Kaidanow also assured her congressional interlocutors - again in advance; see above comments - that next month's NATO summit will endorse the Deterrence and Defense Posture Review (DDPR).
Doing so "will reaffirm NATO's determination to maintain modern, flexible, credible capabilities that are tailored to meet 21st century security challenges. The DDPR will identify the appropriate mix of nuclear, conventional, and missile defense capabilities that NATO needs to meet these challenges..."
She then touted the role of NATO's global partnership arrangements, "working with a growing number of partners around the world," as they "allow the Alliance to extend its reach, act with greater legitimacy, share burdens, and benefit from the capabilities of others."
Regarding which regions among others the expanding military partnerships will be focused on, Kaidanow stated: "In light of the dramatic events of the Arab Spring and NATO's success in Libya, we envision a particular focus on further engagement with partners in the wider Middle East and North Africa region."
She also promoted a new category of nations being cultivated for full NATO accession called aspirant countries - currently Bosnia, Georgia, Macedonia and Montenegro - which are "all working closely with Allies to meet NATO criteria so they may enter the Alliance."
Regarding the most controversial of those four candidate nations, Georgia, she insisted:
"U.S. security assistance and military engagement support the country's defense reforms, train and equip Georgian troops for participation in ISAF operations, and advance its NATO interoperability. In January, President Obama and President Saakashvili agreed to enhance this cooperation to advance Georgian military modernization, defense reform, and self-defense capabilities...U.S. support for Georgia's territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders remains steadfast, and our non-recognition of the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia will not change."
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The U.S. makes decisions for the military bloc it created and its 27 allies rubber-stamp them.
With the results already determined, the claim by NATO that it is an alliance of equals and that their summits are in any many deliberative is given the lie.
What has already been decided, as confirmed by Deputy Secretary Kaidanow on April 26, is that NATO will remain the world's only nuclear alliance, one which will continue stationing U.S. strategic weapons on air bases in European countries under NATO's nuclear sharing arrangement.
That NATO military forces, including the NATO Training Mission - Afghanistan, will remain in Afghanistan long past 2014.
That the U.S. will steadily expand its interceptor missile system from one end of Europe to the other under NATO auspices.
That the U.S. and NATO will continue to move military forces and equipment to Russia's borders.
That the hallmark of NATO mutual obligations is the bloc's Article 5, which commits all members to intervene, up to and including going to war, on behalf of any member state which requests intervention.
That NATO will be used to recruit national contingents from scores of nations for military actions like those in Afghanistan and Libya.
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