On February 27 Polish President Lech Kaczynski ratified a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the U.S. to permit the deployment of 100 soldiers to run a Patriot missile base near the Baltic city of Morag.
NATO recently inaugurated a Joint Forces Training Center in the Polish city of Bydgoszcz.
The March 17-20 NATO air maneuvers over Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are "the first in a series of military drills to be held this year near the Russian border." In Jun, 500 U.S. Marines and Estonian troops will participate in10 days of exercises in northern Estonia, "a hundred kilometers from the Russian border."[15]
Later in the year, NATO will conduct war games in the Baltic Sea region with "over 2,000 personnel from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and the U.S." The exercises will be "the largest since the three Baltic countries joined the alliance...."[16]
A Russian source commented on the above developments by reminding its readers that NATO "will draw a record number of soldiers to Russia's borders...."[17]
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen visited Finland on March 4 to preside over the bloc's first new Strategic Concept seminar held in a non-NATO country, co-hosted by the host country and Sweden, both formerly nominal neutral nations. Rasmussen said that "Afghanistan, where Finland and Sweden have soldiers serving under NATO's peacekeeping operation, was a model example of NATO's regional defence starting far from the alliance's borders."[18]
Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said in his introductory remarks that one of his country's members of parliament "once described NATO as Finland's secret lover or mistress. I would rather argue that our partnership with NATO is like 'common-law marriage.' We have been committed and reliable partners for a long time, almost two decades."[19] When NATO fully incorporates Finland, it will acquire "237,000 troops, beefed up with the latest infantry weapons and heavy armor"[20] along a 1,300-kilometer border with Russia. [21]
American and other NATO member states' troops, warplanes and warships are visiting Russia's neighborhood more frequently and approaching its borders more precariously. Over the past five years the Pentagon and NATO have secured permanent air, naval and training bases in Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and Lithuania and interceptor missile sites in the first three nations.
As Indian journalist M K Bhadrakumar remarked, NATO's post-Cold War drive to the east began in the Balkans and has proceeded inexorably to the Black Sea, the Caucasus, Central Asia and Afghanistan. It has also turned the Baltic Sea into a U.S. and Alliance lake, with Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden within the Western military phalanx -- all have troops in Afghanistan under NATO command, for example -- and Russia is left alone in the region.
That trajectory -- from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, the Caucasus and Central Asia -- places U.S. and NATO military presence along a substantial portion of the land borders of European Russia.
1) United States European Command, February 24,
2010
2) Ibid
3) Arbroath Herald, February 26, 2010
4) Ibid
5) United
Kingdom Ministry of Defence, March 2, 2010
6) Russian Information Agency
Novosti, March 4, 2010
7) Associated Press, March 2, 2010
8) Russian
Information Agency Novosti, March 3, 2010
9) Agence France-Presse, March 4,
2010
10) Georgia Times, February 23, 2010
11) Asia Times, March 1,
2010
12) Z Magazine, March 2010
13) Global Research, March 2, 2010
14)
Xinhua News Agency, March 5, 2010
15) Russian Information Agency Novosti,
March 4, 2010
16) Ibid
17) Russia Today, March 1, 2010
18) Agence
France-Presse, March 3, 2010
19) Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland,
March 4, 2010
20) Strategy Page, June 29, 2009
21) Afghan War: NATO Trains
Finland, Sweden For Conflict With Russia
Stop NATO, July 26, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/afghan-war-nato-trains-finland-sweden-for-conflict-with-russia
Scandinavia
And The Baltic Sea: NATO's War Plans For The High North
Stop NATO, June 14,
2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/scandinavia-and-the-baltic-sea-natos-war-plans-for-the-high-north
End
of Scandinavian Neutrality: NATO's Militarization Of Europe
Stop NATO, April
10, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/28/end-of-scandinavian-neutrality-natos-militarization-of-europe
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
