In preparation for the 14th Portuguese Atlantic Youth Seminar, under the general theme "Drafting NATO's New Strategic Concept" the Portuguese Atlantic Youth Association (PAYA) will be sending out a news clipping to all participants and will also post it in the Portuguese Atlantic Committee/ PAYA Blog. You can find the first here, which is as follows:
(USS Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived in Lisbon the 14th July after a 3 months mission in the Arabic Sea supporting NATO troops in Afghanistan)
(USS Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived in Lisbon the 14th July after a 3 months mission in the Arabic Sea supporting NATO troops in Afghanistan)Summary
Source: NATO
NATO started in the past 7th July a session of dialogues with some experts from the strategic community in order to get a new strategic concept to the organization. The objective was to examine the relations with the rest of the world and analyze NATO's role in the new threats and challenges. This debate will create the new strategic concept that will be used as the guidance lines to the military and political issues. This will substitute the old strategic concept signed at the Washington summit in 1999.
Source: Daily Telegraph
A group of Central and Eastern Europe's most important political figures have written a letter to President Obama in order to explain the strong pressure and intimidation that Russia makes in those countries. The Antimissile system is the key issue. Now that the U.S.A are spreading their net to the Eastern Europe this countries demand diplomatic negotiations with Russia and European Union in order to weaken the energetic dependence and Russia's influence.
Source: New York Times
In the last few years the relationship between USA and Russia suffered some problematic issues mainly because of G.W. Bush presidency. Now with some change of tone showed by President Obama they have reached new grounds. The opening of Russia's airspace for the Afghan War is a very important step in the diplomatic ground. Some issues continue to concern the two countries, the antimissile defense system and the nuclear arms cut.
Title: Hold your Nerve
Source: The Economist
In the last few days the Afghan war has been very destructive to the British troops. Besides the recent efforts done by President Obama, some of the allies want to withdraw from Afghanistan. Gordon Brown has recently said that they should promote an emerging democracy, but the price of this strategy can be much more expensive. Now that Iraq is almost over control it's imperative to keep the troops in Afghanistan and this supplementary effort should be done not only by Americans but also by all their allies.
Source: i (article in Portuguese)
Severiano Teixeira, Portuguese minister of Defense, in an interview reminded that Portugal and other America's allies said no when President Bush asked for more troops to Afghanistan, he said " Our conception was different: we thought that the solution to the Afghan problem couldn't be exclusively military". But when President Obama was elected to the White House everything changed: "The President Obama's strategy is focused in a political dimension (…) the military safety should be followed by economic development and stabilization of the political institutions". Now Portugal will send more special troops to Afghanistan and this not only gives an important role to Portugal in the Atlantic alliance but also upgrades the relationship between Portugal and America.
Source: Foreign Affairs (registration needed)
In April 2009 a group of Somali Pirates tried to seize a U.S. cargo ship named Maersk Alabama. The crew fought back trying to protect themselves and the ship but Richard Phillips was caught. This episode finished with the marines killing the pirates and saving Richard. Piracy is becoming a real problem and now NATO is contributing to assure the safety of the African sea. In this essay we can understand how we defeated the pirates in the past and how we can do it now.
(By Tiago Alfarroba, PAYA)
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