Ahead of this November's NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal, the defense and foreign ministers of the bloc will meet in Brussels to put the finishing touches on the 21st century Strategic Concept.
In his May 5 press briefly, Rasmussen rattled off a barrage of rhetorical queries the answers to which were a foregone conclusion. "What new missions should NATO take on, to defend our populations against 21st century threats? What should our nuclear policy be? How far should our Partnerships reach?"
To no one's surprise, he responded by saying "my aim is for the new Concept to be ambitious; not only to reflect what we are currently doing, but also to set out what we should be doing to keep the 900 million citizens in NATO countries safe from attack." [2]
Attack from whom or what was not specified, as though the assertion that 28 NATO member states from Canada to Croatia, Iceland to Latvia and Norway to Portugal are and will always be under threat of immediate annihilation by stealthy, nefarious and unprecedentedly capable adversaries is self-evident and as such does not require substantiation. Perhaps he was alluding to Iran. Or Russia. Or non-state actors. Or to nobody at all.
His remedy for this historically unmatched threat - and though few in the world challenge such contentions they truly pass from the realm of political discourse into what is properly the province of psychiatry - is what the White House and the Pentagon intend it to be: Integrating most all of Europe into the U.S.'s global interceptor missile system, maintaining American nuclear weapons on the continent, fighting an expanding war in Asia 3,000 miles from NATO headquarters, recruiting the few European nations outside the Alliance into its fold, deepening the integration of nations of the former Soviet Union including those in the South Caucasus and Central Asia, and intensifying military partnerships with countries in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Oceania.
Regarding U.S. interceptor missile deployments - the list of NATO states where they are planned, all in Eastern Europe, now are reported to include Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania - Rasmussen said that "Because there is a growing threat...Europe needs to continue to contribute to its own defence."
"NATO is already building a theatre missile defence system to protect our armed forces, when they go out on mission. The cost of expanding that system to cover not only our soldiers, but also our populations normal citizens in our cities is less than 200 million Euros."
In debt-ridden and cash-strapped Europe, the secretary general felt that he only needed to discuss the cost-effectiveness of a program that could trigger a new missile race on the continent. Or far worse - a missile exchange, whether intended or inadvertent.
Rasmussen announced plans to visit Romania on the following two days, May 6 and 7, where, he added, "We will, of course, in our talks, cover the whole agenda, including missile defence. Not least because Romania attaches strong importance to what we consider the core function of NATO territorial defence, collective defence, according to Article 5 in the NATO Treaty. And in my opinion an effective missile defence is a part of a credible territorial defence in the current security environment in the world. So obviously we will discuss also that issue."
In February the Romanian government confirmed its commitment to host U.S. Standard Missile-3 anti-ballistic missile interceptors which, as seen above, Rasmussen construes as "territorial defence, collective defence, according to Article 5 in the NATO Treaty."
In Romania he consulted with President Traian Basescu, Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi and other leading government officials and repeated, word-for-word, his comments at the NATO foreign ministers meeting in Estonia late last month that there were "more than 30 countries having or developing missile capabilities." Again, no one asked him which thirty nations he was speaking about.
He also rehashed another refrain from the Estonia meeting in stating "In many cases, these missiles could eventually threaten our populations and territories. And several countries are seeking nuclear weapons....[W]e must take a fresh look at missile defence not as a substitute for nuclear deterrence, but as a complement to it." The last phrase was also borrowed from the NATO foreign ministers meeting In Tallinn. [3]
In a presentation at the University of Bucharest Rasmussen said that "Allies need to maintain an appropriate nuclear deterrent."
More specifically, he said, "I hope that in Lisbon we will decide that missile defence is an Alliance's mission, by combining the US and the NATO systems. That will provide an effective coverage to our populations."
While in Bucharest, Rasmussen also reiterated the push to complete the total integration of the Balkans, reaffirming: "We share the view that the best recipe for lasting security and stability in the Balkans is integration of all countries of the region in the euroatlantic structures, into the EU and NATO."
He praised Romania, which recently disclosed that it would increase its troop numbers in Afghanistan to 1,800, for its display of Alliance solidarity in the war zone, which is "substantial, without caveats."
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