purpose. If the deployment serves the purpose of taking restrictive measures against Syria, it could be carried out only by decision of the UN Security Council, the diplomat said.

Meanwhile, NATO is advising other countries not to step in, while Germany is reassuring Russia that a no-fly zone is not on the agenda.

The role of Germany in all this is not outright clear, Chief Editor of National Defense Journal Igor Korotchenko says.

“Germany is a member of NATO. It’d better refrain from pursuing initiatives like that because they could lead to trouble, particularly in view of the burden of the past that hovers over Germany. Deployment of German units and German-made Patriot batteries means that the Syrian conflict is going international and could reach a hot phase. This is particularly relevant amid moves to recognize the Syrian opposition on the part of the EU and NATO. In all likelihood, a Syrian government in exile could be formed fairly soon. It could then ask NATO for support on behalf of the Syrian people. And the support would be provided. All this fits in well with NATO’s plans to launch a military campaign in Syria.”

Plans to supply Ankara with Patriot batteries put Russia’s security at risk, Vladimir Kozin of the Strategic Research Institute, says. These missiles could become part of the global system for intercepting ballistic missiles which is being created by the United States and is oriented against a large number of countries. Should the supplies become reality, they will lead to further destabilization in the Middle East with far-reaching consequences, the expert said.

In a word, the decision to deploy Patriot missiles on the Turkish-Syrian border creates more problems than solutions. It’s time NATO, the US and Turkey weighed the consequences of such a move and stopped fooling the international community regarding its purposes.

NATO Global Rapid Deployment Force Marks 20th Anniversary

North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Allied Command Operations
November 19, 2012

HQ ARRC celebrates its 20th Anniversary

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“The ARRC [Allied Rapid Reaction Corps] has played a central role in NATO led operations over the last 20 years. It has served in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan twice and therefore has accrued a wealth of experience of the broad spectrum of intervention activities in the process…“

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Headquarters Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (HQ ARRC) celebrated the 20th Anniversary of its formation on 26th November 2012 at Imjin Barracks, Innsworth.

To mark the event a conference was held to discuss the theme of how military operations may look in the future hosted by Lieutenant General James Bucknall.

The attendees included the current Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS), General Sir David Richards, the heads of the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force. Also present were previous commanders of the ARRC, the current Deputy Commander Supreme Allied Command Europe, General Lord Dannatt, General Sir Mike Jackson and many other past and present military figures.

Academic input was provided by Professor Hew Strachan, All Souls Oxford University, whilst CDS provided his views on how the military can learn from the lessons of recent operations.

“The ARRC has played a central role in NATO led operations over the last 20 years. It has served in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan twice and therefore has accrued a wealth of experience of the broad spectrum of intervention activities in the process. This conference has allowed current and previous ARRC Commanders and staff to highlight the key lessons and implications for the future whilst providing a fitting opportunity to formally mark the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Headquarters” said Lieutenant General James Bucknall, Commander of the ARRC.

HQ ARRC is a NATO Rapid Deployment Corps headquarters, founded in 1992 in Germany, and headquartered in Gloucestershire since August 2010.

ARRC is scheduled to play a key role in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Response Force (NRF) in 2013.

Although HQ ARRC’s ‘framework nation’ is the United Kingdom, comprising approximately 60% of the overall staff, the ARRC is fully multinational in nature and organization, with 15 Partner Nations contributing the remaining complement of personnel (Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, and the United States).

Switzerland: NATO’s Secret Partner

North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Allied Command Operations
November 28, 2012

SWITZERLAND: A KEY PARTNER ON DEFENCE REFORM

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A number of military training facilities are available for PfP training activities. These include the Centre for Information and Communication of the Armed Forces in Berne, the Mountain Training Centre of the Swiss Armed Forces in Andermatt, the International Training Centre of the Swiss Army (SWISSINT) in Stans, and the Tactical Training Centre at the Swiss Officers’ Training Centre in Lucerne.

Switzerland is also an active donor to Partnership Trust Fund projects. Along with individual Allies and partners, it has supported 13 projects since 2000, which have provided assistance for the destruction of mines, arms, or ammunition in Albania, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Serbia, Montenegro, Ukraine and, more recently, Jordan and Mauritania.

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From left to right: Ueli Maurer, Head of the Federal Department of Defence of Switzerland; NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Didier Burkhalter, Head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs Switzerland

NATO and Switzerland have developed a strong partnership over the years since the country joined the Partnership for Peace in 1996. The Swiss armed forces are making a valuable contribution to the NATO-led force in Kosovo. Switzerland has also distinguished itself in terms of its significant contribution to promoting work with partners in the area of defence reform, education and training. The NATO Secretary General exchanged views with key members of the Swiss government on how to deepen partnership, during his visit to Switzerland on 22 November.

“Our partnership goes much further, and deeper, than operations,” underlined NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, speaking at the prestigious Churchill Symposium of Zürich University’s European Institute. “Over the years, your country has developed enormous credibility and trust – both among NATO Allies and among our other partners. With your soft-power diplomacy and your mediation skills, you have become a unique and essential contributor to our cooperative security.”

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“Because of these shared values, Switzerland has made an enormous investment in NATO’s partnership programmes. You have provided trainers in defence reform, military training and education, and building democratic institutions. Your experts work alongside those of NATO to build more transparent and democratic security institutions,” added Mr. Fogh Rasmussen.

Committed to cooperative security

Switzerland is a generous contributor – intellectually, materially and financially – to the development of practical cooperative security within the Euro-Atlantic area and beyond.

The support of the government and of government-funded institutions has played an essential part in deepening and enhancing NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP) programme and the activities of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC)…

The country hosts many courses within the PfP framework and develops training materials in areas such as democratic control of armed forces, international humanitarian law, humanitarian demining, civil-military cooperation, security policy, arms control and disarmament.

One of the most active members of the PfP Consortium of Defence Academies and Security Studies Institutes, Switzerland has made a number of civilian training facilities available. These include the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD), the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), and the International Relations and Security Network (ISN) based in Zurich.

A number of military training facilities are available for PfP training activities. These include the Centre for Information and Communication of the Armed Forces in Berne, the Mountain Training Centre of the Swiss Armed Forces in Andermatt, the International Training Centre of the Swiss Army (SWISSINT) in Stans, and the Tactical Training Centre at the Swiss Officers’ Training Centre in Lucerne.

Switzerland is also an active donor to Partnership Trust Fund projects. Along with individual Allies and partners, it has supported 13 projects since 2000, which have provided assistance for the destruction of mines, arms, or ammunition in Albania, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Serbia, Montenegro, Ukraine and, more recently, Jordan and Mauritania.

Switzerland has also supported a Trust Fund project in Serbia for the reintegration of demobilized military personnel into the civilian workforce. Moreover, the country is co-leading a Trust Fund on Building Integrity in Defence Institutions and has also contributed over 130,000 euro to the Trust Fund for the development of the Afghan National Army.

Support for peace-support operations

Swiss law excludes participation in combat operations for peace enforcement and Swiss units will only participate in operations under UN or OSCE mandate. Within the limits of its neutrality, Switzerland participates in peace-support operations or multilateral cooperation in military training.

Over 200 soldiers are currently deployed as part of the Kosovo Force (KFOR). The Swiss armed forces have been contributing to KFOR’s Multinational Task Force – South since 1999.

Tbilisi: U.S., Georgia Discuss Strengthening Military Cooperation

Trend News Agency
November 28, 2012

Georgia, U.S. discuss deepening of military cooperation
N. Kirtskhalia

Tbilisi: U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Eric Rubin met with Georgian Defense Minister Irakli Alasania.

The conversation touched upon bilateral cooperation, prospects of integration into NATO, reforms planned in the defense area and the contribution of the Georgian contingent in the international mission ISAF, the Georgian Defense Ministry told Trend on Wednesday.

Alasania said that Georgia remains a reliable partner of the United States and is ready to make an even greater contribution to global security.

Alasania thanked the guest for support to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia and integration into Euro-Atlantic structures.

At the meeting, Alasania also paid attention to the NATO Military Committee’s planned visit to Georgia next year.

The conversation also touched upon the military cooperation between Georgia and the United States. Within the strategic partnership the United States provides assistance to Georgia in six areas, which primarily envisages strengthening the capacity of anti-aircraft defense, as well as training in military engineering.

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Ministry of Defence of Georgia
November 28, 2012

Minister of Defence of Georgia meets with Mr. Eric Rubin

Defence Minister Irakli Alasania has received Mr. Eric Rubin, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, today. The U.S.-Georgia partnership, NATO integration prospects, reforms scheduled in the field of defence and the contribution of Georgian peacekeepers in the ISAF mission were the key topics of discussion at the meeting. According to Irakli Alasania, Georgia still remains a reliable partner of the United States and stands ready to provide more contributions to global security.

The Defence Minister expressed gratitude for the support of the United States to Georgia’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and Euro-Atlantic integration. During the meeting with Eric Rubin, Irakli Alasania underlined the visit of the NATO Military Committee in Georgia scheduled next year.

At the meeting, the sides focused attention on the enhanced defence cooperation between the two countries. Within the framework of the U.S.-Georgia Charter on Strategic partnership, the United States provides assistance to the Georgian side in six directions which cover, among other issues, enhancement of air-defence capabilities, defensive combat engineer training and education and utility helicopter aviation training support.

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Rustavi 2
November 27, 2012

Eric Rubin holds meetings in Tbilisi

U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Eric Rubin pays an official visit to Georgia. He will participate in a session of the working group on Defense and Security Issues, which is held in the framework of the U.S.-Georgia Strategic Partnership Commission. Meetings with the NGOs, international missions to Georgia and country`s senior authorities are also on the agenda.

Mr. Rubin has already met with Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili. The sides emphasized the meaning of the 20-year-long cooperation between Georgia and the United States and expressed their hope that the cooperation between the two friendly countries would be further enhanced.

Bidzina Ivanishvili thanked Eric Rubin for great support provided to Georgia. The issue of Georgia-Russia relations was also reviewed.

`We had a very friendly, warm meeting; it was very interesting. We discussed bilateral relations once more and expressed hope that these relations would be enhanced in the terms of the new government,` Bidzina Ivanishvili said after the meeting.

Lion Feuchtwanger: War to make the world safe for democracy

Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

Lion Feuchtwanger
From Success (1930)
Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir

In the years after the Great War justice all over the globe was more than ever perverted to political ends. In China, during the civil war, state officials of every grade who had served under the defeated government were hanged or shot after due trial by the party who were triumphant at the time for every conceivable crime which they had not committed.

In India, polite imperialistic judges, who paid deep homage to the disinterestedness and nobility of the accused, sentenced the leaders of the Nationalist movement on dubious and purely formal grounds to long terms of imprisonment for publishing certain books and articles.

In Russia Bolshevist judges executed supporters of the Tsarist regime for acts of espionage of which they were presumably innocent, after brow-beating any defence that was offered.

In Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria, after a parody of justice, Jewish and Socialist prisoners were shot, hanged and imprisoned for life for offences which could not be proven, while Nationalists who had committed proved offences were either not proceeded against, or acquitted, or given a trifling sentence and pardoned.

It was the same in Germany.

In Italy supporters of the dictatorship in power were acquitted in spite of murders proved against them; and opponents of the same dictatorship after a secret trial were banished and declared to have forfeited their property and civil rights.

In France officers of the Rhine Army of Occupation were acquitted after murdering German subjects; while Parisian Communists, arrested during a riot, were sent to several years’ imprisonment for unproven offences.

In England the Sinn Feiners were treated in the same way. One or two died while hunger-striking.

In America members of a patriotic club who had lynched innocent negroes were set free; while Italian immigrants, radicals, were sent to the electric chair ostensibly for murder in spite of credible alibis brought forward by witnesses from a large town.

These things happened in the name either of a republic, or of the people, or of a king; in any case in the name of justice.