10 April 2011 By Rick Rozoff At its summit in Lisbon, Portugal last November the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization adopted its first
strategic concept for the 21st century, one in keeping
with its expansion into not only a pan-European but a
self-styled international military force. In addition to subordinating all of Europe to a
U.S.-dominated interceptor missile system,
complementing the new U.S. Cyber Command in waging
cyberwarfare defensive and offensive, and erasing
whatever distinction remained between NATO and
European Union military functions on the continent and
globally, the world's only military bloc endorsed the
nearly ten-year-old war in Afghanistan as its prime
mission and affirmed its commitment to ongoing
operations in the Balkans. Almost all of the approximately 150,000 foreign
soldiers in Afghanistan are currently under the
command of the NATO-run International Security
Assistance Force, which is also conducting deadly
helicopter gunship raids and artillery attacks inside
neighboring Pakistan. The war in South Asia is NATO's first armed
conflict outside Europe and its first ground war. Its
bombing campaign in Bosnia in 1995 and 78-day air war
against Yugoslavia four years later were its first
hostile military actions. NATO is now waging a war in a third continent,
Africa. The Alliance's summit last year placed particular
emphasis on consolidating partnerships with nations
outside Europe and North America; military relations
and agreements with, counting NATO members and
partners alike, over a third of the 192 members of the
United Nations. Mechanisms employed to extend NATO's influence and
operations worldwide include the Partnership for
Peace, Mediterranean Dialogue, Istanbul Cooperation
Initiative, the Contact Countries format, the
NATO-Afghanistan-Pakistan Tripartite Commission and
the NATO-Russia Council. Five of the seven members of the Mediterranean
Dialogue – Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania, Morocco and
Tunisia – are African states. With U.S. Africa Command achieving full operational
capability on October 1, 2008, the whole continent has
been placed under an American overseas military
command (Egypt remains in U.S. Central Command's area
of responsibility), with plans underway to replicate
that arrangement with NATO. [1] U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) assumed control of
what is now a 12-day war against Libya, the only North
African nation not subordinated to AFRICOM or CENTCOM
and to binding NATO obligations, through its Joint
Task Force Odyssey Dawn. With NATO assuming direct command of the war – air
and cruise missile strikes, a naval blockade of the
country, on-the-ground operations in conjunction with
anti-government insurgents and afterward independently
– AFRICOM and NATO are being merged into one
warfighting force. In addition to that unprecedented integration, two
members of NATO's Istanbul Cooperation Initiative –
Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – are providing
warplanes for Operation Odyssey Dawn and in the
process engaging in a joint campaign with both NATO
and AFRICOM for the first time. (The United Arab
Emirates is one of 48 Troop Contributing Nations for
NATO's Afghan war and Bahrain, another Istanbul
Cooperation Initiative partner, is supplying security
forces for the International Security Assistance
Force. Mediterranean Dialogue member Egypt is also an
unofficial force contributor for NATO in Afghanistan.) When on March 28 President Barack Obama repeatedly
mentioned the international community and
"international partners" and the "broad coalition"
conducting the war against Libya along with the
Pentagon, he could only cite eleven allies so
involved: "[N]ations like the United Kingdom, France,
Canada, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Spain, Greece, and
Turkey…all of whom have fought by our side for decades
[and] Arab partners like Qatar and the United Arab
Emirates." Nevertheless, Washington has brought together North
American and European NATO allies with Persian Gulf
partners for a war in Africa, the latest step in
solidifying an international military alliance under
U.S. control, complementing the building of an
Asia-Pacific NATO, consolidating military partnerships
in the Persian Gulf and throughout the Middle East and
integrating former Soviet republics in Eastern Europe,
the South Caucasus and Central Asia into the
Pentagon-NATO network. Military operations currently under AFRICOM's Joint
Task Force Odyssey Dawn and within hours to be
transferred to NATO have included over 1,800 sorties
and 214 Tomahawk cruise missile attacks since the
beginning of the war on March 19. NATO's Lisbon summit declaration of last November
highlighted an expanding role for the bloc in Africa,
including supporting the African Union Mission in
Somalia (AMISOM), for which it has airlifted thousands
of Ugandan troops for combat in the nation's capital,
the Operation Ocean Shield naval operation off the
Horn of Africa and the operationalization of the
African Standby Force, modeled after the NATO Response
Force. In twelve years the U.S. has used NATO for the war
against Yugoslavia – the first unprovoked attack
against a sovereign European nation since World War
Two – a nearly decade-long air and ground war in Asia,
and now the opening stages of a war in Africa. None of
those wars were launched either to defend a member of
NATO or in the so-called Euro-Atlantic area the
military bloc arrogates to itself the right to
protect. 21st century NATO is a global military strike force
to be employed wherever its leading member states, the
U.S. in the first case, choose to use it. Other
nations in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the Caucasus
and even what is left of unsubjugated Europe had best
take note of the fact. 1) Africa: Global NATO Seeks To Recruit 50 New
Military Partners http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/africa-global-nato-seeks-to-recruit-50-new-military-partners Comments 💬 التعليقات |