President Obama’s flying visit to Lisbon this weekend resulted in a mixed bag of results. On a practical level, NATO made big strides in fashioning the transatlantic alliance for the 21st century. On a personal level however, President Obama did not succeed in turning this weekend’s summits into ones that prioritized new START. By far and away, the most important of the three summits this weekend was the NATO heads-of-state summit. The alliance agreed its first Strategic Concept of the millennium, outlining NATO’s core purpose and tasks. The 2010 Strategic …
As NATO leaders head to the alliance’s summit in Lisbon later this month, they should applaud the Czech Republic for increasing their troop contribution to the mission in Afghanistan during one of the most crucial periods for the counterinsurgency strategy. In December 2009, President Obama announced that America would deploy an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. Great Britain, Poland, Georgia, South Korea, and Italy pulled together a further 7,000 troops to support the population-centric strategy. However, France, Germany, Belgium, and other European countries once again failed to equitably share …
As NATO gears up for its summit in November, one of the top agenda items for discussion is missile defenses — namely, whether NATO will make it a core mission and how the alliance can cooperate with the United States in building a transatlantic missile defense umbrella. The Obama administration’s approach to missile defense is two-fold — much the same approach as the Bush administration. President Obama is talking to nations bilaterally about hosting U.S. facilities such as radar and interceptors, which he wants to build up in several phases. …
In 2007, the director general of Britain’s internal security service described al-Qaeda and its associated groups as, “the main national security threat that we face today.” Revelations that al-Qaeda linked terrorists planned to carry out Mumbai-style attacks in Germany, France and Britain once again underscores this fact. The capture and interrogation of a German national returning to Europe from a Pakistani training camp revealed a fledgling plan to terrorize European cities through murderous shooting sprees. Through a series of attacks and attempted attacks, Islamist extremists have declared war on Europe …
Bruno Lete’s analysis of European reactions to the New START treaty is breathtaking; not for its insights, but rather for its intrinsically false assumptions. Assumption #1: New START can and should lead to another agreement on the denuclearization of Europe. It is impossible—not to mention foolhardy—to ask U.S. senators to support New START in order to get to a second treaty of greater importance of Europe—namely the removal of c. 200 U.S. tactical nuclear weapons stationed in Europe. The U.S. Constitution empowers the Senate to offer its advice on and …
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has today announced the appointment of more than two dozen new Ambassadors who will serve under the blue and gold flag of the European Union rather than their national colors. However, she should be keeping a closer eye on her existing corps. Having been outmaneuvered by European Commission president José Manuel Barroso in the appointment of his friend, João Vale de Almeida to the post of EU Ambassador to the United States, it is nevertheless still her responsibility to keep Almeida in line. His …
France’s declaration of war on al-Qaeda is merely a public statement of fact: France takes counterterrorism seriously. Following last weekend’s statement from al-Qaeda that it had murdered a septuagenarian French aid worker, Prime Minister Francois Fillon declared “war.” French troops have since attacked al-Qaeda bases in North Africa and ramped up cooperation with Paris’s regional allies. French President Nicolas Sarkozy should translate this public show of strength to France’s other theater of war against Islamist terrorists: Afghanistan. France has been just one of several European countries to under-resource the U.N.-mandated …
British Prime Minister David Cameron has completed a visit to Turkey with a passionate defense of Ankara’s aspiration to join the European Union. The charismatic young leader, who also completed a successful Prime Ministerial visit to Washington this month, has joined leading figures, such as U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, in accusing Brussels of not playing fair with Turkey. They’re right. When negotiations with Ankara began, Brussels set out 35 chapters of EU law for Ankara to discharge before a final vote on …
The World Tribune’s Gregory Copley has broken the news that “U.S. powerlessness and EU confusion” have opened a “window of opportunity” for Turkey to seriously consider acquiring nuclear weapons. Just last month, Turkey defied its traditional allies, including the United States and Israel, by voting against a fourth round of U.N. sanctions against Iran, in punishments for Tehran’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons. Further, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has displayed growing Islamist sympathies and exercises an undemocratic stranglehold on power, raising legitimate questions about Turkey’s commitment to …
This past weekend, Civic Platform’s (PO) Bronislaw Komorowski narrowly beat Law and Justice’s Jaroslaw Kaczynski in the second round of voting for the Polish Presidency. After a race that was closer than most pundits were predicting, Komorowski will formally take control of the presidential office in August, consolidating the leadership of PO Prime Minister, Donald Tusk. The early election was called following the tragic death of President Lech Kaczynski in April. His twin brother Jaroslaw and leader of the Center-Right Law and Justice Party performed far better than expected. Komorowski’s …
