Pakistan's push for new role in Afghanistan

Afghanistan's punishing war is entering a new phase and Pakistan has made it clear it can and must play a leading role.

The sudden significant capture of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, second in charge in the Taliban hierarchy, comes at a crucial point.
Talk of negotiation is now taking centre stage, a strategy in parallel to a powerful military assault against Taliban strongholds in southern Afghanistan.
"There has been a change in Pakistan's attitude," said Pakistani author Ahmed Rashid, who has written extensively about the close links between Pakistan's military intelligence, the ISI, and Taliban leaders.
"Pakistan now wants to dominate any kind of dialogue that takes place."

Frustration

Mullah Baradar, reported to have been picked up by Pakistani and US intelligence agents in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, may have become too independent.
“ America is history, Karzai is history, the Taliban are the future ” Former ISI head Gen Hamid Gul
Sources in Kabul say he and his envoys have been involved in secret talks with the Afghan president in Kabul, his representatives in southern Afghanistan and outside the country.
One senior Afghan official who, like others, is not commenting publicly for now, said: "This may be good for public opinion but, for us, it can have a negative impact.
"It was easier for us to talk to him."
A Western source involved in the process expressed frustration this channel was now being exposed and, for the moment, stopped.
More arrests have now been reported including two Taliban "shadow governors" who reported to Mullah Baradar.
Reports from Kandahar last month speculated that Mullah Baradar would soon be arrested because of growing tensions with Mullah Omar.
The two men have been close confidants. The Taliban leader had appointed him as one of his two main deputies after the movement was ousted from power in 2001.
Mullah Baradar rose to become the key military commander as Mullah Omar found it increasingly difficult to operate in the open.
"Pakistan has accomplished two objectives," remarked Lt Col Tony Shaffer, who served as an intelligence officer in Afghanistan in 2003, and is now at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies in Washington.
"They've shown us in the West they're willing to co-operate and they've taken out someone they didn't control."
Pakistan has always denied senior Taliban leaders are living on its soil, saying they go back and forth across the porous border with Afghanistan.

Key asset

Unlike the Bush administration, Barack Obama's team has been urging Pakistan, privately and publicly, to take action against the Taliban leadership and their sanctuaries in the tribal areas, as well as in cities like Quetta and Karachi.
Since 2001 the Pakistan military has moved against al-Qaeda and more recently, Pakistani Taliban leaders. But it's long made it clear it won't move against the Afghan Taliban and other powerful Afghan commanders linked to the insurgency.
Islamabad has regarded its long-standing Taliban connections as a key asset in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Now that the Afghan government and its Nato allies have made reintegration of low-level Taliban fighters - and reconciliation with more senior commanders - a key priority, Pakistan wants to play a role in bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table.
Pakistan's army chief, Gen Ashfaq Kayani, has been indicating their readiness.

Sphere of influence

In a rare press briefing in February, he made it clear "we have opened all doors" to co-operation with Nato and Afghan forces in Afghanistan.
But he also asserted "our strategic paradigm has to be realised". For Pakistan, this means a friendly Afghanistan that is part of its sphere of influence - and where India, still regarded as a threat, plays no major role.
Washington seems to accept Pakistan can be a broker.
US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, on a visit to Kabul, told BBC's Persian TV: "Pakistan's ISI can play a role in negotiations and I support that role.
"Pakistan has an influence in this area and has a legitimate security interest."
The former ISI head, retired Gen Hamid Gul, talked about this relationship with his trademark bluntness. Speaking to me in an interview on the BBC's Newshour programme, he said: "America is history, Karzai is history, the Taliban are the future."
Pakistan, he warned, "would be unwise to cut all contacts and goodwill with the future leaders of Afghanistan".
A growing role for Islamabad causes unease in Kabul. President Karzai and key members of his team have repeatedly criticised the role of the ISI in providing sanctuary to Taliban leaders.

'Exaggerating'

The president has made it clear he wants any reconciliation to be an Afghan-led and controlled process.
There's been no official announcement from Kabul yet to Mullah Baradar's capture.
A few years ago, Kabul opened contacts with another senior Taliban leader, Mullah Mansoor Dadullah, who had also fallen out with Mullah Omar, only to have Pakistan capture him in early 2008. At the time, a senior Afghan intelligence official expressed anger and dismay.
Dutch journalist Bette Dam, author of a recent book on Hamid Karzai, has written of years of contacts between the president and Mullah Baradar, who are both from the Popalzai tribe.
Mullah Baradar is said to have come to the rescue of Hamid Karzai when he was threatened by Taliban fighters in the southern province of Uruzgan after the 9/11 attacks.
On her most recent visit to Uruzgan in December, Ms Dam said that she had been informed that Mullah Baradar made a visit to Kabul last year.
Afghans in the province - the birthplace of Mullah Baradar - also spoke of "how powerful and increasingly independent he had become in the Taliban movement, establishing his own committees and charities, and operating though his own tribal networks".
The question now is what impact will his arrest have on any future negotiations with the Taliban and on Pakistan's role in this process.

Biggest blow

Islamabad is being hailed in Washington for its co-operation with the US.
For the Americans, this success comes only weeks after the CIA suffered its biggest blow in decades. It lost seven operatives when a double agent detonated a suicide vest at their base in the eastern province of Khost.
But many key details of this latest operation are still unclear. Reports are now emerging that Mullah Baradar may have been detained earlier than the dates cited in the original story in the New York Times.
It's also still not clear how much involvement US intelligence had in the raid and how much access they have to this valuable source, who has an enormous store of knowledge about the movement, including their contacts with the ISI.
One Western source in Kabul said that the Americans were exaggerating the level of co-operation.
US intelligence officer Col Shaffer argues that what happens next is of key importance.

"We should watch very closely what happens," he remarked.

Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/8521823.stm

Moscow’s CSTO Olive Branch to NATO

One year after the “reset” policy was announced by the Obama administration, aimed at improving relations with Russia, the negative characterization of NATO continues to feature prominently in the thinking and statements of senior Russian officials. During a recent interview with the Tajik weekly newspaper Vecherny Dushanbe, Nikolai Bordyuzha, the Secretary-General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), confirmed that the organization has no official contact with the Alliance. “We have offered interaction many times, in particular, on such pressing problems as Afghan drug trafficking and terrorism. Hopefully, the new administration of the Alliance will change this attitude toward NATO-CSTO contacts,” Bordyuzha said. He juxtaposed this with the development of closer ties between the CSTO, UN and OSCE in relation to counter-terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime (Interfax, February 4).

Bordyuzha advocates multilateral cooperation with NATO in countering terrorism and combating drug trafficking from Afghanistan. In his view, such cooperation might prove possible, but it largely depends on the political willingness within the Alliance to pursue closer relations with the CSTO. He points to the leaders of the CSTO being “gravely concerned” over the situation in Afghanistan, which he characterizes as “extremely critical and explosive and is catastrophically deteriorating,” which impacts on the security situation in Central Asia (ITAR-TASS, February 4).

Such political frustration is becoming sharper in the context of what Moscow views as its “successful” activation of the CSTO, ranging from forming the Collective Operational Reaction Forces (CORF) to its attempts to develop peace support capabilities within the organization and extend into other areas such as migration. Yet, Tashkent refuses to participate in the new force, and Moscow’s much hailed effort to open an additional “CSTO” base in southern Kyrgyzstan has been put on the backburner. While making every effort to portray the CSTO as a multilateral organization that is rooted in principles such as consensus, Moscow is aware that by pressing too hard on enhancing its military footprint in the region, it risks an open split with Tashkent (Interfax, January 27).

Other CSTO members may want closer relations with NATO, but are guided and influenced in their security thinking by Moscow. Bordyuzha believes that other members of the CSTO should follow the eagerness and compliance demonstrated by Kazakhstan, which has become the first Central Asian state to ratify the agreement on establishing the CORF. “It is symbolic that Kazakhstan, which initiated and hosted the signing of the agreement at the informal meeting of CSTO presidents in December 2008, was the first member country of the organization to ratify it,” Bordyuzha explained. These arguments appear unconvincing in Tashkent (Interfax, February 4).

On January 29, interior ministry officials from the CSTO member states agreed to conduct joint operations later this year that will target illegal migration and human trafficking. Following the formulation of a concept aimed at tackling illegal migration on a collective basis up to 2012, Illegal Immigrant 2010 is intended to demonstrate the seriousness the CSTO attaches to the issue. The coordinating council on illegal migration was formed in October 2007, and was designed to facilitate and improve the fight against the phenomenon and related crimes (ITAR-TASS, January 29).

On February 8, Bordyuzha said that the new Russian military doctrine, signed by President Dmitry Medvedev three days earlier, underscored the importance that Moscow attaches to the CSTO. The military doctrine, in his view, reaffirms Moscow’s readiness to come to the aid of any CSTO member subjected to a military attack. “The doctrine also envisages Russia’s participation in all components of the CSTO collective security system: the CORF and peacekeeping forces,” Bordyuzha said (ITAR-TASS, February 8).

While officials such as Bordyuzha present an image of Moscow desperately seeking stronger relations with the Alliance, NATO officials are regularly subjected to the erratic outbursts of the Russian Ambassador Dmitry Ragozin. His modus operandi is to attend meetings, then call a press conference predicated on telling journalists how effectively he corrected NATO officials. Ragozin’s latest outburst followed the announcement on February 5 that Romania will begin hosting US Ballistic Missile Defense interceptors in 2015. Commenting on US and Romanian officials going out of their way to assure Moscow that the interceptors posed no threat to Russia, Ragozin diagnosed: “It seems to be in line with Freud’s theory –it means they have some thoughts that the system could be targeted against Russia, otherwise why would they dissuade us about something we never asked about?” (Interfax, February 6).

Nevertheless, despite the various appeals for the Alliance to enter cooperative arrangements with the CSTO, it is politically difficult to disassociate the Moscow-led organization with Medvedev’s foreign policy aspirations for the West to recognize that Russia has a “sphere of privileged interests,” which predisposes some members of NATO to caution against such seemingly positive developments. The US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence held an open hearing on February 2, on the “Current and Projected Threats to the United States,” during which Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence gave testimony. While noting an improvement in US-Russian relations, Blair said:

“I remain concerned, however, that Russia looks at relations with its neighbors in the former Soviet space –an area characterized by President Medvedev as Russia’s “zone of privileged interests”– largely in zero-sum terms, vis-a-vis the United States, potentially undermining the US-Russian bilateral relationship. Moscow, moreover, has made it clear it expects to be consulted closely on missile defense plans and other European security issues” (http://intelligence.senate.gov/100202/blair.pdf).

In reality, therefore, the CSTO remains a comparatively young organization, regarded even by its members as Moscow-dominated, which lends credibility to suspicions beyond the region that it serves predominantly as a foreign policy tool for Russia. In this context, while sharing concerns notably over Iran and Afghanistan, as well as transnational security threats, the Alliance prefers to deal with Russia directly. While its political leadership clings to neo-colonial aspirations, characterized as Russia’s aim to become a regional superpower, packaged as a “sphere of privileged interests,” and engage in the zero-sum game there can be little practical possibility that a new relationship will emerge anytime soon between NATO and the CSTO.

Allied Command Transformation on facebook

Allied Command Transformation has launched its facebook page, where you could get information on ACT role and activities.

Located in Norfolk, Virginia, Allied Command Transformation is the only NATO Headquarters located outside Europe and provides an essential corner stone of the transatlantic link.
ACT is NATO leading agent for change: establishing a culture of proactive cahnge in order to maintain the Alliance pre-eminet military effectiveness witihin a comprehensive approach. ACT focuses on development NATO's interoperability standards for Command and Control and training that enable national forces to effectively operate together in a collective manner.
Additionally ACT works closely with Nations, and coordinates the work of NATO Centres of Excellence, to minimize duplication of Alliance capability development. ACT is NATO’s honest broker for coordinating innovation and the implementation of Capability improvements.ACT facilitates the exchange of best practices, lessons learned and capability development efforts.

ACT and National Defense University are organizing the last NATO Seminar on the Strategic Concept.

On facebook group, ACT staff will publish the Conference outcomes!

NATO DAY in Velletri (Rome)

More than 500 High School students participated on Monday February 15th to a conference on NATO's role in XXI Century. The Conference was organized in Velletri (Rome) at Cesare Battisti High School by the Italian Atlantic Committee.
Students were coming from all Velletri district's High School. A group of Carabinieri cadets was attending as well.
The conference was opened by Antonietta Dal Borgo who introducted the topic with a video that resumed NATO's history and milestone (from the signing on the Treaty to the ISAF mission). The video was made by Italian Parliament, with support of RAI and Italian Atlantic Committee, by collecting original videos and audios from NATO and Italian archives.
Mr. Fabrizio Luciolli, Secretary General of the Italian Atlantic Committee, and Maj. Gen. Giovanni Marizza, former Deputy Commander of Multinational Corps in Iraq addressed the audience. They elaborated on NATO's role in XXI century security scenario and addressed the most important issues for today's Alliance. They explained why NATO's role is fundamental in guaranteeing peace and security in the globalized world and touched upon the current debate on the new Strategic Concept.
Col. Ilir Balliu, Albanian Defense Attache in Italy participated as well, and brought his view on NATO enlargment and its importance for Albania.
A lively Q&A session followed their presentations.
It was the second Conference that the Italian Atlantic Committee organized in Velletri, following May 2008's first meeting.

French arms sales to Russia The cruel sea

NATO allies worry about France’s decision to sell big warships to Russia.

CHAMPAGNE and other French products may soon face declining sales in Tallinn, Tbilisi and places in between. The possible sale by France to Russia of up to four Mistral-class assault ships, at up to $750m each, is stoking fear and mistrust. The deal, agreed on “in principle” by France, could be formalised during a visit to Paris next month by Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev. The ships would enter service in 2015.

The deal highlights Russia’s increasing military ambitions and the decay of its own arms industry. Once one of the world’s top naval powers, Russia is now struggling to complete even the repair of an aircraft-carrier destined for India, let alone to build new ships from scratch. The Mistral is a mighty, 199-metre-long vessel that carries tanks and helicopters, and can conduct and manage amphibious landings. Kaarel Kaas, of the International Centre for Defence Studies, a think-tank in Tallinn, says that such ships would “transform the power balance” on Russia’s borders.

One region affected is the Baltic, where Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, NATO’s most vulnerable members, are still waiting to see concrete plans for the alliance to defend them in a crisis. The other is the Black Sea. The Mistrals could matter in any conflict over Crimea in Ukraine, where Russia is due to give up a naval base in 2017. Russia’s naval chief, Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky, says that with such ships Russia would have won the 2008 war against Georgia “in 40 minutes instead of 26 hours”.

But if Russia wants to attack Georgia again, it can do so without Mistrals. And to make the new ships usable, Russia will need to buy or build flotillas of escort vessels, as well as advanced (and expensive) weapons and electronic systems. Even then, the Russian navy would be no match for NATO’s navies. Those who remember the backstage help that France gave Britain in trying to counter the French-made Exocet missiles used by Argentina during the Falklands war in 1982 may wonder how effective the Mistrals would be in any war that France disapproved of.

The sale was first mooted in November when Vladimir Putin, Russia’s prime minister, visited France. Georgia has complained publicly, as have some Baltic officials. Robert Gates, the American defence secretary, had a “good and thorough exchange of views” (ie, a disagreement) this week with his French counterpart, Hervé Morin, but this may be just a blip in the improving relations between France and America. The Pentagon is planning manoeuvres in the Baltic later this year. It may now beef them up.

Some critics worry more about the political balance than the military one. Some compare the Mistral deal to Nord Stream, a controversial planned Russian-German gas pipeline. Running along the bed of the Baltic Sea, it would circumvent troublesome transit countries in eastern Europe. But its real importance is that it provides Russia with a tool to peddle influence in European countries.

The Saint-Nazaire shipyard, which builds the Mistral class, is in trouble. It has won only one order, from the French navy, in the past three years; 350 workers there are being asked to quit. The French state recently bought a third of the shipyard company to save jobs and know-how.

Haggling over the Mistral orders (one will be built in France, the others probably in Russia) could thus give the Kremlin bargaining clout in the coming years. An early sign of that, cynics say, is a decision to boot a Georgian-run Russian-language television channel off France’s Eutelsat satellite. France pooh-poohs the ex-communist countries’ protests as paranoia. Russia cannot be treated both as a NATO ally and as an enemy, France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy said this week. Yet that is how Russia seems to see things. Its new military doctrine paints NATO, and particularly its enlargement, as the biggest threat to Russia. The ex-communist states know that protesting against a done deal will only make them look weak and paranoid. Still, they don’t like it.

NATO Strategic Concept to be discussed in Moscow

From 9th to 12th February 2010, the Group of Experts on the NATO Strategic Concept will visit Moscow at the invitation of the Russian Federation. As part of the reflection period, the group, under the leadership of Dr. Madeleine Albright, former US Secretary of State, will participate in discussions with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Secretary of the National Security Council, Nikolay Patrushev and will meet with the members of the Duma, Lower House of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.

The Group of Experts will use these meetings as an opportunity to listen, gather ideas and hear various points of view.

In informal exchanges, members of the group will also engage with leading Russian security experts.

On Thursday, 11th February, Dr. Albright will deliver remarks at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations followed by a discussion with students and guests. The event will be open to the media.

In 2009, the NATO Secretary General appointed a group of 12 experts to facilitate the reflection and consultation phase in the preparation of the new strategic concept. The group represents a broad spectrum of large and small NATO members and offers a balanced combination of insiders and outsiders, including from the private sector, think tanks and the academic communityDr.Albright chairs the group with Mr. Jeroen van der Veer, former CEO in Royal Dutch Shell, as vice-chair.

Hello everybody,

Here is an interesting article:

NATO’s Response Force (NRF) – a 25,000-strong rapid reaction force for military high end operations far beyond the Alliance’s borders – was launched in November 2002. It is a project that NATO is still struggling to implement. Announcements that the force would be fully operational proved to be premature and many of the intended objectives still have to be met. Moreover, the force has never been deployed in a real military operation, despite the fact that NATO is fighting a war in Afghanistan – definitely a “high end operation”. Where does the NRF concept stand today? And what are the stumbling blocks preventing the efficient use of NATO’s crisis reaction force? What future can the NRF have? These are some of the questions addressed in the new analysis by the NATO Defense College Research Division.

http://www.ndc.nato.int/download/downloads.php?icode=159


All the best,
Antti Talonen

McChrystal says stage set for ‘real progress’ in Afghanistan effort

In Istanbul the senior commander of American and allied forces in Afghanistan offered a guarded but unexpectedly upbeat assessment of the war effort yesterday, saying that while the situation remained dangerous it was no longer deteriorating, and that the stage was set for “real progress.’’

The commander, General Stanley A. McChrystal, noted that last summer he believed security in Afghanistan was at risk of significant decline, but that he felt differently now. “I am not prepared to say that we have turned the corner,’’ he cautioned. “So I’m saying that the situation is serious but I think we have made significant progress in setting the conditions in 2009, and beginning some progress, and that we’ll make real progress in 2010.’’

Meanwhile, a suicide car bomber detonated his explosives near a hotel in southern Afghanistan yesterday, killing at least six people and wounding nearly two dozen, officials said.

The blast in Kandahar happened as NATO and Afghan forces prepare for a joint offensive against Taliban militants in the neighboring province of Helmand in a major bid to break their stranglehold on the south.

McChrystal’s assessment of the war effort came as NATO officials gathered here for a session in which Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates was expected to press allies for contributions of several thousand additional trainers to expand and improve the Afghan Army and police forces.

Although US officials have expressed broad satisfaction with the number of combat troops entering the fight - the bulk, of course, coming from the additional American troops ordered to Afghanistan by President Obama - the mission to teach Afghan security forces and then deploy alongside them remains about 4,000 personnel short.

McChrystal said the highly anticipated offensive to begin soon in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand Province would be a significant example of the improved partnership between foreign and Afghan security forces. Helmand is a focus of insurgent activity and the narcotics trade, and is viewed as a center of gravity in the allied counterinsurgency strategy because of its fertile river valley and significant population centers.

He said the decision to discuss the operation openly was a way of telling the people of Afghanistan of their government’s efforts to expand security where they live - and to tell the insurgents and narcotics traffickers “that it’s about to change.’’

Meanwhile, NATO acknowledged yesterday that it lacked almost half the trainers it had promised to help build up the army and police in Afghanistan.

Training is a key strategy of the Obama administration in helping Afghan authorities take eventual responsibility for their own security and thereby allow forces under US and NATO command to withdraw.

The failure to send all the trainers promised in October underscores the difficulty the US-led military coalition faces in trying to get Europe to live up to its commitments, even though Europe favors a greater emphasis on training and development aid.

Russia and Serbia Base camps Rumours of a Russian base in Serbia reflect Balkan hysteria, not reality

EVERYONE in the Balkans loves a good conspiracy theory, especially one that involves energy pipelines and military bases. According to some people with a bent against Serbia and Russia, the Russians are plotting to create a thinly-disguised military base in Serbia. That would be the Kremlin’s first new European base since the end of the Warsaw Pact, and could seem a response to NATO’s expansion in the region. Every country around Serbia is either in NATO or wants to be.

The story of the Russian base started in October when Dmitry Medvedev was visiting Belgrade. It was announced then that a new joint centre for emergency co-ordination would be created in the Serbian town of Nis. The site was an all-but-unused airport, named after Constantine the Great (the Roman emperor who was born there). The Russian partner will be the emergency ministry, a powerful semi-military outfit whose activities include disaster relief but also errand-running for Russia’s security services. The ministry has long played a role in Serbia, for example in mine-clearing.

But speculation has mounted that the Nis facilities could be used for spying or even turned to military use, should the need arise. What has most excited the conspiracy theorists is that Nis is close to the point where a controversial planned gas pipeline, South Stream, will cross Serbian territory. The pipeline is a joint venture between Russia’s gas giant, Gazprom, and Italy’s energy company, Eni. The route crosses the Black Sea, enabling Russia to bypass Ukraine, seen as a troublesome transit country, and deliver gas direct to the Balkans, central Europe and Italy.

Serbia’s emergency-planning chief in the interior ministry, Predrag Maric, firmly denies any notion that Russia is opening a military facility by stealth. Nis will not be a military base, he insists, pointing out that his ministry and the Russians have invited no fewer than 11 countries from the region to a conference in Belgrade this month to discuss their part in the establishment of the logistics and training facility in Nis.

The theories circulating among bloggers and others about Russian intentions echo earlier ones about outsiders’ geopolitical goals in the region. Many believe that it was oil, not worries about Serbian brutality in Kosovo, that lay behind NATO’s bombing of Serbia (including Nis airport) in 1999. After the war the Americans built Camp Bondsteel, a base capable of housing 7,000 men, in Kosovo. Conspiracy theorists said the real purpose of the camp was to safeguard the planned AMBO oil pipeline that aimed to pump Russian and Caspian oil from across Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania.

Yet more than 16 years after it was first mooted, the AMBO pipeline remains only a line on the map. Bondsteel has no runway. And there are only 1,400 American troops left in Kosovo. When the total number of NATO-led troops in Kosovo drops from its current 10,000 to the planned 2,300 Camp Bondsteel may close for good.

Nis airport and Bondsteel are easy to spot on Google Earth. Harder to find is a real military base, opened last November by the Serb authorities and often dubbed the Serbian Bondsteel. It lies close to Kosovo in the Bujanovac area of south Serbia, home to many ethnic Albanians. Their leaders complain loudly about the militarisation of the region. Yet the Serbian base can house only 1,000 men. “I’m not losing any sleep over it,” says a senior NATO official. He says he is aware of the possible Russian presence in Nis but is unworried by its implications. Meanwhile Windjet, an Italian low-cost airline, has just started flights to Constantine the Great airport.

Outcomes of London Conference on Afghanistan

A more stable and secure Afghanistan is vital to our national security and to that of the wider world. We can never allow Afghanistan to again be run by the brutal Taliban regime that gave safe haven to Al Qaeda – allowing them to launch attacks on the rest of the world as happened on September 11 2001.

To prevent this, the Government of Afghanistan (GoA) must be able to sustain its own security, exercise sovereignty over all its territory, offer its people representative government, bring about the conditions for economic prosperity, and play a constructive role in the region.

And the agreements between the international community and the GoA, made today at the conference, will be a springboard to bringing about the conditions for achieving these objectives.

In addition to the conference today, this week has seen meetings in London involving NGOs, UK and Afghan businesses, the British Afghan diaspora, parliamentarians and women’s rights activists. We’ve also seen the announcement by the IMF and World Bank of $1.6 billion in debt relief for Afghanistan through the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative.

The more than 70 countries and international organisations present agreed today with the GoA:

1) To develop a plan for phased transition to Afghan security lead province by province to begin, provided conditions are met, by late 2010/early 2011.

2)Targets for significant increases in the Afghan Army and Police Force supported by the international community: 171,000 Afghan Army and 134,000 Afghan Police by the end of 2011, taking total security force numbers to over 300,000.

3)Confirmation of a significant increase in international forces to support the training of Afghan forces. In total, the US have increased levels by 30,000 and the rest of the international community by 9,000, including the German contribution taking total force levels to around 135,000.

4) Measures to tackle corruption, including the establishment of an independent Office of High Oversight and an independent Monitoring and Evaluation Mission.

5) Better coordinated development assistance to be increasingly channelled through the GoA, supported by reforms to structures and budgets.

6) A civilian surge to match the military surge, including new civilian leadership of the international community’s programmes, with the appointment of Mark Sedwill, previously British Ambassador to Afghanistan, as NATO’s Senior Civilian Representative, a new UN representative plus more civilians on the ground to support governance and economic development.

7) Enhanced sub-national government to improve delivery of basic services to all Afghans.

8) Support for the GoA’s national Peace and Reintegration Programme, including financial support for a Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund, to offer economic alternatives to those who renounce violence, cut links to terrorism and agree to work within the democratic process.

9) Support for increased regional co-operation to combat terrorism, violent extremism and the drugs trade, to increase trade and cultural exchange and to create conducive conditions for the return of Afghan refugees.

Together, these measures will ensure we meet the Prime Minister’s call to 'match the increase in military forces with an increased political momentum, focus the international community on a clear set of priorities across the 43-nation coalition and marshal the maximum international effort to help the Afghan government deliver'.

Key now is delivery. Using the solid base we’ve established today, over the next 12 to 18 months, alongside relentless ISAF and Afghan pressure on the insurgents, the GoA will increasingly take the lead in bringing security, prosperity, rule of law, human rights, and good governance to the whole of Afghanistan.

We’ll meet again in Kabul in the spring to assess progress and hone implementation, another step towards a stable and secure Afghanistan, and a safer world.

Nato strategy to look at EU relations, says Albright

Relations between the EU and Nato are to be included in the new strategic concept for the military alliance currently being developed by a group of experts led by former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright.

"We need to maximise collaboration with the EU and make more use of political consultation," Ms Albright told MEPs in Brussels during a special hearing on Wednesday (27 January).
Ms Albright was the US' foreign policy supremo during 1997-2001 when Nato launched its first military action in the former Yugoslavia. The 72-year old has now been appointed to chair an expert panel tasked to advise Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Ramussen on an updated "strategic concept" for the military alliance.

The document will outline new security threats ranging from cyberattacks to terrorism and energy security and the way the military alliance, founded during the Cold War to protect Europe from a potential Soviet invasion, can respond.

"With 20 plus members, Nato can be slow and caught flat-footed by change," Ms Albright argued, highlighting "internal complacency" as a major threat.

She said the founding principle of the alliance – the military defence of its members in case of an armed attack – would remain at the centre of the organisation.

But the alliance had to take into account new threats and its own enlargement to 28 members since the last strategic concept, dating back to 1999.

In addition, Nato must take into account the EU's own expansion and its military and civilian missions abroad.

In this era of "scarce resources," when national coffers are near empty and military budgets have been slashed, avoiding duplication between Nato and the EU is of particular importance, Ms Albright argued.

For their part, MEPs called for a clear division of labour and more co-ordination between the two organisations.

Polish centre-right MEP Jacek Saryusz Wolski, in charge of EU-Nato relations, said he was struck how the two institutions were working in "totally separate worlds," despite having the same concerns and roughly the same armies and citizens, on the European side.

Of the EU's 27 members, only Austria, Sweden, Finland, Ireland, Malta and Cyprus are not part of the military alliance.

At the same time, Mr Saryusz-Wolski identified converging trends as Nato looks to developing a "soft," civilian side in Afghanistan, while the EU is going for increased military capabilities within its foreign and security policy.

"If the two are going more towards each other, the question arises how to make their roles complementary and avoid overlapping," he said.

UK Liberal MEP Andrew Duff asked Ms Albright if she was worried about the possibility of a "core group" of military-capable states establishing their own club within the EU – a provision enshrined in the bloc's new legal framework, the Lisbon Treaty.

Ms Albright kept her remarks general and pointed out that her team's work was still ongoing. A draft concept is to be issued by Nato's secretary general in time for the November summit in Lisbon, when Nato leaders are meant to adopt the final document.

CALL TO EUROPE
This international youth and human rights conference serves as a wake up call to policymakers and politicians in Europe. Held in Amsterdam and Rotterdam from the 21st to the 27th of March, this conference is an opportunity for young leaders to increase their leadership skills by providing them with a chance to facilitate peer to peer trainings and interactions that involve discussions and dialogue between participants, policy makers and experts.

To find more please visit:
http://www.calltoeurope.nl/site/

The conference about Afghanistan will take place in London on 28 January 2010. Theinternational community are coming together to fully align military andcivilian resources behind an Afghan-led political strategy.

The conference will be co-hosted by Prime Minister Gordon Brown,President Karzai and United Nations Secretar...y-General Ban Ki-moon. Itwill be co-chaired by the UK Foreign Minister David Miliband, hisoutgoing Afghan counterpart Rangin Spanta, and UN SpecialRepresentative to Afghanistan, Kai Eide.

http://afghanistan.hmg.gov.uk/en/conference/

The Security Jam

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NATO Foreign Ministers Unlikely to Push Georgia, Ukraine Membership

Interviewee:	Robert E. Hunter, Senior Adviser, RAND Corporation
Interviewer:	Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor

November 25, 2008

Robert E. Hunter, who was U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) during the Clinton administration, says he does not expect NATO foreign ministers to enlarge the alliance to include Georgia or Ukraine at the next meeting in December. Given the strong Russian objections to the enlargement, "I don't think anybody wants to run the risk of giving the Russians a pretext to do what they did against Georgia. Nor do people want to pretend that Ukraine is anywhere near ready to join NATO. Nor are NATO countries ready to give a security commitment to Ukraine." He expects efforts will be made to enlarge ties short of NATO membership, however.

The NATO defense ministers recently concluded a meeting on Ukraine. The regular NATO foreign ministers meeting will take place December 2-3 in Brussels. Since we've just had a new U.S. president elected, will anything get done at this foreign ministers meeting?

They have an agenda, which starts off with Afghanistan, where both the outgoing and incoming U.S. administration have put a very high priority on increasing the number of effective troops on the ground. The Europeans understand that President-elect Barack Obama, at least in terms of what he's said so far, will be putting pressure on them to increase the number of forces they have in Afghanistan, and to reduce the number of what we call "caveats," that is, limitations on where forces can actually be deployed. This will come, of course, at the same time that Obama will try to build a new and more positive relationship with the Europeans. But the meeting in Brussels will deal first and foremost with Afghanistan. The other issue will be the relationship to NATO of Ukraine and Georgia.

Let's first start with Ukraine and Georgia. When we last talked in the first week of September, the fighting in Georgia had just stopped. Since then Georgia's been a real irritant in Russian relations, not only with the United States but with Western Europe. What do you think is going to happen at the NATO meeting? Will there be steps taken to bring Georgia into NATO, which would drive Moscow to distraction?

The allies do have a requirement to demonstrate that Georgia is a legitimate part of Euro-Atlantic institutions, and also, at the same time, to send a message to Russia that whether or not there was provocation for what it did in Georgia and South Ossetia, its performance there was a gross overreaction. Its behavior was unacceptable and Russia needs to move from the nineteenth-century Russian way of doing business, to the twenty-first century way of doing business with the rest of the world. So the first thing NATO has to do is to continue its reassurance to Georgia that it is not alone. Ukraine, however, in many respects is more important. Georgia is an out-of-the-way part of the world, which no one in the alliance, we discovered last summer, is prepared to defend. Ukraine, by contrast, is in Central Europe. It is on the classic invasion routes to and from different countries there, and it is very important that the Russians understand that doing something similar to what they did in Georgia, or even a good deal less, would call into question the fundamental understandings that were worked out in the last fifteen or so years, since the end of the Cold War.

But the Russians have also made it clear that they really wouldn't sit tight for Ukraine to be invited into NATO, haven't they?

At the moment, no one really sees Ukraine or Georgia coming into NATO. At the NATO summit meeting in Bucharest last April, U.S. President George Bush was pushing for NATO to offer the so-called Membership Action Plan, or MAP, to both Ukraine and Georgia. MAP is one of those baby steps in the direction of NATO membership. Many of the allies, probably a majority, balked at that. Not just because of worry about the potential reaction from Russia, but also because of a widespread understanding, first, that Ukraine is having lots of internal problems. In Ukraine, NATO membership is not something that is particularly popular. And would countries really be willing to fight for Georgia or for Ukraine, under circumstances of foreign aggression? In Georgia's case, the answer is clearly no. In Ukraine, how do you convince the Russians that the answer is "yes" without actually doing things that might make a Russian intervention more likely? And that would include bringing Ukraine prematurely into NATO. So, there isn't much enthusiasm for its joining except for some of the theologians who don't believe that one should yield on anything the Russians object to.

So what's likely to happen, a sort of generalized statement?

"I don't think anybody wants to run the risks of giving the Russians a pretext to do what they did against Georgia. Nor do people want to pretend that Ukraine is anywhere near ready to join NATO. Nor are NATO countries ready to give a security commitment to Ukraine."

As you mentioned, there was the NATO defense ministers' meeting with Ukraine in the context of the NATO-Ukraine charter, something I negotiated back in 1997. This was an effort, without doing anything, to show that yes, we care about Ukrainian independence. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates went to the meeting, even though he hadn't been expected. He underscored once again Ukraine's right to be part of Western institutions, and that every country should have a right to choose its own institutions. He said nothing about MAP, he said nothing about NATO membership, but his remarks were meant to bolster the relationship. I suspect what's going to happen at the Brussels meeting is not the offer of MAP for either Ukraine or Georgia, but something I call a functional MAP. Give them cooperation and all of that, just call it something else. I don't think anybody wants to run the risk of giving the Russians a pretext to do what they did against Georgia. Nor do people want to pretend that Ukraine is anywhere near ready to join NATO. Nor are NATO countries ready to give a security commitment to Ukraine.

About half of the population of Ukraine are Russian speakers who really don't particularly want to be in NATO.

On top of that, there are a lot of people in Ukraine who are still focused on their internal problems, who don't see an engagement of NATO as being particularly helpful to them. On the point you just mentioned, Nikita Khrushchev was a native Ukrainian. In about 1954, when he was Russian Communist Party leader and premier, he gave a birthday present to Ukraine by transferring the Crimean region from Russia to Ukraine. It didn't matter at the time, since Ukraine and Russia were both part of the Soviet Union. But in the Crimean region, those are Russians. Real Russians! Not Ukrainians. So, if I were a Ukrainian, far better to have a relationship with the European Union, and get the economic benefits, than to cause difficulties with Russia in regard to NATO. Particularly when [NATO] allies wouldn't honor defense commitments in the first place.

Beyond Georgia and Ukraine, could we talk about Georgia's overall relations with the United States and Europe?

Let me just mention that a part of what's going on with Ukraine and Georgia has to do with Russia's place in the world, with its desire to be taken seriously. And its desire to be seen as, if not an equal to the United States, as a player with the United States. President Dmitry Medvedev, talking on November 5 in his state of the union address, said that if the United States were to go forward with antimissile weapons and related complexes in Poland and the Czech Republic, he might have to consider putting nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad. Since that was the day after Obama was elected, that was taken as a negative shot across the bow. He then said, in effect, at the Council on Foreign Relations meeting on November 15, "Oh come on, that was just an accident of timing. My speech finally got ready. I'm looking forward to much better relations." But the fact is, they have chosen a couple of issues where they believe they have some leverage to try to say to the United States, "You have to take us more seriously." They would be insane to move against Ukraine in any serious way, because on that, there would be unanimity about a collapse of trust in Russia and its capacity to act in the outside world. In regard to the antimissiles, frankly, most of the allies would just as well wish that issue went away, and the Poles and the Czechs would wish it would go away as well.

When we talked in September, you said that Russia was really the big loser out of the Georgia venture, even though militarily it came out ahead.

I believe that. And compounded are the global economic crisis, the collapse in the price of oil, to less than 50 percent [of its peak around $147 a barrel]. And a loss of something like a quarter trillion dollars just by the oligarchs. At a time when Russia needs the outside world, they shot themselves in the foot.

Let's jump back to Afghanistan. NATO has how many troops there now?

There are about 57,000 altogether.

The U.S. has about 30,000?

We are more than 50 percent of the total number. They are both within the International Security Assistance Force [ISAF], and Operation Enduring Freedom [OAF]. which is a strictly U.S. operation which is run by the U.S. Central Command. Altogether, we're about 55 percent of all the troops in the country, with some 18,000 in the ISAF, and 15,000 in the OEF.

And the United States is now committed to increasing its troop levels in Afghanistan as it withdraws brigades from Iraq?

That is correct. President-elect Obama is, if anything, prepared to transfer a few more troops there than the Bush administration. But they're on the same page.

Recently, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan talked about possibly inviting the head of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, to have peace talks with him. There's been rumblings about this for some time. Does NATO get into this topic at all?

Obviously NATO countries have what we call a "watching brief." And the United States as a leader, and the most committed nation, will want to be deeply engaged in this. What has been happening, I think, is twofold. One, a recognition has grown for a couple of years now that the military effort alone can be ineffective. The military, if you will, is the shield, but the nonmilitary are the sword. That is, better governance, reconstruction, and development. And here's where the West is really falling down. And frankly, in my judgment, the United States needs the Europeans to do a lot more. We really need their nonmilitary efforts more than we need their military.

The other development is a growing belief, whether it's valid or not, that in order to bring this thing to a reasonable situation, you need to start making a distinction between the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The Taliban sheltered the al-Qaeda people, who then attacked the United States on 9/11, but they are different people. The question is: Do you start considering bringing the Taliban back into a reasonable kind of governance in parts of Afghanistan while continuing to prosecute the fight against al-Qaeda? This is now a very current idea being pursued by the Karzai government. For example, Saudi Arabia and a number of the allies are beginning to pick up on it. It also potentially helps with what is now the nub of the situation, the use of Pakistan as a sanctuary for operations into Afghanistan.

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U.S. Approves Training to Expand Afghan Army

The Pentagon has authorized a substantial increase in the number of Afghan security forces it plans to train by next year, in time for President Obama’s deadline for United States combat forces to begin withdrawing from the country, military officials said Thursday.

Meanwhile, a suicide bomber struck a marketplace in southern Afghanistanand killed 20 people, including children, and NATO officials reported that 23 soldiers had died so far this year.

The new training goals would increase the size of the Afghan Army from its present 102,400 personnel to 171,600 by October 2011, according to Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the American officer who leads NATO’s training mission in Afghanistan.

Addressing a group of Afghan National Army cadets on Thursday, General Caldwell said the Pentagon had made the decision to increase its training commitments at a meeting the night before in Washington.

“The coalition forces want to grow the Afghan forces,” General Caldwell told the cadets, in response to a question from one about whether the coalition should not give more responsibility to Afghan forces.

“We want to do just what you’re saying,” he answered. “We are here as guests of Afghanistan. We want to support your army to take control.”

The Afghan National Army is already planning to increase in size to 134,000 by Oct. 31 of this year, General Caldwell said. Presently there are a record 18,000 fresh recruits in training, encouraged by pay increases of up to 30 percent. The recruits undergo an eight-month-long course run by NATO. The Pentagon decided Wednesday to further raise the army’s size to 171,600 by October 2011. Additionally, Afghan police forces, which now number 96,800, would increase to 109,000 this year, and American officials hope to further increase that to 134,000 by the following year, General Caldwell said.

Previously the goals had been to increase Afghan forces to 159,000 soldiers and 123,000 police officers by 2011.

The American military’s proposed budget for training Afghan forces is now at $11.6 billion for the fiscal year 2011, and the increase in personnel would be paid for out of that, according to Col. Gregory T. Breazile of the United States Marine Corps, a spokesman for the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan. “We’ve been talking about these numbers for some time, but we didn’t have approval until last night,” Colonel Breazile said, referring to the Pentagon session.

President Obama has ordered an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan by this summer, which would bring the United States’ troop strength to about 100,000. With other coalition contributions, also expected to increase but at a slower rate, that would bring the total NATO troop strength to at least 145,000 by the end of 2010. By comparison, American troop strength in Iraq has already dropped below 140,000 and is scheduled to fall to 50,000 by August.

The United States military has projections of increasing the Afghan Army and police forces to 400,000 by 2013, Colonel Breazile said, but he added that the growth might not be necessary. “It’s all conditions-based,” he said. “If they need it, we can do it.”

On Thursday, the marketplace attack took place in the Dehrawood District of the southern Oruzgan Province, killing 20 civilians and wounding 13, according to the local Afghan National Army battalion commander, Gen. Abdul Hamid. An unspecified number of the victims were children, he said. The local governor, Asadullah Hamdam, said there apparently was no military or government objective for the bomber, unlike most previous suicide bombings.

“It shows that these terrorists do not know anything about the values of Islam,” said President Hamid Karzai, in a statement released by his spokesman.

The death toll in the country among coalition troops this January has now risen to at least 23, all but one due to hostile engagements, according to icasualties.org, an independent organization that tracks military casualties, and reports from NATO military officials. By comparison, 25 died in all of January 2009. Of those 21 hostile deaths this month, 14 were Americans, 2 British, 2 French and 1 Spanish, plus 2 others whose nationalities have not yet been disclosed.

The latest death was a United States soldier killed by an improvised explosives device on Thursday in southern Afghanistan, the American military said in a news release.

On Wednesday, four American soldiers and a NATO soldier were killed in four episodes, according to news releases from NATO’s International Security and Assistance Force headquarters in Kabul.

Two of the Americans were killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan, the international force said, and one American died in another bombing in southern Afghanistan. In addition, an American soldier was killed in a firefight with insurgents in eastern Afghanistan. The NATO soldier, who was identified as French, died from a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan.

On Tuesday, two American soldiers died from a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan. And on Monday, seven NATO soldiers died, including three Americans killed in Helmand Province, in southern Afghanistan, and two French soldiers killed in eastern Afghanistan. A British soldier also died in Helmand. The nationality of the seventh fatality has not yet been disclosed.

A Taliban commander claimed that an insurgent killed five American soldiers in Shah Wali Kot, in the southern province of Kandahar, on Monday. But a spokesman for the international force in Afghanistan, Lt. Col. Edward Sholtis of the United States Air Force, said that no such attack had occurred.

Also on Thursday, a suicide bomber in Musa Qala, in Helmand, attacked a police patrol in a marketplace, but did not kill anyone else, according to Mullah Salam, the district governor there. One police officer and four civilians were wounded in the blast, he said. A statement from the international force, however, said one police officer was killed and five were wounded, four of them police officers.

In Khost Province, a roadside bomb detonated, killing a road construction worker and wounding another. A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility, putting the death toll at three.

Analysts: NATO Membership for Ukraine Unlikely Anytime Soon

Ukrainians go to the polls January 17 to elect a new president. Current leader Viktor Yushchenko is a strong advocate for Ukraine's membership into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But that membership is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Ukraine and Georgia have expressed interest in becoming NATO members. The Bush administration strongly supported their membership bids. But at the April 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, member countries declined requests by both nations to begin the process of accession known as a "Membership Action Plan". The final communiqué simply said NATO leaders agreed that "these countries will become members of NATO" - but no time frame was given.

A former senior State Department official in the Bush administration, David Kramer, who was responsible for Eurasian and European affairs says both countries have to overcome numerous obstacles before becoming NATO members.

"Joining NATO means meeting the criteria for joining NATO - countries can't simply fill out an application and become a member the next day. They do have to undertake reforms that include political, economic as well as security reforms. And membership is a long process - it does not happen quickly. And so in some respects, in different areas, Georgia and Ukraine have made progress in these regards. But in other areas, in other parts of reform, they have a long way to go. So membership for Ukraine and Georgia is not going to be in the offing anytime soon."

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has been pushing for NATO membership since he assumed power five years ago. But he is on the verge of losing his job as voters go the polls this Sunday to elect a new president. Public-opinion surveys put Mr. Yushchenko far behind the two front-runners: Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovich, head of the powerful "Party of Regions" in the Ukrainian parliament.

David Marples from the University of Alberta [Canada] looks at Ms. Tymoshenko's and Mr. Yanukovich's stand on NATO membership. "Tymoshenko is a little unclear on what would happen with NATO . Yanukovich is opposed to it, but he would probably agree to a referendum. And all the polls so far have suggested that most people would vote against it: something like 55 or 60 percent, which is a very high figure in a referendum, would vote against Ukraine joining NATO," he said.

Russia has been vehemently opposed to Ukraine's bid to join NATO. Analysts say as a result of President Yushchenko's attempts to join the alliance, relations between Kiyev and Moscow are at an all-time low.

But many experts, including Robert Legvold from Columbia University, say NATO membership appears to be less of an issue now than it was five years ago at the beginning of the Yushchenko administration. "One of the interesting things about this election is no candidate, no single candidate, not even Yushchenko, who is after all one of the 18 candidates, is raising the issue of NATO membership in this presidential campaign. Both objectively in terms of Ukraine's relations with NATO and in terms of the politics of it in Ukraine, as reflected in this presidential election, Ukraine is farther away from NATO membership than before," he said.

Legvold says that has a lot to do with NATO's perception of Ukraine. "And that is that Ukraine is seen less and less as a fit member of NATO, because it has not been able to deal with these underlying structural problems: it has made a little bit of progress in terms of military reform, but not in terms of corruption or political stabilization or advancing in a way that would make it anything other than for NATO, a basket case to take on. And NATO has had enough trouble dealing with, just as the European Union, with the enlargements of the past," he said.

Ukraine is also vying to be a member of the European Union. But experts say Kiyev has even less of a chance to become an E.U. member because the standards for getting into the European Union are much tighter than they are for membership in NATO.

Algeria Introduces New Military Strategy to Combat Terrorism in the Sahara

As al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) terrorists grow more active in the Saharan region, Algeria has introduced a new military strategy designed to restrict movement through the volatile border regions that Algeria shares with Niger, Mali and Mauritania. Algeria has deployed an additional 3,000 troops to the force of 15,000 men along the southern borders. Algerian military forces in this region fall under the command of the 6th military region, headquartered at Tamanrasset.

Together with border guards and the gendarmerie, the army will restrict movement in a number of regions of southern Algeria to those with a security permit. Eight border gates have been created along Algeria’s southern borders, intended to reduce the free movement of smugglers in the region. Individuals making unauthorized crossings through the border region will be given a single warning before being shot at by Algerian security forces. Vehicles moving at night through restricted zones will also be fired on by patrols equipped with night vision equipment. Wells and other water sources in the region will continue to be tightly controlled (El-Khabar [Algiers], December 22, 2009).

Algeria and Mali have also formed a joint military technical committee to address common security concerns. The committee held a three day meeting last month to discuss military coordination and cooperation with Western security services in dealing with the growing number of kidnappings of Westerners in Saharan Africa (El-Khabar, December 21).

Three Malians alleged to be associates of al-Qaeda were recently arrested in Ghana in a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) sting operation. The suspects told undercover DEA agents that they were working with Colombia’s Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - FARC) to ship cocaine through Algeria, Libya and Morocco to Spain under the protection of al-Qaeda operatives (Bikya Masr [Cairo], December 20, 2009; Los Angeles Times, December 19, 2009; AFP, December 18, 2009).

The discovery of a burnt out Boeing 727 airliner in the Malian desert in the region of Sinkrebaka, 125 miles north of the town of Gao, has reinforced the belief that South American drug smugglers are now actively involved in shipping drugs through West Africa into Europe (Air Cargo News, November 17, 2009; AFP, December 11, 2009).

Israel and NATO – Between Membership and Partnership

MADRID – The idea of integrating Israel into NATO has frequently been advanced as bait to encourage the Jewish state to make the necessary concessions for an Arab-Israeli peace settlement. And some Israeli leaders – Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, for example – are convinced that joining NATO would act as a vital deterrent against Iran.

But it is highly unlikely that Israel’s full integration into the Alliance is feasible from NATO’s standpoint. The Alliance would not be happy to apply Article 5 of the NATO charter, which would oblige its members to fight for Israel if it were attacked by any of its many potential enemies in an endemically dangerous region.

Nor is it clear that membership would be in the best interest of Israel, a country whose defense doctrine has been always based on self-reliance and freedom of maneuver in security matters. Israel’s unwritten alliance with the United States is a more convenient alternative.

Cooperation and even partnership with NATO – an interim stage potentially leading to membership – is another matter. Notwithstanding the stalled peace process and the adverse effect that Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians is having on its international standing, NATO and Israel have been incrementally strengthening their cooperation in recent years. This serves the interests of both sides.

For the Israelis, cooperation with NATO is a major component of legitimacy in its frequently troubled relations with the West; for NATO, cooperation serves its capacity to work in new theaters of operation and respond to the changing profile of the threats it confronts. Such is NATO’s interest in Israel that Patrick Hardouin, a high official at the Political Affairs and Security Policy Department of the Alliance, made it explicit in 2006, saying that “the ups and downs of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must not limit Israel-NATO cooperation.”

In recent years, NATO has been undergoing major changes in both its deployment and objectives. Two landmarks define these changes: the end of the Cold War, which rendered NATO’s defensive strategy against the Soviet Union obsolete, and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US, which changed the profile of the enemy and the nature of the battlefield. It also changed the theater of operation, and forced the Alliance to shift its attention from Europe to the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and beyond.

NATO’s Mediterranean emphasis was inaugurated in 1994 through the Mediterranean Dialogue, which linked countries like Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Mauritania, Algeria, and Tunisia in security discussions with the Alliance. The Dialogue was not exactly an edifying success, however.

The Istanbul Cooperation Initiative of 2004, triggered by the trauma of the 9/11 attacks, holds far greater potential, for it transforms NATO’s relations with friendly states in the Middle East from dialogue to partnership – a level comparable to the Partnership for Peace program used to promote Central and Eastern European countries to full membership. Under this framework, multilateral cooperation in combating terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction was offered to the region’s main actors. The Initiative also envisages the promotion of regional defense reforms and the improvement of interoperability among military forces in the region.

Nevertheless, both the Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Initiative suffer from the lack of a real multilateral culture of cooperation in security matters among the main regional players. The Arab-Israeli conflict is a major political obstacle, but by no means the only one. Morocco, Algeria, and Libya are hardly partners for such regional cooperation, which is also the case for most Arab countries in the Middle East.

Not surprisingly, then, of all the states in the region, it is Israel that has established the closest links with NATO. This reflects the benefits that NATO believes can be drawn from Israel’s unique military experience. Israel recently became the first country to conclude an Individual Cooperation Program with NATO, through which it conducts an ongoing strategic dialogue with the Alliance covering a wide array of areas, including terrorism, intelligence sharing, nuclear proliferation, procurement and logistics, and rescue operations. Israel also joined NATO’s naval control system in the Mediterranean, contributing to Operation Active Endeavor by joining NATO forces in patrolling the Mediterranean.

Both sides seem eager to expand the scope of their partnership, with the objective of reaching a high level of interoperability. Recently, in anticipation of a hypothetical confrontation with Iran, a major military maneuver – the Juniper Cobra exercise – was conducted to test Israel’s integration into US ballistic missile defenses. American sources described the drill as “the most complete air missile defense system we’ve ever done anywhere in the world.” It was a major contribution, they said, to the development of a planned NATO missile shield for Europe.

The options for further cooperation are many, ranging from intelligence and procurement to the development of an updated anti-terrorism doctrine (including cyber-terrorism), a domain to which NATO is a newcomer. David Ben-Gurion’s dream of Israel becoming a NATO member might not materialize, but the developing partnership reflects the Alliance’s unequivocal recognition that Israel shares the challenges facing the West and is a vital partner in developing responses to them.