President Putin ends Russia and NATO ABM cooperation

rickrozoff.wordpress.com

By John Robles for Voice of Russia Moscow (Voice of Russia) Nov 06, 2013 In another powerful and significant move for peace, the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin has cancelled a presidential order which in 2011, had set up an interdepartmental working group under the authority of the Russian Presidential Administration designed to develop ways to establish cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the sphere of 'missile defense'.

Many experts and NATO watchers familiar with the decree and the attempts by the Russian Federation to develop an equal partnership relationship with NATO on the basis of mutual respect and transparency may now breathe a collective sigh of relief that President Putin has finally run out of patience with the alliance.

The wisdom of the president can not be questioned after what many have been saying for years and dozens of failed attempts to develop a partnership with the alliance. These "failures" have been many fold and compounded by NATO own actions and have included NATO insistence on Like the proverbial Russian bear, President Putin has been slow to be provoked into action but once that action has been decided it is resolute.

Empty rhetoric It was almost obvious from the outset that despite all of its rhetoric to the contrary, rhetoric that has proven time and time again to be as empty as the minds of those espousing it, that NATO had no intention of allowing the Russian Federation into its "fold" as an equal partner.

This total inability by NATO to adjust and modernize its strategic mission taking into account the contemporary realities of Russia as a leading European power interested in peace, rule of law and mutually beneficial cooperation, may be due to its inherent nature of being an organization that was designed, and whose only purpose was, to contain the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and/or that NATO has become a wholly owned global proxy for the attempted advancement of short-sighted, myopic US geopolitical military domination and American hegemony by force.

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Russia Sends Marines, Warships To Syria To Back Assad

Pat Dollard

Excerpted from The Jerusalem Post: Russia has concentrated five landing ships in the eastern Mediterranean in a show of force meant to deter Western nations from intervening militarily in Syria, The Sunday Times quoted a Russian diplomat as saying.

According to the report, the ships are carrying military vehicles and hundreds of Russian marines, and are being accompanied by combat vessels.

While officially Russia has claimed the ships have been deployed to partake in an exercise to “improve the management, maintenance and testing of the interaction of naval forces,” the Times quoted the diplomat as saying the marines were meant to deter the West from deploying ground forces in the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

“Russia should be prepared for any developments, as it believes the situation in Syria might reach its peak before Easter,” the Times quoted the diplomatic source as saying.

The report came as Assad was set to make his first public speech on the uprising against his rule in months.

With insurgents fighting their way closer to the seat of his power, state media said in a statement that Assad would speak on Sunday morning about the “latest developments in Syria and the region”, without giving details.

Since Assad’s last public comments, in November, rebels have strengthened their hold on swathes of territory across northern Syria, launched an offensive in the central province of Hama and endured weeks of bombardment by Assad’s forces trying to dislodge them from Damascus’s outer neighborhoods.

Syria’s political opposition has also won widespread international recognition. But Assad has continued to rely on support from Russia, China and Iran to hold firm and has used his air power to blunt rebel gains on the ground.

The United States military said US troops and equipment had begun arriving in Turkey on Friday to oversee the deployment of US and European Patriot surface-to-air missile batteries to the Turkish-Syrian border.

Turkey and NATO say the missiles are a safeguard to protect southern Turkey from possible Syrian missile strikes. Syria and allies Russia and Iran say the deployments could spark an eventual military action by the Western alliance.

Karzai: US, NATO behind ’insecurity’ in Afghanistan

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Analysis: How Afghanistan
has changed under Karzai

H.Clinton scolds Russia, China over Syria

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U.S. military completes planning for Syria

Security Clearance/  By Barbara Starr

The U.S. military has completed its own planning for how American troops would conduct a variety of operations against Syria, or to assist neighboring countries in the event action was ordered, officials tell CNN.

In recent weeks, the Pentagon has finalized its assessment of what types of units would be needed, how many troops, and even the cost of certain potential operations, officials tell CNN.

The planning comes as the U.S. has become increasingly concerned that the violence in Syria is verging on civil war. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the recent series of bombings have heightened the worry.

Dempsey said it reminded him of the escalating violence during the Iraq war.

The violence "gives us all pause that have been in Iraq and seen how these issues become sectarian and then they become civil wars and then they become very difficult to resolve," Dempsey told CNN in an exclusive interview on Thursday.

A senior U.S. official said the developments have been a matter of discussion in the Obama administration.

"There is a sense that if the sectarian violence in Syria grows, it could be worse than what we saw in Iraq," the official said.

The military planning includes a scenario for a no-fly zone as well as protecting chemical and biological sites. Officials say all the scenarios would be difficult to enact and involve large numbers of U.S. troops and extended operations.

The planning, officials insist, is being done protectively and there have been no orders for any action from the White House.

The U.S. Navy is maintaining a presence of three surface combatants and a submarine in the eastern Mediterranean to conduct electronic surveillance and reconnaissance on the Syrian regime, a senior Pentagon official said. The official emphasized that the U.S. routinely maintains this type of naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean, but acknowledged the current focus is on Syria.

The United States, Britain and France have all been discussing contingency scenarios, potential training and sharing of intelligence about what is happening in Syria with neighboring countries including Jordan, Turkey and Israel. But it is Jordan, so far, that is most seeking the help because of its relatively small military and potential need for outside help if unrest in southern Syria were to impact Jordan's security.

U.S. special forces are training and advising Jordanian troops on a range of specific military tasks they might need to undertake if unrest in Syria spills over into Jordan or poses a threat to that country, three Defense Department officials told CNN. The officials declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the training. Jordanian officials also are refusing to publicly confirm details, but a senior Middle Eastern government official also confirmed details to CNN.

The U.S. has been training in Jordan using mainly special operations forces under a program called Joint Combined Exchange Training, which sends troops overseas to train foreign soldiers and units in specific missions. Jordan's major security concern is that if the Syrian regime were to suddenly collapse, then it would face unrest on its northern border, as well as the possibility of large refugee flows, weapons smuggling into Jordan, and potential disarray in Syria's chemical and biological weapons complex. Jordan also is considering how and where to potentially set up humanitarian assistance bases inside its borders, another matter the U.S. is advising it on.

The Jordanians do not believe regime of Bashir al-Assad would attack them. But they have made it clear to the United States they want the training so they are ready to move quickly if any scenario develops that could destabilize their country, which is already reeling politically from a collapsing economy. While there's no formal agreement, one of the U.S. officials said the U.S. would come to the defense and support of Jordan in the event any of the Syria scenarios pose a challenge.

While there is no current scenario for putting U.S. troops on the ground in Jordan or Syria, the U.S. could wind up providing air support to move Jordanian troops to the border. In addition, American forces could provide a wide range of intelligence and surveillance capabilities to Jordan so they would have up-to-date information on what is happening on the Syrian side of their border region. In one of the most extreme scenarios, a small unit of Jordanian troops could move into Syria to protect a chemical or biological weapons site.  More >>

NATO Shifts to Help an Elusive Afghanistan Peace

NATO Expansion into Russian Satellite States will Backfire

White House: North Korea is wasting its money

Security Clearance/

White House statement on North Korea's launch attempt:

Despite the failure of its attempted missile launch, North Korea’s provocative action threatens regional security, violates international law and contravenes its own recent commitments. While this action is not surprising given North Korea’s pattern of aggressive behavior, any missile activity by North Korea is of concern to the international community. The United States remains vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations, and is fully committed to the security our allies in the region.
The President has been clear that he is prepared to engage constructively with North Korea. However, he has also insisted that North Korea live up to its own commitments, adhere to its international obligations and deal peacefully with its neighbors.
North Korea is only further isolating itself by engaging in provocative acts, and is wasting its money on weapons and propaganda displays while the North Korean people go hungry. North Korea's long-standing development of missiles and pursuit of nuclear weapons have not brought it security – and never will. North Korea will only show strength and find security by abiding by international law, living up to its obligations, and by working to feed its citizens, to educate its children, and to win the trust of its neighbors.

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Buques de guerra de EE.UU. frente a la costa de Siria, Francia propone la intervención de la OTAN

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NATO Chronicles - Cyber Defense, Fighting the Invisible Enemy, IT Version

Natochannel - Courtesy Video

 

NATO preps for new war

TEL AVIV – NATO troops are training in Turkey for a Turkish-led NATO invasion of Syria, a senior Syrian diplomatic official claimed to WND.
Separately, informed Middle East security officials said Russia has been inspecting Syrian forces and has been advising Syria about possible Syrian military responses should NATO attack the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The officials said Russia recently sold Syria a large quantity of Iskander ballistic missiles, and that, in light of the NATO threat, the Russian government renewed its pledge to sell Syria the advanced S-300 anti-missile system.

Read more: NATO preps for new war http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=351969#ixzz1ZvGsP9lF

Captura en Afganistán a un jefe de la red Haqqani

ElPais

La misión de la OTAN en Afganistán ha informado hoy de la detención en el este del país de un importante dirigente de la red terrorista Haqqani, un activo grupo insurgente afgano que EE UU considera ligado a los servicios secretos paquistaníes. Haji Mali Khan es "el tío de Siraj y Badrudín Haqqani... uno de los máximos jefes de la red Haqqani y uno de los ancianos más reverenciados en el clan Haqqani", ha dicho la Fuerza Internacional de Asistencia a la Seguridad (ISAF) en un comunicado.

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La encrucijada libia/ Barah Mikail

FP en español 

El régimen de Gadafi se acerca a su fin. Aunque caótica y a veces sangrienta, la estrategia militar desplegada en Libia durante estos últimos seis meses por fin ha resultado fructífera. La adhesión de Gadafi a la postura antioccidental y sus llamamientos a la solidaridad panafricana, panárabe y panislámica durante el proceso de revueltas árabes no bastaron para mantenerle en el poder.

No obstante, deberíamos observar los acontecimientos con un optimismo cauteloso. El país podría estar entrando en una nueva era, pero eso no significa que sus ciudadanos vayan a llegar con facilidad a un consenso sobre el tipo de futuro que desean. En Túnez y Egipto podemos observar claramente un día tras otro lo complicado que puede resultar un proceso de transición, incluso cuando se produce como resultado de los esfuerzos de una única nación, sin el más mínimo apoyo directo del extranjero. Por eso, la ecuación libia podría originar más dificultades, y una sucesión de paradojas de las que deberíamos ser conscientes a partir de ahora.  

La primera paradoja es que, mientras el éxito de la Revolución Libia ha quedado garantizado por la acción de potencias extranjeras –empezando por la OTAN–, ninguna de ellas parece proclive a subrayar este detalle. De hecho, la OTAN tardó muchísimo en lograr su objetivo inicial implícito, es decir, la caída del régimen de Gadafi. Mientras sus miembros parecían creer en un principio que podrían derrocar al dictador con una Blitzkrieg (guerra relámpago), al final han acabado con seis meses de conflicto, miles de víctimas y de daños –muchos de ellos de los llamados colaterales– y el recientemente constituido Consejo Nacional de Transición (CNT) como único aliado. Por eso, es posible que la OTAN haya logrado en Libia lo que aún está lejos de conseguir en Afganistán, pero el período que se avecina podría demostrar también que la organización aún se encuentra muy lejos de poder conquistar los corazones y el pensamiento de la población.  

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Afghanistan: Petraeus stepped down while Taliban stap up

By Fred KaplanPosted Monday, July 18, 2011, at 4:11 PM ET

Afghan President Hamid KarzaiGen. David Petraeus stepped down as commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan on Monday, just as the Taliban's strength seems to be on the rise. The militants' growing power comes not from conventional military victories—on that score, Petraeus has racked up considerable advances in the past year—but, rather, from what may be a shift in the real war that's going on: the war for the favor (or at least complicity) of the Afghan people.

The high-profile assassinations this past week of President Hamid Karzai's brother and one of his close associates send a clear message to Afghan people who are sitting on the fence: If Karzai and the American military can't protect powerful guys like this, they certainly can't protect you. If this perception deepens, it may be game-over not just for Karzai's regime but for the U.S.-NATO war effort.

Most insurgency wars are wars for the allegiance or control of the people. They are, in part, fought the same way all wars are fought, with combatants on two or more sides trying to kill one another. But the metrics of success are very different. These wars, ultimately, are not about conquering territory (insurgents hold no territory) or winning battles (insurgents fight battles of their choosing and can simply melt into the population if they figure the odds are against them). The "center of gravity," as strategists put it, is the population.

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The Afghan Army: Is it fit for Purpose?

newnations BULLETIN
The transition from NATO to Afghan leadership in the security sector officially started in July 2011, with a few locations being handed over to Afghan control. It was a muted beginning of the transition: all the locations transitioned to the Afghans were comparatively quiet and safe ones. It is well known that ISAF's outgoing commander, Gen. Petraeus, was very tepid towards the transition, although he would not openly elaborate on his motives. It is also known that Afghan president Karzai, President Obama and the European governments were more supportive of a transition as fast as possible. At the centre of the debate on the viability of transition in the medium and long run is the question of whether the Afghan security forces are really ready to take the lead and eventually to fight it out on their own. In particular, it is the Afghan army that will be the cornerstone of efforts to Afghanise the conflict. If the Afghan army cannot do the job, transition is not going to be the road to success.

Achievements and failures
When Gen. Caldwell, the head of the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan, took over the job of training Afghan Army and Police, he portrayed what had been done by his predecessors in a very negative light; even the basic training course, which accounted for almost all of the American training effort, had major flaws and was producing privates of very low quality. Caldwell set out to reform the basic training effort and start tackling the issue of forming the army's leadership. While basic training improved qualitatively and expanded quantitatively, leadership formation was still in its infant stage by mid-2011. It is obvious that forming a military leadership is a much more complex task than putting together a basic training effort. It is also a task that takes much longer (several years) to start bearing fruit. That the Americans only started dealing with the problem eight years into their involvement with training the Afghan National Army casts serious doubts over their long term planning. The formation of a new leadership for the Afghan army is made all the more difficult by the limited ability of the Ministry of Defence to attract educated Afghans; the overwhelming majority of the recruits are illiterate and very few high school graduates join the army, not to speak of university graduates. Arguably, this is one more reason why the problem should have been paid attention earlier.

Since the Afghan army has already been fighting a war for some years, a new leadership should by now be emerging from the ranks; involvement in the conflict should by now have weeded out the incompetent officers and refined the skills of the competent ones. Unfortunately this has actually happened only a small scale, for two main reasons. The first reason is that ISAF has been very protective of its Afghan partners, rarely allowing them to fight without the support of a NATO unit and almost never without being accompanied by a unit of NATO mentors, who often take over as the commanding officers when the Afghan counterpart is judged not to be up to the task. Although ISAF has by now a fairly good idea of who are the competent Afghan officers and who are not, the practice of sheltering the Afghan Army from the risk of tactical defeat has made it very difficult to argue for the removal of ineffective commanders. This leads us to the second reason why the officer corps has not been growing professionally as much as it should have done: political nepotism.

Many officers enjoy political protection and indeed that's the reason why they were appointed in the first place. Such protection comes from one of different political networks within the army, of which the two main ones are linked to former army chief of staff Bismillah Khan and to Minister of Defence Rahim Wardak. The competition between the two networks makes it difficult for meritocracy to take hold. Things in this regard might in fact have got worse, because Bismillah Khan had a preference for battle tested tactical commanders, which his replacement Karimi has not.

A very rough estimate of the quality of the Afghan officer corps, coming from ISAF mentors, would place the number of at least relatively competent officers at about half of the total. There are, however, problems with this half too. They have little or no experience of working together. Without the support of ISAF; very few senior officers can plan relatively large scale operations. Battalion level officers are inevitably even worse in planning. By and large the army is not trained to fight in small units. Although the Americans are now forming many logistical units, the quality of the staff leaves much to be desired: it is difficult to conceive a logistical system run mostly by illiterate people.

In July 2010 the army tried to carry out an offensive operation on its own, without any support from ISAF. The operation was launched from Mehterlam, Laghman province, and was battalion size. It was about capturing a village from the Taliban, but ended in complete failure after the raiding party landing behind enemy lines and the main force as well, were both ambushed. The battalion carrying out the operation was one of the best in the army. This incident highlights how the army as it is, might not be able to cope with the opposition even under the best circumstances: a pre-planned operation against an objective of the army's own choice.



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#Gates Says #NATO Alliance In Danger Of Breaking

WASHINGTON — Robert Gates calls it "aging out." He's not referring to his imminent retirement as defense secretary. He's talking about a generational expiration date on the American embrace of Europe as a pillar of U.S. defense strategy.

Gates made a splash with a scathing speech last week in Brussels, home of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in which he said the 62-year-old alliance faces a "dim, if not dismal" future. He was not disowning NATO but warning that a years-long fraying of trans-Atlantic ties could eventually break the bond.

"I am worried," he said in an Associated Press interview in his Pentagon office on Monday.

Throughout the Cold War, beginning with NATO's founding in 1949 as a bulwark against the Soviet Union and its East European allies, a military and political partnership with Western Europe was fundamental to U.S. defense policy.

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Gates Blasts #NATO, Questions Future of Alliance

America's military alliance with Europe -- the cornerstone of U.S. security policy for six decades -- faces a "dim, if not dismal" future, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday in a blunt valedictory address. In his final policy speech as Pentagon chief, Gates questioned the viability of NATO, saying its members' penny-pinching and lack of political will could hasten the end of U.S. support.
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NATO Is Deploying Hellfires, Apaches And Bunkerbusters As The Libyan War Enters Endgame

Qaddafi is increasingly isolated.  Read »

#Afghanistan - Karzai Threatens War Against NATO

Karzai Threatens War Against NATO Crazy like a fox or just bonkers?
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Karzai amenaza con denunciar a la OTAN como fuerza de ocupación