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Writers Articles And Opinions |
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08 October 2010 By Rick Rozoff
With the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization into Eastern Europe from 1999-2009, the
U.S.-led military alliance has grown by 75 percent,
from 16 to 28 members.
By 2009 all former non-Soviet Warsaw Pact member
states had been incorporated into NATO, the former
German Democratic Republic (East Germany) being
absorbed with its merger into the Federal Republic in
1990. The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined
NATO in 1999 and Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia in
2004. Albania, which suspended participation in the
Warsaw Pact six years after its founding, in 1961, was
brought into the Alliance last year.
The 2004 expansion included seven nations in all,
the three mentioned above, the first former Yugoslav
republic, Slovenia, and the first former Soviet
republics: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Immediately upon their accession, the United States
began to employ the new members’ territory for
military bases, troop deployments, air patrols and the
initial stages of a continent-wide anti-ballistic
missile system beyond already existing NATO plans for
the bloc’s Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile
Defence Programme.
The year after Romania was brought into NATO’s
ranks, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed
an agreement with its government to acquire the use of
four military bases in the country, including the
Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base in southeast Romania near
the Black Sea which had been used two years before for
the invasion of Iraq. Romanian President Traian
Basescu paid his first official visit to Washington to
meet with President George W. Bush, Secretary of State
Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld five
months before the treaty was signed.
At the time the Pentagon’s acquisition of the bases
was characterized as part of Defense Secretary
Rumsfeld’s “strategic shift intended to place US
forces closer to potential areas of conflict in North
Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.” [1]
Washington had led NATO’s nearly three-month air war
against nearby Yugoslavia five years before, invaded
Afghanistan two years after that and launched the
attack on Iraq another two years later. Three wars in
less than four years and all to the east of NATO’s
former area of responsibility.
The pact with Romania was the first of its kind in
a former Warsaw Pact nation. It was followed the next
year by a comparable arrangement with neighboring
Bulgaria in which the U.S. secured the indefinite use
of four military facilities, including two air bases.
This February the governments of Romania and
Bulgaria announced their willingness to host
components of the American interceptor missile system
designed to cover all of Europe under what the White
House and the Pentagon call a new phased adaptive
approach.
But the first U.S. and NATO military presence in
what had been Warsaw Pact member states occurred the
year before the U.S.-Romanian Defense Cooperation
Agreement and moreover was in former Soviet space.
After Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined NATO in
March of 2004 the North Atlantic bloc immediately
began what it deems a Baltic air policing mission in
the airspace of the three nations as a Quick Reaction
Alert operation.
In the interim warplanes from several NATO member
states – the U.S., Britain, Germany, France, Turkey,
Spain, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, the Netherlands,
Belgium, the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania to
date – have flown what at first were three-month and
are now four-month around-the-clock rotations over the
three Baltic states, all of which have borders with
Russia. Estonia and Latvia adjoin the Russian mainland
to their east and Lithuania Russia’s Kaliningrad
exclave to its west. (Northeast Poland also borders
Kaliningrad.)
On September 1 the U.S. took over NATO’s Baltic air
patrol with the 493rd Expeditionary Fighter Squadron
deployed from Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England to
the Siauliai International Airport in Lithuania where
the NATO Baltic Air Policing mission is based. Four
U.S. F-15 C Eagle jet fighters, capable of being armed
with four types of air-to-air weapons including
Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles, and 120 personnel are
assigned to the mission.
It is the third time American warplanes have been
deployed for the Baltic air operation and the second
time F-15 C Eagles have been employed for the purpose.
U.S. ambassador to Lithuania Anne Derse, who came
to the position from being American envoy to
Azerbaijan, said as the U.S. Air Force took over from
its Polish counterpart: “The (493rd has) already
established a legacy of professionalism in the Baltics,
and we look forward to building upon it. As all
warriors know, the surest way to maintain peace is to
exercise constant vigilance and rigorously prepare to
meet all potential threats. The Baltic air policing
mission is just one of many facets of NATO’s vigilance
and preparation.” Derse didn’t indicate which
potential threats the warriors were preparing to
confront, but a look at a map of the Baltic Sea does.
Major General Mark Zamzow, vice commander of the
3rd Air Force based at the Ramstein Air Base in
Germany, added, “Our relationship with the Baltic
nations has grown remarkably since the inception of
the Air policing mission.”
He was also cited claiming “a 2008 endeavor
designed to provide complex air policing training has
since evolved with a broader scope emphasizing a wide
spectrum of air operations over Lithuania, Latvia and
Estonia.” [2]
Two weeks after the U.S. warplanes and airmen
arrived in Lithuania, the president of neighboring
Estonia officiated over the opening of the newly
expanded and modernized Amari Air Base in his nation,
which the local press reported can accommodate 16 NATO
jet fighters, 20 military transport planes and 2,000
troops. President Toomas Hendrik Ilves said “The
construction of the Amari Air Base, which was jointly
financed by the Estonian state and NATO, is a perfect
expression of the solidarity between allies” [3] and
that “the completion of the air base would make it
much easier to bring allied troops and their equipment
to Estonia in the event of a crisis situation.”
He also “underscored the fact that from 2012, when
the complex as a whole is due for completion, NATO
will have one of the most modern air force bases in
the region at its disposal.” [4]
Estonian Air Force chief Brigadier General Valeri
Saar confirmed that Baltic air policing warplanes
could use the base in the future and that NATO pilots
will begin to employ it for training purposes
beginning in October.
Not only have NATO and the U.S. moved military
personnel and aircraft into nations bordering
northwestern Russia, but they have done so in flagrant
violation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces
in Europe (CFE) negotiated in 1989 between the 16
members of NATO and six of the Warsaw Pact at the
time, which mandated comprehensive limits on several
categories of conventional military equipment in
Europe.
The treaty was signed in 1990 and ratified the next
year after the dissolution of both the Warsaw Pact and
the Soviet Union, which created gray areas that the
Pentagon could exploit – as it has through NATO’s
eastward expansion in the interim – to station
military hardware and personnel in Russia’s fellow
Black Sea states Bulgaria and Romania and in its
Baltic Sea neighbors Estonia, Lithuania and Poland.
The CFE pact was signed by 22 nations and ratified
by 30: The 16 members of NATO, six non-Soviet former
members of the Warsaw Pact and eight ex-Soviet
republics: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia,
Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are not signatories
to the treaty. Neither is former Yugoslav republic
Slovenia, inducted into NATO along with the three
Baltic states in 2004.
In 1999 an Adapted Conventional Armed Forces in
Europe Treaty (CFE-II) was signed during the
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
summit in Istanbul by the same 30 countries that had
endorsed the original.
To date only four former Soviet republics –
Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine – have
ratified it. NATO nations have sabotaged the treaty’s
implementation by linking it, without legitimate legal
or other grounds, with the withdrawal of what until
recently were small Russian peacekeeping contingents
in Transdniester, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. What
NATO refers to as the Istanbul Commitments. 1,500
Russia troops in Transdniester have no impact on
European security, but by preventing the CFE-II treaty
from entering into force the U.S. and NATO retain the
right to violate the treaty’s (and its predecessor’s)
limits on troops and armaments – including combat
aircraft and attack helicopters – in non-signatory
nations like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Russia
suspended its commitments under the CFE-II treaty
three years ago because of concerns over the U.S. and
NATO deploying troops and equipment to Eastern Europe
and the threat of missile shield
deployments to follow.
This past May the first deployment of U.S.
anti-ballistic missiles in Europe was achieved when a
Patriot Advanced Capacity-3 missile battery and over
100 troops were moved into the Polish city of Morag
near the Baltic Sea.
When on September 17 of last year U.S. President
Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
announced the decision to shift from previous
interceptor missile plans for Eastern Europe to the
“smarter, stronger, and swifter” phased adaptive
approach, discussions began on stationing Standard
Missile-3 interceptors, both the traditional
ship-based and new land-based versions, in the Baltic
as well as the Black and Mediterranean Seas.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania not having signed the
original CFE treaty or its successor and no NATO state
having ratified the adapted agreement permit
Washington to deploy longer-range interceptor missiles
as well as warplanes to and off the coasts of the
three Baltic states.
The U.S. and NATO have claimed that moving military
forces and equipment into Eastern Europe, several
thousand U.S. troops to Bulgaria and Romania at any
given times along with jet fighters to the Baltic Sea
region and missiles to Poland, is not in violation of
the CFE treaty as they are not permanent deployments.
But they are. NATO’s Baltic air policing mission, for
example, has been conducted for almost six and a half
years and, as seen above, is expanding in scope into
the indefinite future.
Moreover, NATO’s four new members on the Baltic Sea
– Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland – have been
transformed into training grounds for the Pentagon’s
and NATO’s wars abroad, especially that in
Afghanistan, and to prepare for potential
confrontation and conflict with fellow Baltic littoral
state Russia.
U.S. troops, warships and warplanes are present in
the region on a regular basis, conducting military
exercises several times a year.
The trade-off between the U.S. and other founding
members of NATO on the one hand and the bloc’s new
members in Eastern Europe on the other is for the
latter to provide bases for use by Washington and
Brussels and to supply troops for the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq as well as others to come in
exchange for NATO and its main member the U.S. – the
world’s sole military superpower – placing them under
the Alliance’s Article 5, the bulk of which states:
“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.”
As examples of the obligations imposed on new
member states, Poland ran the Multinational Division
Central-South in Iraq from 2003-2008 with NATO
assistance and deployed 2,500 troops for the command.
It currently has 2,600 troops in Afghanistan, where it
has lost 21 soldiers, and another 400 held in reserve
for the mission. The Iraq and Afghanistan deployments
are the largest overseas military commitments
undertaken in Poland’s history.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania all had troops in
Iraq – Latvia’s and Lithuania’s under Polish-NATO
command – and all three countries currently have
forces serving under NATO in Afghanistan.
NATO maintains a Joint Force Training Centre in
Bydgoszcz, Poland, responsible to its Allied Command
Transformation in Norfolk, Virginia, and in 2008 NATO
inaugurated the Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of
Excellence in Estonia, also connected with the
U.S.-based Allied Command Transformation. The second
was established a year after cyber attacks in Estonia
which domestic – and U.S. – officials blamed on
Russia, although Estonian Defense Minister Jaak
Aaviksoo was compelled to admit he had no evidence
that Russian government agencies played any role in
the attacks. Notwithstanding which, the Western press
at the time was rife with speculation over NATO
invoking its Article 5, first used as a justification
for NATO entering the war in Afghanistan, for the
occasion.
This June the Times of London wrote that “NATO is
considering the use of military force against enemies
who launch cyber attacks on its member states.” A
report issued by the Group of Experts – led by former
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright – that NATO
appointed to promote the new Strategic Concept that
will be adopted at the bloc’s summit in Lisbon in
November stated, “a cyber attack on the critical
infrastructure of a Nato country could equate to an
armed attack, justifying retaliation.” [5]
Estonia is a likely test case for the policy.
The U.S. and NATO are ensuring they have the
military forces in place to make good on their threat
by conducting almost constant war games in the Baltic
Sea.
On September 13 over 4,000 troops and 60 ships
along with planes and helicopters from the U.S.,
Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Norway, the
Netherlands, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,
Finland and Sweden participated in this year’s
Northern Coasts exercises in the Baltic Sea, the
largest maneuvers ever staged in Finnish territorial
waters.
On September 20 U.S. Special Operations Command
Europe launched the Jackal Stone 10 multinational
military exercise with 1,300 special forces from the
U.S., Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Croatia, Romania and
Ukraine. The exercises began at a Polish air base and
continued at two bases in Lithuania. The U.S.
dispatched USS Mount Whitney, the flagship of the U.S.
Sixth Fleet (whose area of responsibility is the
Mediterranean Sea) to participate in the drills.
According to a U.S. Naval Special Warfare official:
“During the 10-day special operation exercise, Mount
Whitney’s presence was a huge asset. The ship provided
excellent surveillance of targets at sea and helped
the SOF [special operations forces] planners maintain
an excellent perspective of the big picture by
strategically placing itself off the coast, ready to
perform any task the SOF required.” [6]
The United States European Command website said of
the war games: “The experiences and lessons learned
from the current war in Afghanistan underscore the
critical importance of deliberate planning for
coalition special operations forces (SOF) missions.
“Training opportunities such as the Jackal Stone 10
exercise, co-hosted this year by Poland and Lithuania
and coordinated by the U.S. Special Operations Command
Europe, provide a unique venue for the U.S. to develop
commonalities with its international SOF partners
whether by land, air or sea….The Jackal Stone 10
exercise allows SOCEUR [Special Operations Command
Europe] an opportunity to enhance the capabilities of
its partner nations so they can become an integral
part of the NATO footprint, specifically in developing
the staff planning and operational ability of special
operations forces.” [7]
A Polish newspaper revealed intentions beyond the
war in Afghanistan in reporting that “Exercise Jackal
Stone 2010 was designed to enhance international
military cooperation and increase military
preparedness in CEE [Central and Eastern Europe].” It
also quoted the previously mentioned Naval Special
Warfare official asserting that “[the exercise] was a
unique opportunity for SOF units from these countries
to promote better communication and improve our
readiness to build a greater fighting force
worldwide.” [8]
The U.S. 352nd Special Operations Group conducted
“midnight training maneuvers” in the skies above
Poland: “The mission began with two Combat Shadows
flying in formation. As the training progressed, the
crews conducted evasive maneuvers while flying at low
levels in reaction to simulated area threats.” [9]
U.S. and Polish forces also held a mass casualty
exercise to prepare for “potential ‘real world’
emergencies” at the 21st Tactical Airbase in Swidwin
where the opening ceremony for Jackal Stone 10 was
held.
In the words of Polish Warrant Officer Anna
Matulska, “I’ve been deployed to Iraq before and it’s
the same way. We have to work quickly, we have to
triage and as in the case of our burn patients, we
have to make sure they are kept warm.” [10]
Jackal Stone 10 had among other purposes that of
preparing Poland to become a “framework nation,” which
will “enable it to assume command of multinational
special forces within NATO by 2014.” [11]
The launching of the war games at the Swidwin air
base included an address by Polish Defense Minister
Bogdan Klich, who said “Special operations in the
world today are becoming increasingly important in the
conduct of combat operations. And exercises like this
check the ability of allied and international
cooperation, which is essential for the success of the
Allies.” [12]
On the closing day of Jackal Stone 10 Klich left
for Washington, D.C. to meet with Pentagon Chief
Robert Gates and “hold talks…on Afghanistan and the
future of NATO” as well as U.S. missile shield plans.
He also participated in the swearing-in ceremony of
Polish General Mieczyslaw Bieniek as NATO’s Deputy
Supreme Allied Commander Transformation in Norfolk,
Virginia. “This is the highest post that a Polish
officer has ever taken in NATO,” Klich said. He was
reported as “adding that his presence at the ceremony
is necessary to show how important NATO is for Poland
and how important it is for the country to have its
representative in high NATO structures.” [13]
On the same day the Polish defense minister arrived
in Washington, Polish Radio announced that former
prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski wrote to 738 Members
of the European Parliament (MEPs) and “dozens of
ambassadors worldwide, urging them to help block an
expansion of Russia’s influence abroad.”
In what was described as “an unprecedented move for
a leader of an opposition party,” the twin brother of
recently deceased President Lech Kaczynski demanded
that “Washington and Brussels should…give greater
assistance to countries that want to free themselves
from the Russian sphere of influence.” [14]
The ambassadors Kaczynski sent his letter to were
those of the other 26 European Union member states,
plus the U.S., Canada, Israel, Switzerland, Norway,
Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Georgia and
Armenia.
The last six nations are targeted by the Eastern
Partnership initiative of the EU, first promoted by
Poland in 2008, which is designed to recruit the
former Soviet republics away from the Commonwealth of
Independent States and thus complete the isolation,
the effective quarantine, of Russia in Europe. [15]
The U.S. and NATO are expanding the use of the
Alliance’s Baltic Sea member states to train for wars
outside the region and for moving American and NATO
military forces into it.
On September 27 the PRT-12 Challenge training
exercise started at a military base in Lithuania. PRT
is short for Provincial Reconstruction Team, a joint
military-civilian counterinsurgency pacification
project. 27 PRTs operate in Afghanistan under the
command of several NATO International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF) troop contributing countries.
Lithuania’s Kæstutis Battalion, the majority of
whose troops “have been deployed to multinational
missions in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan
previously,” is being prepared for a new rotation to
Afghanistan. “Representatives of Denmark, Georgia,
Japan, the USA, Poland, Finland and Ukraine serve
together with Lithuanian military and civilian
personnel in the Ghor PRT camp in Chaghcharan.” Japan
is not officially acknowledged as an ISAF contributor.
The training involves 200 troops, including
Ukrainian forces. “A camp was installed for the
purpose of the exercise in the Kazlu Ruda Military
Area; it parallels the camp of the Lithuanian-led PRT
in Ghor….Soldiers will demonstrate their ability to
respond to fictitious situations, such as
demonstrations of the local population, insurgent
attacks with IEDs on provincial roads, firing at the
camp, etc. The exercise is organised by the leadership
of the Lithuanian Land Force.” [16]
On September 28 it was reported that 50 advance
troops from other NATO nations had arrived in Latvia
for the Sabre Strike 2011 military exercise to be
conducted at the Adazi Training Area from October 18
to 31. “The aim of Sabre Strike 2011 is to tune [up]
interoperability procedures and improve the
integration of the land and air operational ability of
three Baltic States and the U.S with prospects of
participation in the ISAF (International Security
Assistance Force) operation in Afghanistan and other
multinational operations in the future.” [17]
One of the purposes of the exercises is the
implementation of Latvia’s role as part of the NATO
Host Nation Support system – whose “requirements
include the deployment of NATO HQs, multinational HQs
and forces for exercises or for operations during
peace, crisis, or conflict” [18] – which “is one of
the main tasks to ensure Latvia’s successful
integration in NATO.” [19]
NATO’s new members on the Baltic Sea are delivering
on the demands imposed upon them by accession to the
Alliance.
They host NATO – particularly U.S. – troops, bases,
warplanes, warships and missiles. They provide troops
for wars far abroad. They supply training
opportunities on the ground and in the air for the war
in Afghanistan and for future conflicts with none of
the restrictions that exist in North America and
Western Europe. And they render those multiple
services near Russia’s western border.
1) BBC News, December 6, 2005
2) Headquarters Allied Command Ramstein, September 1,
2010
3) Estonian Public Broadcasting, September 15, 2010
4) Office of the President, September 15, 2010
5) The Times, June 6, 2010
6) Warsaw Business Journal, September 28, 2010
7) United States European Command, September 28, 2010
8) Warsaw Business Journal, September 28, 2010
9) United States European Command, September 24, 2010
10) United States Air Forces in Europe, September 29,
2010
11) Warsaw Business Journal, September 28, 2010
12) U.S. Consolidates New Military Outposts In Eastern
Europe
Stop NATO, September 23, 2010
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/u-s-consolidates-new-military-outposts-in-eastern-europe
13) Polish Radio, September 28, 2010
14) Polish Radio, September 29, 2010
15) 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
16) Baltic Course, September 28, 2010
17) Defence Professionals, September 28, 2010
18) North Atlantic Treaty Organization
http://www.nato.int/docu/logi-en/1997/lo-1207.htm
19) Defence Professionals, September 28, 2010
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