"NATO defense ministers meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia, endorsed the strategy put forward by Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S. and allied commander. The alliance rejected competing proposals to narrow the military mission to fighting the remnants of Al Qaeda." [2]
Pentagon chief Robert Gates walked away from the two-day conference assured that "a number of allies"were thinking about increasing their own military or civilian contributions." [3]
As though a war of such monumental proportions was not enough for self-styled 21st Century NATO to manage, its chief Rasmussen delivered an inventory of additional missions while addressing the bloc's new Strategic Concept, including "nuclear matters," "cyber defence," "the difficult economic climate," "the effects of disruption in energy supply" and "perhaps the most global of challenges -- climate change." [4]
But his main focus was on two related subjects, both with Russia as prime antagonist. On the first topic Rasmussen asserted:
"Energy security is [an] emerging challenge. Indeed, many countries"have already felt the effects of disruption in energy supply, and in the next few years, the competition for energy will only get more intense. This means that we need to think about how to protect our supply lines, our transit routes, and our critical infrastructure."
His allusion was to collective NATO-U.S.-EU efforts to "lessen Europe's energy dependency" on Russia and to continue developing alternative routes for Caspian Sea and Middle East oil to enter Europe by circumventing Russia (and Iran). What, if the situation were reversed, would be condemned in Western capitals as an energy war.
In mentioning "the meaning of Article 5," Rasmussen affirmed that "NATO's core task was, is, and will remain, the defence of our territory and our populations. For our Alliance to endure, all members must feel that they are safe and secure. NATO has never failed in this respect."
There is only one nation on earth against whom NATO can "defend its territory": Russia.
His comments concerning "the challenge of cyber-attacks -- which, as we saw in Estonia two years ago, can seriously destabilise a country" made the point even more indisputable.
Rasmussen's address, finally, rehashed the 1989 George H.W. Bush speech A Europe Whole and Free [5] with the pledge that "our new Strategic Concept must reaffirm a long-standing NATO objective: to help complete the consolidation of Europe as a continent that is whole, free and at peace. NATO's open door policy will continue. It will continue because it contributes to Euro-Atlantic security, and it provides a strong incentive, for aspirants, to get their house in order."
The small and diminishing handful of nations in Europe not already in NATO supplying troops and military equipment for the war in Afghanistan and the three countries in the South Caucasus -- Armenia's defense minister was at the NATO meeting to offer troops -- are to be dragged into the Alliance, Russian apprehensions and objections notwithstanding.
What being fully integrated into NATO portends for the countries so affected and for their neighbors has been indicated and will be explored in greater depth later with the cases of Bulgaria and Romania.
What it has meant for three other nations recruited into the bloc in the same year, 2004, as Bulgaria and Romania -- the former Soviet Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania -- was demonstrated earlier in the week when Rasmussen called for "a clear, visible NATO presence in the Baltic states" and said he "would not exclude military exercises in the future" to assert the Alliance's "visible presence" in the Baltics on and near Russia's borders. [6]
Recently U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon -- formerly of the Brookings Institution, International Institute for Strategic Studies in London and German Society for Foreign Affairs in Bonn and who was "instrumental in developing and coordinating NATO policy in the run-up to the Alliance's 50th Anniversary summit in Washington, D.C." [7] -- was in Estonia where he met with Foreign Minister Urmas Paet, who "called for Georgia, Ukraine, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to be included in NATO's Membership Action Plan, a program of assistance to countries seeking to join NATO"." [8]
Nothing on this level of geopolitics -- absorbing former Soviet republics and Russian neighbors like Georgia and Ukraine into a U.S.-controlled military bloc -- is coincidental. The Estonian foreign minister's statement was seconded with precise fidelity by Senator John Kerry shortly after his recent tour of inspection of the Afghan war front. Kerry said "[W]hile the world has changed, we are still dealing with some of the same geostrategic and ideological concerns that brought NATO into being in particular, a deep and durable commitment by like-minded democracies to cooperate closely and deter aggression with a promise to rise up in defense of any NATO member under attack.
"I hope we can"address the prospects for future NATO enlargement to include Balkan nations, Georgia, and Ukraine." [9]
