06 May 2012 By Rick Rozoff The State Department's top Eurasia hand addressed
the House Committee on Foreign Affairs's Subcommittee
on Europe and Eurasia on April 26 to present
Washington's perspective on and expectations of next
month's summit of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization. In a presentation titled "The Chicago Summit and
U.S. Policy," the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary
for European and Eurasian Affairs, Tina Kaidanow, laid
out what the military alliance's main powerhouse and
financial backer demands of its 27 allies and in so
doing indicated many of the top geopolitical
objectives of her department and the U.S. government
as a whole for the upcoming years. Commenting on the fact that the May 20-21 gathering
of over fifty heads of state from nations supplying
troops for the longest war in her nation's history,
that in Afghanistan, will occur in Chicago, only the
second NATO summit in the U.S. and "the first ever
outside of Washington," Kaidanow reiterated the main
purpose of the world's only military bloc: "Our hosting of the Summit is a tangible symbol of
the importance of NATO to the United States, as well
as an opportunity to underscore to the American people
the continued value of the Alliance to the security
challenges we face today…NATO is vital to U.S.
security. More than ever, the Alliance is the
mechanism through which the U.S. confronts diverse and
difficult threats to our security…Our experiences in
the Cold War, in the Balkans, and now in Afghanistan
prove that our core interests are better protected by
working together than by seeking to respond to threats
alone as individual nations." What the House members listening to her, if not the
casual reader, would understand by the above comments
is that NATO is the chief vehicle employed by the
State Department, White House and Pentagon to advance
American political, economic and military interests in
Eurasia and increasingly the rest of the world. As
such, it's well worth the U.S.'s effort to provide the
preponderance of its funding and military assets and
further engineer its evolution into an expanding,
ultimately global, military-political network. Kaidanow included an elementary school primer-level
synopsis of NATO's history from its founding – "For…40
years…we..stood united in purpose against the specter
of communism" – until the fall of the Berlin Wall,
after which "NATO helped to rebuild Central and
Eastern European countries while integrating them into
the trans-Atlantic community of democratic states." The latter was accomplished by absorbing every
former Soviet ally in the Warsaw Pact, and three past
Soviet republics, into the alliance from 1999-2009, in
the process conscripting troops from every one of them
for deployment to war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.
No troops from the Warsaw Pact except the Soviet Union
had been deployed outside Eastern Europe during the
entire Cold War period. Her presentation dutifully echoed that of her boss,
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in the latter's
speech at the World Affairs Council 2012 NATO
Conference on April 3. The U.S. is the only NATO
member whose leading officials speak authoritatively
in advance of the outcome, in fine detail, of the
upcoming summit as the nation effectively determines
the agenda, with a friendly nod in the direction of
its fellow NATO Quint states – Britain, France,
Germany and Italy – but nevertheless calling all the
important shots. One wonders why, except for a vain
propensity for pageantry and pomposity, summits are
held at all given that the results have been decided
upon long in advance. Early in her talk Kaidanow invoked the new
Strategic Concept adopted at the last NATO summit in
2010, particularly highlighting the bloc's Article 5
mutual military assistance (war) clause, affirming
that "First and foremost, NATO remains committed to
the Article 5 principle of collective defense." That article is responsible for the stationing of
152,000 troops, at peak strength, from 50 nations in
Afghanistan. When Kaidanow spoke of "integrating them [twelve
Eastern European nations incorporated into NATO from
1999-2009] into the trans-Atlantic community," she was
in fact if not openly confirming the practical results
of NATO expansion: To provide the U.S. and its Western
allies with air, infantry, naval, radar and drone
surveillance, missile, strategic airlift, cyber
warfare and other bases and facilities east of the
former Berlin Wall and legionaries for neocolonial
wars and military occupations in the Balkans, Asia and
Africa. She has been no disinterested observer in that
process. In her current position and in a post that
preceded it, Kaidanow has cultivated and consolidated
the power of what are without dispute Washington's two
most favored – and pampered – satraps, Georgia's
Mikheil Saakashvili and Kosovo's Hashim Thaci, than
whom there are no less savory and more malicious heads
of state in the world. If the sociopathic ghoul in
Kosovo and the megalomaniacal self-styled
reincarnation of the medieval King Davit IV in Georgia
are indicative of the U.S.'s political alliances, and
if an empire can be judged by the foreign stooges it
employs, then Washington has plummeted to a new
imperial nadir. Like most of the current American foreign policy
elite, Kaidanow cut her teeth in the Balkans in the
1990s, her first State Department assignments being in
the U.S. embassies in Serbia (1995-1997) Bosnia
(1997-1998) and Macedonia (1998-1999), in the last
instance focusing on neighboring Kosovo. She attended the infamous Rambouillet conference in
February of 1999 where the American delegation headed
by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright threw down
the gauntlet to Yugoslavia with the infamous Appendix
B ultimatum and set the stage for the 78-day war that
began on March 24. Rambouillet was also the debut of
American asset Thaci, then an underworld kingpin and
head of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, who was
even then being groomed as the head of state be became
in 2008 ahead of Kosovo's unilateral declaration of
independence in February of that year. Four years
later a majority of the world's nations still don't
recognize his organized crime-ridden fiefdom as a
nation. Kaidanow was the Chief of Mission and Charge
d'Affaires at the U.S. Office in Kosovo from July 2006
to July 2008, until the George W. Bush administration
appointed her the first American ambassador on July 19
of the latter year. In 2009, as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for
European and Eurasian Affairs (her position as
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, a promotion, was
obtained last July), she visited Georgia a year after
the Saakashvili regime invaded South Ossetia, thereby
provoking a five-day war with Russia, and met with
Defense Minister Bachana (Bacho) Akhalaia to discuss
modernizing the nation's armed forces (described as
"reforms"), the impending deployment of U.S. Marine
Corps-trained Georgian troops to Afghanistan to serve
under NATO command and the U.S.-Georgia Charter on
Strategic Partnership signed four months after the war
of the preceding year. She returned two months
afterward for the same purpose. In her April 26 appearance before the House
committee, she hailed NATO as an alliance of
"like-minded states who share our fundamental values
of democracy, human rights, and rule of law." NATO's
first war, against Yugoslavia thirteen years ago, and
its partnerships with nations in former Soviet space
have produced the likes of Hashim Thaci and Mikheil
Saakashvili. Democracy, human rights and the rule of
law. Speaking of goals to be discussed and promoted at
the Chicago summit, she said: "In addition to being a collective security
alliance, NATO is also a cooperative security
organization. Unlike an ad hoc coalition, NATO can
respond rapidly and achieve its military goals by
sharing burdens. In particular, NATO benefits from
integrated structures and uses common funding to
develop common capabilities." That is, NATO is a mechanism for the permanent
military integration of European states for the
purpose of the U.S. securing auxiliary troops for wars
outside the Euro-Atlantic zone. Concerning the first of three main items of
discussion at the summit, the war in Afghanistan,
Kaidanow asserted: "[T]he Summit will make clear that NATO will not
abandon Afghanistan after the ISAF mission concludes.
In Chicago, the Alliance will reaffirm its enduring
commitment beyond 2014 and define a new phase of
cooperation with Afghanistan." As to the true and residual purpose of the Afghan
campaign, she added, "we must continue our efforts to
develop NATO's role as a global hub for security
partnerships," which Afghanistan has been used as the
crucible for. The latter relates to the third point, building
worldwide military partnerships, regarding which one
is reminded of Aesopian cautionary tales about being
offered cooperation by wolves and lions. Upon hearing
such propositions, a sensible creature starts inching
backward into the sheep pen or out of the lair. The other priority at next month's summit is what
both Kaidanow and Clinton before her referred to as
critical defense capability requirements, with the
former saying, "NATO's ability to deploy an effective
fighting force in the field makes the Alliance unique"
and that, pressuring allies to cough up the funds to
ensure it, "its capacity to deter and respond to
security challenges will only be as successful as its
forces are able, effective, interoperable, and
modern." To reinforce and flesh out the above, she added: "The United States is modernizing its presence in
Europe at the same time that our NATO Allies, and NATO
as an institution, are engaged in similar steps. This
is a clear opportunity for our European Allies to take
on greater responsibility. The U.S. continues to
encourage Allies to meet the two percent benchmark for
defense spending and to contribute politically,
financially, and operationally to the strength and
security of the Alliance." She, like her superior at Foggy Bottom, accentuated
several key projects in Europe, the most important of
which is the U.S.-created European Phased Adaptive
Approach interceptor missile system. Kaidanow acknowledged commitments already obtained
to that end in Poland, Romania, Turkey and Spain and
said, "We would welcome additional Allied
contributions." Another summit item is the further integration and
expansion of intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities. Lest anyone be
confused about the purpose of those and mistake them
as in any way defensive in character, the following
comments from Kaidanow will disabuse them of the
notion: "Allies contributed more combat power in Libya than
in previous operations (almost 90 percent of all
air-to-ground strike missions in Libya were conducted
by European pilots, as compared to 10 percent in the
Kosovo air campaign in 1999). However, Libya
demonstrated considerable shortfalls in European ISR
capabilities as the U.S. provided one quarter of the
ISR sorties, nearly half of the ISR aircraft, and the
vast majority of analytical capability. This past
February, NATO defense ministers agreed to fund the
Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) program. The five
drones that comprise this system will provide NATO
with crucial information, including identifying
potential threats, monitoring developing situations
such as humanitarian crises, and distinguishing
possible targets for air strikes." She also spoke of the now over eight-year patrol of
the Baltic Sea sky by NATO warplanes which this year
has been extended to 2018, which is to say in
perpetuity, revealing an interesting link along the
way: "This helps assure the security of allies in a
way that is cost effective, allowing them to invest
resources into other important NATO operations such as
Afghanistan." Kaidanow also assured her congressional
interlocutors – again in advance; see above comments –
that next month's NATO summit will endorse the
Deterrence and Defense Posture Review (DDPR). Doing so "will reaffirm NATO's determination to
maintain modern, flexible, credible capabilities that
are tailored to meet 21st century security challenges.
The DDPR will identify the appropriate mix of nuclear,
conventional, and missile defense capabilities that
NATO needs to meet these challenges…" She then touted the role of NATO's global
partnership arrangements, "working with a growing
number of partners around the world," as they "allow
the Alliance to extend its reach, act with greater
legitimacy, share burdens, and benefit from the
capabilities of others." Regarding which regions among others the expanding
military partnerships will be focused on, Kaidanow
stated: "In light of the dramatic events of the Arab
Spring and NATO's success in Libya, we envision a
particular focus on further engagement with partners
in the wider Middle East and North Africa region." She also promoted a new category of nations being
cultivated for full NATO accession called aspirant
countries – currently Bosnia, Georgia, Macedonia and
Montenegro – which are "all working closely with
Allies to meet NATO criteria so they may enter the
Alliance." Regarding the most controversial of those four
candidate nations, Georgia, she insisted: "U.S. security assistance and military engagement
support the country's defense reforms, train and equip
Georgian troops for participation in ISAF operations,
and advance its NATO interoperability. In January,
President Obama and President Saakashvili agreed to
enhance this cooperation to advance Georgian military
modernization, defense reform, and self-defense
capabilities…U.S. support for Georgia's territorial
integrity within its internationally recognized
borders remains steadfast, and our non-recognition of
the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia
will not change." ***** The U.S. makes decisions for the military bloc it
created and its 27 allies rubber-stamp them. With the results already determined, the claim by
NATO that it is an alliance of equals and that their
summits are in any many deliberative is given the lie. What has already been decided, as confirmed by
Deputy Secretary Kaidanow on April 26, is that NATO
will remain the world's only nuclear alliance, one
which will continue stationing U.S. strategic weapons
on air bases in European countries under NATO's
nuclear sharing arrangement. That NATO military forces, including the NATO
Training Mission – Afghanistan, will remain in
Afghanistan long past 2014. That the U.S. will steadily expand its interceptor
missile system from one end of Europe to the other
under NATO auspices. That the U.S. and NATO will continue to move
military forces and equipment to Russia's borders. That the hallmark of NATO mutual obligations is the
bloc's Article 5, which commits all members to
intervene, up to and including going to war, on behalf
of any member state which requests intervention. That NATO will be used to recruit national
contingents from scores of nations for military
actions like those in Afghanistan and Libya. That NATO will continue to build a global military
network even beyond its 80 or so current members and
partners. That the U.S.-led organization will even more
aggressively promote itself as an international – as
the only international – military intervention force. Comments 💬 التعليقات |