Text Fwd: Rasmussen In Poland: Expeditionary NATO, Missile Shield And Nuclear Weapons

* Rick Rozoff sent on March 14, 2010

Rasmussen In Poland: Expeditionary NATO, Missile Shield And Nuclear Weapons
Rick Rozoff
March 14, 2010

The civilian chief of the world’s only, and history’s first self-proclaimed global, military bloc is having a busy month.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen delivered an address in Washington, DC on February 23 on the military alliance’s new 21st century Strategic Concept along with U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her predecessor twice-removed Madeleine Albright and National Security Adviser James Jones, the last-named a former Marine Corps general and NATO Supreme Allied Commander. [1]

At the seminar and on the preceding evening at Georgetown University in what is arguably NATO’s true capital, Rasmussen sounded familiar themes: Highlighting the need to prevail in Afghanistan, NATO’s first ground war and first armed conflict outside of Europe. Applauding the work of the bloc’s new cyber warfare center in Estonia, ostensibly to protect the comparatively new member state against attacks emanating from Russia. Identifying Iran and North Korea for particular scrutiny.

He also spoke of “deepening our partnerships with countries from across the globe” and affirmed “NATO is a permanent Alliance….” [2]

The bloc’s chief announced the creation of “a new division at NATO Headquarters to deal with new threats and challenges.” [3]

Since then Rasmussen has visited Jordan, Bahrain, Finland, the Czech Republic and Poland to promote the broadening of worldwide military partnerships, the recruitment of more troops and other support for the Afghan war, and the expansion of an eventual global missile shield system within the context of NATO’s further transformation into an international and expeditionary security and military force. In Rasmussen’s words, the Alliance is to become a global security forum in addition to being the world’s only permanent military alliance.

The Strategic Concept meeting held in Finland on March 4 with the foreign ministers of that country and of Sweden, Alexander Stubb and Carl Bildt, respectively, as well as Finland’s defense minister – the first formal gathering on the Strategic Concept held in a non-member nation – focused on the two Scandinavian nations’ expanding role in Afghanistan and what was described as EU-NATO cooperation and Nordic cooperation.

Regarding supposed threats which within the current context could only be an allusion to Finland’s neighbor Russia, Rasmussen said that it was no longer sufficient to “line up soldiers and tanks and military equipment along the borders.” Instead the bloc’s members “really have to address the threat at its roots, and it might be in cyber space,” as the “enemy might appear everywhere in cyberspace.” [4]

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