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10 December 2010 By Rick Rozoff The new Strategic Concept adopted by the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization at its summit in Lisbon,
Portugal on November 19-20 reiterated the U.S.-led
military bloc's determination to expand military
partnerships and deployments throughout the so-called
Greater Middle East, including in the Persian Gulf.
[1] The Alliance's doctrine for the next decade
contains the assertion that "we attach great
importance to peace and stability in the Gulf region,
and we intend to strengthen our cooperation in the
Istanbul Cooperation Initiative," [2] the reference
being to the decision reached at the bloc's 2004
summit in Turkey to upgrade partnerships with the
seven members of NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue program
– Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco
and Tunisia – and the six members of the Gulf
Cooperation Council – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar,
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – to the
status of the Partnership for Peace program used to
graduate 12 Eastern European nations to full NATO
membership over the last 11 years. Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates
have formally responded to the initiative by forging
bilateral relations with NATO, and Oman and Saudi
Arabia have cooperated with the military alliance in
ad hoc endeavors ranging from conferences to hosting
visits of NATO naval groups. [3] The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is also one of
NATO's 48 Troop Contributing Nations for the war in
Afghanistan and provides air bases to NATO member
states for the war in that country. Until recently
Canadian aircraft and troops operated out of Camp
Mirage in Dubai, reportedly at the Al Minhad Air Base,
where Dutch, Australian and New Zealand military
forces have also been based for the Afghan war and
operations in the Arabian Sea. Britain also employs the Al Minhad Air Base as a
"final hopping point" for transport planes to "carry
troops and supplies to Afghanistan." In addition, the
base supplies logistical support to British warships
in the Persian Gulf. In the words of a British
military official, "It's the right distance from the
UK and the right distance from Afghanistan, in a safe
country." [4] As is evident by the location of the 13 nations
targeted by the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, from
Mauritania on the west coast of Africa to the
monarchies and sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf, NATO is
complementing and reinforcing U.S. military objectives
and deployments from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian
Ocean. There is a NATO overlay to the Pentagon's
Africa Command and Central Command, converging in
Egypt, the only African nation still in the second
command which reaches to the Chinese and Russian
borders in Kazakhstan to the east. The USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Harry S. Truman
nuclear-powered supercarrier strike groups are
currently in the Arabian Sea along with the only
non-American nuclear aircraft carrier in the world,
France's Charles de Gaulle [5], conducting operations
from the Horn of Africa to Afghanistan. Over 150,000 troops under U.S. and NATO command are
waging war in Afghanistan, including in the provinces
of Herat, Farah and Nimroz on Iran's eastern border.
In 2004 NATO airlifted Afghan government troops
loyal to President Hamid Karzai to Herat province to
depose the province's governor, Ismail Khan, whose son
was killed in the process, and seize the Shindand Air
Base, 20 miles from the Iranian border. Earlier this year the Pentagon announced plans to
spend $131 million to upgrade the air base. As a press
report last May put it, the expansion and
modernization of the base is occurring "as the U.S.
works to strengthen the militaries and missile
defenses of allies in the region and presses at the
United Nations for a new round of sanctions aimed at
forcing Iran to curb its nuclear program." [6] To the south of Afghanistan's Nimroz province is
the Pakistani province of Balochistan, where the U.S.
and NATO have been conducting helicopter raids and
surveillance flights and where it was recently
reported that "the United States military and its
coalition partners in Afghanistan" have been granted
the right to "maintain a presence" at a Pakistani
military base in the capital of Quetta. [7] By some
accounts the Pentagon and NATO are establishing an air
base in the province. [8] North of Afghanistan's border with Iran is the
former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan, which adjoins
Iran from Afghanistan to the Caspian Sea. In January
of 2009 General David Petraeus, at the time head of
U.S. Central Command and now commander of all American
and NATO troops in Afghanistan, led a delegation to
Turkmenistan to consolidate transit and other support
for the war in Afghanistan and to build bilateral
military ties. Last summer a news source by no means unfriendly to
U.S. foreign policy objectives revealed that "The U.S.
has gained access to use almost all the military
airfields of Turkmenistan, including the airport in
Nebit-Dag near the Iranian border, which was
reconstructed at American expense. In September 2004,
at the Mary-2 airfield, U.S. military experts appeared
and began reconstructing the facility with the help of
Arab construction companies, which provoked the
protest of Moscow…." [9] North of Turkmenistan along the Caspian coastline,
one nation removed from Iran, is Kazakhstan, the
largest and richest nation in Central Asia and one
which has a 4,251-mile border with Russia and a
951-mile one with China. [10] Last month the U.S. State Department signed an
agreement with the country that allows U.S. military
aircraft "to fly across the North Pole and through
Kazakhstan air space to supply American forces in
Afghanistan," thereby "mak[ing] it faster and cheaper
to send troops and materiel to the Afghan war zone."
[11] The U.S. has also recently confirmed that it will
supply Kazakhstan with six retrofitted UH-1 Iroquois
(Huey) helicopters to be used in the Caspian Sea where
border demarcation issues exist among its five
littoral nations: Kazakhstan, Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan
and Turkmenistan. In late October Kazakh President Nursultan
Nazarbayev met with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh
Rasmussen and afterward announced that Kazakh troops
would be assigned to NATO's International Security
Assistance Force headquarters in the Afghan capital.
Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, on opposite ends of the
Caspian Sea, along with Azerbaijan's South Caucasus
neighbors Armenia and Georgia, are the only
non-European nations that have been granted a NATO
Individual Partnership Action Plan. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently
returned from visits to Kazakhstan, where she attended
the Organization for Security and Co-operation in
Europe (OSCE) summit in the nation's capital and met
with President Nazarbayev and Foreign Minister
Saudabayev to discuss "various aspects of the
U.S.-Kazakhstan strategic partnership," [12] and
afterward to Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Bahrain. On December 2 Hillary met with Kyrgyz President
Roza Otunbayeva [13] and indicated that the Pentagon
has no intention of leaving the Transit Center at
Manas (formerly the Manas Air Base) in Kyrgyzstan
where the latest figures estimate that 50,000 U.S. and
NATO troops transit each month into and out of
Afghanistan. According to a Reuters dispatch, "Clinton
said Washington would examine again in 2014 whether it
needed the Manas base." [14] On the same day a Kyrgyz website disclosed that
Foreign Minister Ruslan Kazakbaev met with Dirk
Brengelmann, NATO's Assistant Secretary General for
Political Affairs and Security Policy, to discuss
bilateral cooperation. Clinton next travelled to Uzbekistan on December 2
in the first visit by a Secretary of State to the
country since Colin Powell's nine years ago. During her trip the local press quoted earlier
statements by two of Clinton's subordinates at a
subcommittee hearing of the U.S. House of
Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs on
November 17: Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central
Asian Affairs Robert Blake affirmed that "This
administration considers Central Asia to be an
important pillar of our security policy and regional
US interests," and Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia
David Sedney said, "We must increase our engagement
with Central Asia at all levels." [15] Across the Caspian from Kazakhstan, the U.S. and
NATO have cultivated Azerbaijan as a military outpost
on the sea and in the volatile South Caucasus region.
[16] Azerbaijan borders Iran. The Azerbaijan-NATO Cooperation Institute and the
Romanian embassy – the current NATO Contact Point
Embassy in Azerbaijan – will host a conference
entitled "NATO After the Lisbon Summit: New Strategic
Concept" in the capital of Baku on December 7. Recently Borut Grgic, founder of the European
Policy Centre's transCaspian Initiative and senior
fellow at the Atlantic Council – the U.S.-based
pro-NATO think tank [17] – stated: "NATO has a stabilizing role to play in the region,
most of all in providing the broader security
framework for the countries of the South Caucasus. "I think all three South Caucasus countries can
become NATO member states…." [18] All three nations –
Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia – have NATO Individual
Partnership Action Plans and have troop contingents
assigned to NATO's International Security Assistance
Force in Afghanistan. Georgia is a U.S. and NATO
frontline on the Black Sea and in the Caucasus. The
American guided missile destroyer USS Gonzalez visited
the Georgian Black Sea port of Batumi last week and on
December 3 American ambassador John Bass stated: "The United States remains firmly committed to
Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity. We
enjoy a strong defense relationship, defense
cooperation, and we're currently working closely with
the Ministry of Defense and other ministries in
Georgia to improve Georgia's ability to defend
itself." [19] On December 1 the chairman of the Armenian
parliament's Committee on Defense, National Security
and Internal Affairs gave a lecture at the NATO
Defense College in Rome. On December 3 NATO Deputy
Secretary General Claudio Bisogniero met with
Armenia's representative to NATO, Samvel Mkrtchyan, to
discuss current and future cooperation. Armenia
borders Iran and has maintained good relations with
its neighbor. It is also a member of the Russian-led
Collective Security Treaty Organization. Ties with
Iran and Russia will not grow any closer as Armenia is
further integrated with NATO. After leaving Central Asia, on December 3 Clinton
was in Bahrain to deliver a special address at the
Manama Dialogue 2010 Regional Security Summit
sponsored by the London-based International Institute
for Strategic Studies and the Kingdom of Bahrain. Her comments included: "Amongst other things, we seek to strengthen the
Gulf security dialogue, which represents our primary
security coordination mechanism with the Gulf
Cooperation Council countries. The dialogue is
designed to bolster the capabilities of GCC partners
to deter and defend against conventional and
unconventional threats and improve interoperability
with the United States and with each other. We all
know that efforts to deepen cooperation, coordination
and transparency among this region's militaries would
yield broad benefits that extend to the whole range of
modern threats." [20] The Gulf Security Dialogue is, in the State
Department's own words, "the U.S. Government's
principal security coordination mechanism with the
nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council. The Dialogue
supports our enduring interest in the region, focusing
on a wide range of political-military issues,
including shared strategic challenges in the wider
region and enhancing partnerships in the areas of
security cooperation, counterterrorism, border
security, nonproliferation and maritime security."
[21] Bahrain lies directly across the Persian Gulf from
Iran, hosts the headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet,
is an active member of NATO's Istanbul Cooperation
Initiative and has security personnel assigned to
NATO's International Security Assistance Force in
Afghanistan. The United Arab Emirates, the only Persian Gulf
state that is an official Troop Contributing Nation
for NATO in Afghanistan, has just hosted a two-day
Middle East Missile and Air Defense Symposium in Abu
Dhabi. On the first day, Deputy Chief of Staff of the
United Arab Emirates Armed Forces Major General Ali
Mohammed Subaih Al Kaâ'bi said that "an integrated
missile defence Center of Excellence along with
CENTCOM [U.S. Central Command] is now a reality." Central Command chief Marine General James Mattis
gave the second keynote address on December 5 and said
"CENTCOM is eager to engage in countering ballistic
and cruise missiles and providing a robust missile
defence…." [22] The conference's first plenary session was chaired
by Lieutenant General (Retired) Stanley Green, the
Vice President of International Business Development,
Air and Missile Defense at Lockheed Martin (and
formerly with Raytheon Company), and Major General
Richard Shook, Mobilization Assistant to Commander of
the US Air Forces Central Command, gave a presentation
on "Regional Integrated Air and Missile Defense – The
Operational Picture." Brigadier General David Mann, commander of the 32nd
Army Air and Missile Defense Command, delivered a
presentation entitled "A Regional Approach to Missile
Defense – The Integrated Air and Missile Defense
Center (IAMDC)." The second plenary session heard from – as they are
described by the sponsors of the event – Clayton Holt,
Middle East Division Chief, Directorate of
International Affairs at the Pentagon's Missile
Defense Agency, on the subject of "Ballistic Missile
Defense Overview," from Captain Hervé Boy, chief of
the Program Expertise Office at the French Navy
Headquarters, on "Maritime Assets and Interoperability
in the AMD System," and from Major General (Retired)
John Urias, Deputy Commanding General of the U.S. Army
Space and Missile Defense Command (and Raytheon
Integrated Defense Systems vice president for Force
Applications Programs), on "Integrated Air & Missile
Defense – A Theater Imperative." The December 6 sessions were addressed by Major
General (Retired) John Brooks, Vice President,
International Business Development, President,
Northrop Grumman International, Inc.; David Des Roches,
Director, Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Office of the
Assistant Secretary of Defense, International Security
Affairs; the Pentagon's Colonel Ole Knudson; and
Colonel Marc Miglior, Project Officer in Charge, Air
Defense and Ballistic Missile Defense, French Air
Force Headquarters. [23] Last year French President Nicolas Sarkozy opened a
military complex – with a navy base, air base, and
training camp – in the United Arab Emirates, his
country's first permanent base in the Persian Gulf. In
doing so Paris joined the U.S., Britain, Canada, the
Netherlands. Australia and New Zealand in maintaining
a military presence in the country. The U.S. is consolidating a global interceptor
missile system not only in all of Europe as was
formalized at last month's NATO summit, but throughout
the Black Sea region and into the Middle East. Two
years ago the U.S. deployed an anti-missile
Forward-Based X-Band Radar with a 2,900-mile range in
Israel which it staffs with approximately 120 service
members, and will station 24 Standard Missile-3
interceptors in Romania. The U.S. and NATO have also been pressuring Turkey
to host missile shield facilities. According to one
report, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan "is
concerned that Turkey's participation might later give
Israel protection from an Iranian counter-strike."
[24] Earlier this year Washington announced the sale of
land-based interceptor missiles to Bahrain, Kuwait,
Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. It has supplied
both Patriot Advanced Capability-3 and Terminal High
Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile systems to Gulf
Cooperation Council states – Patriot missiles to
Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia and a THAAD
missile shield system to the United Arab Emirates –
and has deployed sea-based Standard Missile-3
interceptors in the Gulf on Aegis class warships. [25]
There are currently three Aegis class guided missile
destroyers in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea: USS
Halsey, Momsen and Shoup. On October 21 the U.S. announced a $60 billion arms
deal with Saudi Arabia for advanced fighter jets,
helicopters, missiles and other weaponry and equipment
in what has been calculated to be the largest weapons
deal in American history. The month before, the
Financial Times estimated that Washington plans to
sell $123 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. [26] Britain recently concluded two weeks of joint
military training with the air force and navy of the
United Arab Emirates at the Al Dhafra Air Base. The
war games, under the codename Operation Air Khanjar,
included aerial combat exercises with Royal Air Force
[RAF] Typhoon jet fighters and airborne surveillance
aircraft and Emirati F-16s and Mirages. The two countries' navies also participated as
"training increased in complexity as the operation
developed, with more advanced flight manoeuvres and
joint exercises with the British HMS Cumberland, which
was conducting maritime security operations in the
Gulf." "The Royal Navy relies on the UAE for ports, and
the RAF participates in training alongside Emirati
forces at the Air Warfare Centre." The Emirates' Al Minhad Air Base, in addition to
accommodating Western military aircraft, "provides
logistical support to British vessels deployed in the
Gulf for ‘broader regional stability' and enhanced
ties with the UAE." [27] NATO has announced that it is prepared to extend
its six-year-old NATO Training Mission – Iraq, which
has trained over 10,000 military personnel – officers
and troops – and internal security forces, beyond
2011. [28] After the NATO summit in Portugal, an editorial in
the Washington Post stated: "NATO's Lisbon summit meeting last weekend was
encouraging. All of the alliance's members – and the
more than 20 other nations that have joined the
international force in Afghanistan – signed on to a
plan to continue the mission until at least the end of
2014…. "The Afghan experience….offers the United States
the assurance that should it have to undertake wars
such as Afghanistan in the future, it will not need to
act alone." [29] When a confrontation – or far worse – with Iran
occurs, the U.S. and NATO will have military forces in
place all around the nation. 1) Lisbon Summit: NATO Proclaims Itself Global
Military Force http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../
lisbon-summit-nato-proclaims-itself-
global-military-force 2) NATO In Persian Gulf: From Third World War To
Istanbul http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/ 2009/../nato-in-persian-gulf-from-
third-world-war-to-istanbul 3) NATO's Role In The Military Encirclement Of
Iran http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../
natos-role-in-the-military-encirclement-of- iran 4) The National, December 5, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../
arabian-sea-center-of-wests-21st-century-war 6) Bloomberg News, May 20, 2010 http://www.eurasianet.org/node/61652 10) Kazakhstan: U.S., NATO Seek Military Outpost
Between Russia And China http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../
kazakhstan-u-s-nato-seek-military- outpost-between-russia-
and-china 11) Central Asia Newswire, November 15, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../1848 14) Reuters, December 2, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/
2010/../1761/ 17) Atlantic Council: Securing The 21st Century
For NATO http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/05/01 /atlantic-council-securing-the-
21st-century-for-nato 18) News.Az, November 26, 2010 http://www.iiss.org/conferences/ the-iiss-regional-security-summit/manama-
dialogue-2010/plenary-sessions-and-
speeches/special-address/ hillary-rodham-clinton 21) U.S. Department of State, March 22, 2010 http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/03/138732.htm 22) Khaleej Times, December 5, 2010 http://www.inegma.com/?navigation= event_details&cat=fe&eid=46 24) Zaman, November 30, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../
middle-east-loses-trillions-as-u-s-
strikes-record-arms-deals 26) Arabian Sea: Center Of West's 21st Century
War http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../
arabian-sea-center-of-wests-21st- century-war 27) The National, December 5, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../
iraq-nato-assists-in-building-new
-middle-east-proxy-army 29) Washington Post, November 25, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../ nato-afghan-war-model-for-
future-21st-century-operations |
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