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05 May 2010 By Rick Rozoff On April 28 the Atlantic Council held its annual
awards dinner at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in the Foggy
Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C. where the U.S.
State Department is also situated. The honorees were headed by former President Bill
Clinton, who was given the Distinguished International
Leadership Award for his intervention in the Balkans
in the 1990s, expanding the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization and launching the North American Free
Trade Agreement. Josef Ackermann, Chairman of the
Management Board and the Group Executive Committee of
Deutsche Bank AG, was presented with the Distinguished
Business Leadership Award. Distinguished Military Leadership Awards were
presented jointly to U.S. Marine General James Mattis,
currently chief of U.S. Joint Forces Command and
NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation from
2007-2009, and French General Stephane Abrial, who
took over the NATO command in Norfolk, Virginia from
Mattis last year. The Atlantic Council of the United States also
conferred its first Humanitarian Leadership Award on
the Irish pop singer Bono. NBC plugged the event beforehand with this
background blurb: “The Atlantic Council, which counts current
National Security Advisor James L. Jones and UN
Ambassador Susan Rice as former employees, is a
non-partisan group with a mission of promoting
international cooperation, particularly between the
U.S. and Europe. Jones will be joined at the black-tie
gathering by Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen, Sen.
John McCain and a host of other Washington socialites
and politicians.” [1] Jones was chairman of the Atlantic Council from
2007 until becoming what was described after the
announcement of his selection for National Security
Advisor as a new Henry Kissinger [2]. At the Munich
Security Conference in February 2009, a few days after
assuming his present post, Jones opened his address
with these words: “Thank you for that wonderful tribute to Henry
Kissinger yesterday. Congratulations. As the most
recent National Security Advisor of the United States,
I take my daily orders from Dr. Kissinger, filtered
down through General Brent Scowcroft and Sandy Berger,
who is also here. We have a chain of command in the
National Security Council that exists today.” [3] Prior to taking charge of the Atlantic Council,
Jones had been a Marine Corps four-star general, top
commander of U.S. European Command and NATO Supreme
Allied Commander Europe from 2003 to 2006, and
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s special envoy
for Middle East security, in which function he
discussed deploying NATO troops to the West Bank, a
recommendation echoed by his Atlantic Council
colleague Brent Scowcroft and former U.S. National
Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski at the time. Scowcroft, a retired Air Force general and National
Security Advisor under Presidents Gerald Ford and
George H. W. Bush (on both sides of Brzezinski in the
role), is now the chairman of the Atlantic Council’s
International Advisory Board. At this year’s award dinner, attended by “more than
900 leaders from over 50 countries,” Scowcroft
“introduced Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff and 2008 Distinguished Military
Leadership Award honoree, French Air Force General
Stephane Abrial, Supreme Allied Commander
Transformation and co-recipient of this year’s
Distinguished Military Leader Award [and] General
James Mattis, his predecessor at ACT and co-awardee.”
[4] Zbigniew Brzezinski’s daughter, MSNBC’s Mika
Brzezinski, co-emceed the event. Her brother Ian,
former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for NATO
and European Policy, is an Atlantic Council rapporteur.
The Atlantic Council of the United States was
established in 1961 by former Secretaries of State
Dean Acheson and Christian Herter to bolster support
for NATO. Atlantic Councils were set up in other
member states for the same purpose, and at the present
time they now number more than 40 in NATO and
Partnership for Peace countries. The name is
derivative of North Atlantic Council, the highest
governing body of NATO. According to the British Atlantic Council’s
website, the councils are the product of the Atlantic
Treaty Association formed in 1954, and the latter
still “acts as an umbrella organisation to coordinate
the different councils’ efforts to promote public
support for the institutions that bring together
political leaders, academics and diplomats in an
effort to further the values laid down in the North
Atlantic Treaty….” [5] The U.S. Atlantic Council is preeminent, though, as
the U.S. is in NATO. Foreign officials – heads of
state, defense and foreign ministers – routinely
frequent and speak at the Atlantic Council’s
headquarters in Washington, D.C. when on trips to
visit the White House, the Pentagon and the State
Department. This year’s awards banquet “included ten current or
former heads of state and government, two dozen
members of Congress, 40 ambassadors to the United
States and 35 global chief executives, and numerous
senior officials of the Obama administration.” [6] In February of 2009 James Jones stepped down as
chairman of the Atlantic Council to become Barack
Obama’s National Security Advisor. Brent Scowcroft
assisted in selecting Obama’s national security team,
so Jones’ appointment should have been no surprise. At the same time Susan Rice left the Atlantic
Council for the U.S. ambassadorship to the United
Nations and Richard Holbrooke to become the White
House’s and State Department’s Special Representative
to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Fellow members General
Eric Shinseki and Anne-Marie Slaughter went on to
become the Secretary of Veterans Affairs and Director
of Policy Planning at the State Department,
respectively. As an indication of why Clinton received the main
award, in his comments he boasted of his military
interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo although “78
percent of the US public opposed going in to the
Balkans….” [7] Georgian news media reported that the nation’s
President Mikheil Saakashvili “attended the annual
reception at the prestigious Atlantic Council in
Washington, D.C where he was invited as the
co-chairperson of the event.” [8] As a further earnest of its mission to promote
“constructive U.S. leadership and engagement in
international affairs based on the central role of the
Atlantic community in meeting the international
challenges of the 21st century” [9] and in loyalty to
the four pillars of the “North Atlantic Treaty;
democracy, freedom, security and the rule of law,”
[10] in past years awards were given to: 2009: The Distinguished International Leadership
Award to former President George H.W. Bush and former
German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. The Distinguished Military Leadership Award to U.S.
Central Command chief General David Petraeus “for his
strength and courage in Iraq, Afghanistan, and
throughout his military career.” Defense Secretary Robert Gates provided the
introduction for Bush and Zbigniew Brzezinski for the
German official receiving the award for Kohl. Bill
Clinton sent a personal message for Bush. 2008: The Distinguished International Leadership
Award was given to former British Prime Minister Tony
Blair, the military award to Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen and the
business one to Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Then former Spanish Prime Minister and Atlantic
Council International Advisory Board member Jose Maria
Aznar introduced Blair. The dinner also included
remarks by former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger
and Colin Powell and ex-National Security Advisor
Scowcroft. 2007: The Distinguished International Leadership
Award was given to former Chairman of the Federal
Reserve Alan Greenspan and the military equivalent to
outgoing NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Jones.
Colin Powell, the recipient of the 2005 Distinguished
International Leadership Award, introduced the
honorees. Previous recipients included Scowcroft himself,
Henry Kissinger, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander
Joseph Ralston and former NATO Secretary General Lord
Robertson. On the website of the Atlantic Council, with the
tag Renewing the Alliance for the 21st Century, [11]
among the links to other sites provided are those
under the heading of think tanks, which are: American Enterprise Institute The above organizations contain what was formerly
described in the corporate and financial worlds as
interlocking directorates; officials and members of
one are often also those of several others. Along with similar and related groups like Freedom
House, Project for the New American Century, U.S.
Committee on NATO, Project on Transitional
Democracies, National Endowment for Democracy and its
International Forum for Democratic Studies, World
Movement for Democracy and its Network of Democracy
Research Institutes, International Republican
Institute, National Democratic Institute for
International Affairs and a myriad of complementary
non-governmental organizations bankrolled by
billionaire currency speculator George Soros and
others – all identified as non-profit, non-partisan
(which in the U.S. denotes bipartisan
Democrat-Republican) organizations, though many are
funded by the U.S. government – the Atlantic Council
and the sites it links to are collectively the best
example of what for over a century has been described
as the invisible government. More particularly, an
unaccountable foreign policy establishment for which
Euro-Atlantic strategic ties with emphasis on the NATO
military bloc are given central emphasis. Officers and members of the think tanks and nominal
non-governmental organizations shift effortlessly and
regularly between those groups and top positions in
the State Department, Defense Department, National
Security Council and elsewhere in the federal
government. The Council on Foreign Relations offers
fellowships, an example being the Cyrus Vance
Fellowship in Diplomatic Studies, for one-year studies
for State Department personnel. As mentioned earlier, U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations Susan Rice is currently on leave from the
board of directors of the Atlantic Council. She has
also temporarily departed the Brookings Institution
and has been a member of the Council on Foreign
Relations and the Aspen Strategy Group, a project of
the Aspen Institute. The next-to-last group’s
co-chairs are the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft
and the Sultan of Oman Professor of International
Relations at the Kennedy School of Government at
Harvard University Joseph Nye. Its members include
Josef Korbel and Zbigniew Brzezinski protegees
Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice, and Richard
Armitage, Richard Haass, Richard Lugar, William Perry
and Strobe Talbott. Haass has been the president of the Council on
Foreign Relations since 2003, and before that was
Director of Policy Planning for the State Department.
Strobe Talbott is the president of the Brookings
Institution and was the Clinton administration’s
Deputy Secretary of State and Special Adviser to the
Secretary of State on the New Independent States in
the former Soviet Union. The Aspen Strategy Group’s director is R. Nicholas
Burns, who served on the National Security Council
from 1990–1995, seamlessly transitioning from the
George H.W. Bush to the Bill Clinton administration as
Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director
for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia Affairs. Burns was
also U.S. permanent representative to NATO from
2001-2005 under the George W. Bush administration and
serves on the Board of Directors of the Rockefeller
Brothers Fund and the Atlantic Council. The roster of the Atlantic Council is packed with
former Pentagon, State Department and Central
Intelligence Agency veterans. Its chairman is former
Republican Senator Chuck Hagel. Its president and
chief executive officer is Frederick Kempe, a
journalist with the Wall Street Journal for thirty
years who is now a member of the Council on Foreign
Relations and who serves on the Senior Advisory Group
of Admiral James Stavridis, commander of U.S. European
Command and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe. Its senior adviser on international security is
Kurt Volker, U.S. ambassador to NATO from 2008-2009
until he was replaced by the Brookings Institution’s
Ivo Daalder, and also former analyst at the Central
Intelligence Agency, deputy director of NATO
Secretary-General George Robertson’s private office,
acting director for European and Eurasian Affairs for
the National Security Council, and Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. The chairman of the International Advisory Board is
Brent Scowcroft. The board of directors includes (with former
titles) Defense Secretaries Harold Brown and William
Perry; R. Nicholas Burns; former NATO top military
commanders Joseph Ralston, Wesley Clark and Bantz John
Craddock; Under Secretary of State for Democracy and
Global Affairs from 2001-2009 Paula Dobriansky (an
Eastern Europe and former post-Soviet states hand);
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman;
Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and U.S. ambassador
to the European Union Stuart Eizenstat; Clinton
administration envoy to the Balkans Robert Gelbard;
Special Envoy for European Affairs, Special Envoy for
Eurasian Energy and ambassador to the European Union
C. Boyden Gray; Assistant Secretary of State for
European Affairs and Under Secretary of State for
Political Affairs Marc Grossman; National Security
Advisor Stephen Hadley; Richard Holbrooke; National
Security Council Director of West European Affairs and
Director of Middle East Affairs, ambassador to NATO
and current RAND Corporation Senior Advisor Robert E.
Hunter; Henry Kissinger; Assistant Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff and Deputy U.S. Representative
to NATO General Barry McCaffrey; Deputy Commander of
U.S. European Command Charles Wald; Central
Intelligence Agency director R. James Woolsey and U.S.
Central Command chief Anthony C. Zinni. Honorary directors include six of the last seven
secretaries of state: George Schultz, James Baker,
Warren Christopher, Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell
and Condoleezza Rice. Frank Carlucci, regime change
engineer from the Belgian Congo to Portugal and
ex-Defense Secretary, is another, as is fellow former
Pentagon chief James Schlesinger and former director
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and current
chairman of the Homeland Security Advisory Council
William Webster. The Atlantic Council’s International Advisory Board
counts among its members Spain’s Jose Maria Aznar,
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Rupert Murdoch and Lord (George)Robertson. Its Strategic Advisors Group (SAG) was founded in
2007 by James Jones and Brent Scowcroft and includes
many of the members of the Board of Directors and a
higher percentage of European and other non-American
members. It includes former Deputy Commander of U.S.
European Command General Charles Boyd, former Vice
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Admiral
Edmund Giambastiani, former chief of the German armed
forces and chairman of the NATO Military Committee
General Harald Kujat, and ex-Director-General of the
European Union Military Staff Lieutenant-General
Jean-Paul Perruche. “In 2008, the SAG focused its efforts on the topic
of NATO reform, teaming up with the Center for
Strategic and International Studies, the National
Defense University, and John’s Hopkins School of
Advanced International Studies to produce a report
entitled ‘Alliance Reborn: An Atlantic Compact for the
21st Century.’ This effort outlined ways in which
Allies should reinvigorate NATO, including improving
decision making, enhancing capabilities, and tackling
major challenges to ensure NATO’s relevance for new
and emerging threats.” [12] The Atlantic Council receives funding from numerous
foundations, including the Ford Foundation, the Open
Society Institute, the German Marshall Fund of the
United States and the Cuba Policy Foundation. It also
receives support from the U.S. Departments of the Air
Force, Army, Navy and Energy and from the U.S. Mission
to NATO and the U.S. Mission to the European Union.
Its corporate members consist of almost 100
companies which include arms manufacturers Boeing,
EADS North America, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin,
Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, and other concerns as
varied as AT&T, Chevron U.S.A., Daimler, Goldman
Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, MSNBC, Sony, Textron, Time
Warner, Toyota and Viacom. Although still concentrating on the Euro-Atlantic
zone, the Atlantic Council has followed NATO into
former Soviet Caucasus and Central Asia territories,
Asia as a whole, the Middle East and Africa. It now
has a South Asia Center and a Dinu Patriciu Eurasia
Center which “serves as the Atlantic Council’s focal
point for work related to Black Sea, Caspian, and
Central Asian energy issues, such as pipeline
politics, the East-West energy corridor, and east and
southeast European energy policies. Security concerns
throughout the wider Eurasia region, gas crises, and
the continued debate over proposed pipelines into
Europe make the Center’s efforts increasingly urgent.”
[13] In its own words its contemporary priority
objectives are: - identifying and shaping responses to major issues
facing the Atlantic Alliance and transatlantic
relations; - building consensus on U.S. policy towards Russia,
China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan; - promoting balanced responses to growing energy
needs and environmental protection; - drafting roadmaps for U.S. policy towards the
Balkans, Africa, Cuba, Iraq, Iran and Libya; - engaging students from across the Euro-Atlantic
area in the processes of NATO transformation and
enlargement Starting two years ago, the Strategic Advisors
Group (SAG) has “focused its efforts on the topic of
NATO reform, teaming up with the Center for Strategic
and International Studies, the National Defense
University, and John’s Hopkins School of Advanced
International Studies to produce a report entitled
‘Alliance Reborn: An Atlantic Compact for the 21st
Century.’ This effort outlined ways in which Allies
should reinvigorate NATO, including improving decision
making, enhancing capabilities, and tackling major
challenges to ensure NATO’s relevance for new and
emerging threats. “The ‘Alliance Reborn’ report served as a prelude
for the SAG’s ‘STRATCON 2010’ project, which seeks to
shape the debate concerning NATO’s development of a
new Strategic Concept. Led by SAG members Yves Boyer
and Julian Lindley-French, the project influences the
Strategic Concept development process from both inside
and outside the formal process.” [14] The SAG is no abstract planning body, as it
“produces major public policy briefs and reports,
hosts off-the-record Strategy Sessions for senior U.S.
and European civilian and military officials, and
provides informal, expert advice to senior
policymakers.” [15] Its 2007 report “Saving
Afghanistan: An Appeal and Plan for Urgent Action,”
authored by James Jones, was released at the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee in the presence of
Committee Chairman Senator John Kerry, and Jones later
testified on its contents before the same committee. The Strategic Advisors Group then visited NATO
Headquarters, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers
Europe and European Union Headquarters in Belgium to
brief European military and civilians leaders on the
report. The group was present at all five official NATO
conferences on the new Strategic Concept and co-hosted
the largest of them in Washington in February at the
National Defense University with NATO Secretary
General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Defense Secretary Gates
and Secretary of State Clinton. [16] The last-named
began the Washington Strategic Concept Seminar by
delivering an address at the same the Ritz Carlton in
Washington that hosted the recent Atlantic Council
awards affair, and at the event Atlantic Council
Chairman Chuck Hagel provided the welcoming remarks.
The Atlantic Council of the United States has
demonstrated its quasi-governmental nature by hosting
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s first
major speech in the U.S. last September, shortly after
succeeding the Netherlands’ Jaap de Hoop Scheffer at
the post on August 1. At the same event Atlantic Council member Senator
Richard Lugar reiterated the demand for the former
Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine to be absorbed
into NATO. His comments included: “NATO’s contributions are taken for granted. It is
important to take stock of just how remarkable it is
that NATO is involved in combat three thousand miles
from Europe. We should also celebrate the fact that
NATO membership has been a tremendous engine of reform
among prospective members, helping them to achieve the
institutional structures needed for success in the
21st century….We must not repeat the folly of the
early days of the Cold War, when the appearance of a
rigid U.S.-drawn defense perimeter in the Far East
invited the perception that we would abide any
geopolitical upheaval behind that line. The West must
hold out the prospect of membership to qualified
aspirant countries, including Ukraine, Georgia, and
the entire Balkan region.” [17] The Atlantic Council hosted and showcased the
presidents of Georgia and Ukraine, Mikheil Saakashvili
and Viktor Yushchenko, after their ascension to power
in so-called color revolutions in 2004 and 2005,
respectively. Last October 7 the Atlantic Council held a forum
titled “Missile Defense in Europe: Next Steps” with
U.S. Missile Defense Agency director Lieutenant
General Patrick O’Reilly and Secretary of State for
Arms Control and International Security Affairs Ellen
Tauscher on the Obama administration’s expanding
global interceptor missile system. Tauscher’s effusive comments included: “I want to thank all of my friends at the Atlantic
Council, especially people like Sen. Hagel and others
that are here that – your leadership is fundamental to
our being sure that we constantly keep refreshed the
very, very strong relationship we have, not only with
our NATO partners, but across the Atlantic with our
friends that are not only trading partners, but
certainly are national security partners. I believe
NATO is the premier defense alliance in the world….” “Let me begin by stating unequivocally that the
Obama administration is committed to deploying timely,
cost-effective and responsive missile defenses to
protect the United States, our forward-deployed
troops, as well as our friends and allies from
ballistic missile attack. Statements by some that
President Obama has decided to forego, cancel or shelf
plans for the U.S. and European-based ballistic
missile defense deployments are simply not true. The
implication that we have abandoned our NATO allies in
Europe, that we do not intend to abide by our Article
V obligations with NATO, or that we have devalued our
treaty obligations to our allies or other security
commitments to our friends is also not true….[T]here
was no attempt to curry favor with the Russian
government, or to secure some kind of tradeoff in
negotiations for a START follow-on treaty.” [18] O’Reilly spoke of the U.S. interceptor missile
project in Eastern Europe as a broader,
NATO-integrated one than that planned by President
George W. Bush, insisting that “it has always been
adaptable to NATO and it was built with NATO protocols
in mind, so that it could readily be interfaced with
the NATO system. But now we are at the point where
through the active layer theater missile defense
project and other discussions with NATO, we are very
open to integrate the command and control with a NATO
command-and-control system.” [19] On February 2 the Atlantic Council’s Vice President
and Director of the International Security Program,
Damon Wilson, spoke at a video conference in the
Ukrainian capital of Kiev entitled “U.S. expectations
from the Ukrainian election” five days before the
presidential runoff election. Wilson was Special Assistant to the President and
Senior Director for European Affairs at the National
Security Council from December 2007 to January 2009
when he “played a leading role in developing and
coordinating U.S. government efforts to advance a
Europe whole, free and at peace and to work with
Europe to promote security, prosperity and democracy
around the world. He managed interagency policy on
NATO, the European Union, Georgia, Ukraine, the
Balkans, Eurasian energy security and Turkey, and
planned numerous Presidential visits to Europe,
including U. S.-European Union and NATO Summits.” Prior to that he served at the National Security
Council as the Director for Central, Eastern and
Northern European Affairs from January 2004 to
November 2006. “During this time, Mr. Wilson
strengthened ties with the German Chancellery,
coordinated interagency policy in support of reform in
Ukraine, including during the Orange Revolution,
directed efforts to deepen engagement with America’s
allies in Central and Eastern Europe…and promoted
close consultations with coalition partners in Iraq
and Afghanistan.” [20] At the Kiev conference he said that a “neutral
status is not an option for Ukraine,” and “cautioned
Ukraine against seeking an alternative model of
strengthening Ukraine’s security. “Such alternatives could prevent Ukraine from
further integration into Europe, Wilson believes. In
his words, the best way to guarantee Ukraine’s
security lies through cooperation with NATO and
internal reforms.” [21] In addition to the expansion of NATO throughout
Europe and even deeper into former Soviet space (with
concomitant political, foreign policy, economic and
legal transformations) and the deployment of a missile
shield along Russia’s western border, the Atlantic
Council is playing a major role in the ongoing energy
war with Russia over supplies of natural gas and oil
to Europe. Last August Alexandros Petersen, senior fellow with
the Atlantic Council’s Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center,
spoke with Azerbaijan’s Trend News Agency and said: “Azerbaijan not only has significant reserves of
its own, but it is also a gateway to vast reserves on
the Caspian’s eastern shore and further into Central
Asia, including Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and
Uzbekistan. Azerbaijan is also important because it is
already supplying Western countries with oil through
the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, its gas goes through
the South Caucasus Pipeline and it is the most likely
producer country at the moment to supply the Nabucco
gas pipeline.” “Turkmenistan hold enormous potential and will be a
growing player in the region and globally in terms of
natural gas, but the central question about
Turkmenistan is whether its resources will primarily
go east or west.” [22] Petersen “came to the Council from the Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars, where he
served as Southeast Europe Policy Scholar, and the
Center for Strategic and International Studies, where
he was an Adjunct Fellow with the Russia and Eurasia
Program. Previously, he served as Program Director of
the Caspian Europe Center in Brussels and Senior
Researcher at the International Institute for
Strategic Studies in London. In 2006, he was a
Visiting Scholar at the Georgian Foundation for
Strategic and International Studies in Tbilisi. He has
also provided research for the U.S. National Petroleum
Council’s Geopolitics and Policy Task Group and the
Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on
Russian-American Relations.” [23] The following month Senator Richard Lugar’s remarks
at the Atlantic Council also included advocating the
activation of NATO’s mutual military assistance clause
in reference to energy policy: “Three years ago at the NATO summit in Riga, I
encouraged the Alliance to make energy security an
Article Five commitment in which any member
experiencing a deliberate energy disruption would
receive assistance from other Alliance members. I
argued that there was little distinction between an
energy cutoff and an armed invasion….Merging energy
support into NATO’s core mission would also strengthen
Alliance cohesion and reinforce public support for the
alliance. The challenge of securing stable, affordable
energy supplies is one that looms at the top of every
ally’s agenda, cutting across the fields of
transportation, industrial, environmental, and
national security policy.” [24] In the same month the Atlantic Council hosted
General William Ward, commander of United States
Africa Command, who detailed operations and exercises
throughout the continent. The Council’s website has
announced that its Ansari Africa Center is “the newest
addition to the Atlantic Council’s regional programs.”
[25] The U.S. Atlantic Council depends on its affiliates
in Europe and Asia to apply pressure to their
respective local citizenry in the face of plummeting
support for NATO’s war in Afghanistan and
corresponding dissatisfaction with the Alliance in
general. Local Atlantic Councils are also in the
forefront of efforts to recruit nations in Scandinavia
(Finland and Sweden), the Balkans and the former
Soviet Union into the bloc. Last month the Atlantic Council of Finland
co-sponsored a forum on NATO’s new Strategic Concept
at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with a presentation
by Jamie Shea, Head of Policy Planning in the Private
Office of the NATO Secretary General. Also in March,
the Atlantic Council of Serbia held an event promoting
its nation’s accession to NATO membership. Last May the Atlantic Council of Finland sponsored
a talk by Norwegian Defense Minister Anne-Grete Strom-Erichsen
in which she uttered stark comments in reference to
Norway’s and Finland’s joint neighbor Russia. A report of her comments stated that
“Strom-Erichsen outlined the importance of shaping a
common position in defence and security matters
concerning the High North. The Minister particularly
called for ‘strengthening the relevance of NATO.’
Considering Russia’s recent push in its military and
economic spheres in the Arctic Sea, Strom-Erichsen
sees a worrying potential for a possible
destabilisation in the region.” [26] An interview conducted by the Atlantic Council on
NATO’s new Strategic Concept last December with Julian
Lindley-French, a member of its Strategic Advisors
Group and an instructor at the Royal Military Academy
of the Netherlands, was no more reassuring. It
included the contention that “credible military power
remains and will remain the foundation of credible
power” and “the need to project credible military
stabilizing power will likely grow.” In particular, Lindley-French stressed that “Russia
must once and for all decide if it is part of the
Alliance’s security mission or a challenge to it. The
invasion of Georgia was anti-freedom and NATO must
resist such adventurism firmly.” [27] At the awards dinner on April 28 Polish Foreign
Minister Radek Sikorski spoke of his nation’s NATO
membership on a trip to Washington that included
meetings with Secretary of State Clinton, Defense
Secretary Gates and Zbigniew Brzezinski in which the
focus was “on military cooperation, notably a new US
defence project to replace the so-called anti-missile
shield.” [28] Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, also spoke and alluding to NATO’s
ever-widening global scope said, “You pick the place,
the Balkans, Iraq, Africa, the Mediterranean, Haiti,
and yes, Afghanistan – and you’ll find the alliance
meeting these challenges in spectacular fashion.” [29] 21st century, global NATO will not permit
competitors. Neither in its own Euro-Atlantic
territory nor anywhere else. The North Atlantic
military bloc maintains its headquarters in Brussels,
but its international strategy is elaborated in
Washington, D.C. 1) NBC Washington, April 28, 2010 http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/../global-energy-war-washingtons-new-kissingers-african-plans 3) Real Clear Politics, February 8, 2009 http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/02/jones_munich_conference.html 4) Atlantic Council, April 29, 2010 http://atlanticcounciluk.org/wp/?page_id=9 6) Atlantic Council, April 29, 2010 http://www.acus.org/about 10) Atlantic Council of the United Kingdom
http://atlanticcounciluk.org/wp/?page_id=9 http://www.acus.org/people/sag 13) Atlantic Council http://www.acus.org/tags/patriciu-eurasia-center 14) Atlantic Council http://www.acus.org/people/sag 15) Ibid http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2010/../21st-century-strategy-militarized-europe-globalized-nato 17) Kokomo Perspective, September 29, 2009 http://www.acus.org/event/missile-defense-europe-next-steps/tauscher-transcript 19) Atlantic Council http://www.acus.org/event/missile-defense-europe-next-steps/oreilly-transcript 20) Atlantic Council http://www.acus.org/users/damon-wilson 21) Interfax-Ukraine, February 2, 2010 http://www.acus.org/users/alexandros-petersen 24) Kokomo Perspective, September 29, 2009 http://www.acus.org/program/ansari-africa-center 26) Norwegian Ministry of Defence, May 14, 2009 http://acus.org/event/2010-awards-dinner/transcript |
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