NATO’s pledges to protect its eastern
flank against Russia will run into financial reality tomorrow
when foreign ministers from budget-stressed governments weigh
how to share the burden.
A “robust debate” is under way in the 28-nation alliance
over who will pay to rebuild the eastern defenses that were
scaled back after the Cold War, U.S. Ambassador to NATO Douglas
Lute said.
“We haven’t decided where the bill’s going to fall,” Lute
told reporters in Brussels today. “You can imagine that that’s
a big deal. Forces of that size, at that readiness, are not
inexpensive. NATO has got to come to grips with costs.”
Germany, Norway and the Netherlands will take the lead in
fielding a brigade in early 2015 to serve as the nucleus of the
planned rapid-reaction “spearhead” which would be deployable
within days in response to a threat to the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization’s eastern borders.
A commitment to the high-readiness force went along with
American complaints about declining European defense budgets at
a summit of allied leaders in Wales in September, the first
since Russia seized Crimea and sent troops into eastern Ukraine.
The U.S. contribution to the force remains to be decided,
Lute said. NATO is counting on the U.S. to provide airlift
capacity, which is in short supply in Europe.
The planned task force of 3,000 to 5,000 troops requires
NATO to dust off concepts for rapid-response warfare that fell
into disuse during two decades of operations away from the home
front, in places like the Balkans, Afghanistan and Libya.
Interim Force
The three-nation interim readiness force puts NATO ahead of
schedule in meeting its self-defense commitment, Secretary
General Jens Stoltenberg said. Defense ministers will fill in
the details at a meeting in February.
“We are committed to implementing the plan, on time and in
full,” Stoltenberg told reporters.
Other eastern reinforcements include stepped-up air
policing over the Baltic Sea, troop rotations into the Baltic
states and Poland, and more frequent military exercises. NATO
announced those steps in April and will formally agree to
continue them at tomorrow’s meeting of foreign ministers.
To contact the reporter on this story:
James G. Neuger in Brussels at
jneuger@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Alan Crawford at
acrawford6@bloomberg.net
Leon Mangasarian, Paul Abelsky
Article source: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/barack-obama-ozone-113204.html
NATO’s pledges to protect its eastern
flank against Russia will run into financial reality tomorrow
when foreign ministers from budget-stressed governments weigh
how to share the burden.
A “robust debate” is under way in the 28-nation alliance
over who will pay to rebuild the eastern defenses t...
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