NATO recently launched a new website through the Public Diplomacy Division called NATO TV. The site has so far been producing front-line operational footage, interviews on NATO issues, press conference videos, an archive with footage going back to 1945, and more.
Undoubtedly much of the footage will be propaganda, though NATO is billing it as news and "the voice of 26 countries". However, this propaganda may not be a bad thing, for at least two reasons:
• First, there is a broad lack of understanding about NATO's role in the post-Cold War world, and reasonably so: today's threats are more complicated and nuanced than ever before, making NATO's role in responding to them more difficult to understand than when it had one main mission: deter a Soviet onslaught. NATO TV increases transparency on NATO's activities and organization in an easily digestible format.
• Second, while NATO has accomplished a lot historically, and continues to be a key Alliance for both Europe and the United States today, often the media (including yours truly) only highlight controversies or failures – “the only good news is bad news,” as they say. NATO TV will provide information on positive achievements.
As an example of a NATO TV product, the website is running a series that follows the daily life of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) located in Southern Helmand Province, part of the NATO International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF). I found the second episode (three of six parts have been released at the time of this post) to be the most interesting. In it, Sergeant Ryan Messina provides the following quote on progress in Afghanistan from the perspective of a foot soldier:
When you see the way it was, and the effect you have on it, and the way it is now, it has a big impact on you as a person, you feel good about yourself, you feel like you have done something for these people.
You can find the three videos released so far at the natochannel.tv website.
Posted by Joerg Wolf in
German Politics on Monday, July 7. 2008
On Sunday, two German police trainers got injured in an attack in northern Afghanistan, while at least 20 Afghan civilians, including many women and children, got killed in a US air attack, writes Deutsche Welle (in German) in a single article. That's one of the reasons why most Germans do not think that increased military commitment will do any good in Afghanistan.
Ignoring popular opinion, the German government plans to ask the parliament for approval to deploy an additional 1,000 troops to northern Afghanistan. Germany already took over the Quick Reaction Force of 200 soldiers on July 1, 2008.
David at Dialog International describes the reaction in the German press to the announced surge as "rather muted, more like resigned disappointment that Germany is being dragged into a quagmire."
What is the surge good for? Is anybody happy about it? ?
David opines that "the surge us unlikely to appease the United States, since the additional forces will remain in the relatively peaceful north of Afghanistan." He also quotes an Afghanistan expert saying that 1,000 additional troops will not increase security, but "are just a drop in the bucket."
According to David, "the big winner here will be the Left Party (Die LINKE), which has been consistent in calling for German troop withdrawal from Afghanistan." This leftist party represents the mainstream on the issue of Afghanistan: "3/4 of all Germans oppose German military presence in that troubled country, according to recent polls," writes David.
American and allied combat deaths in Afghanistan in May passed the monthly toll in Iraq for the first time. Defense Secretary Robert Gates used the statistical comparison to dramatize his point to NATO defense ministers that they need to do more to get Afghanistan moving in a better direction. He wants more allied combat troops, more trainers and more public commitment. More positively, the May death totals point to security improvements in Iraq that few thought likely a year ago. But the deterioration in Afghanistan suggests a troubling additional possibility: a widening of the war to Pakistan, where the Taliban and al-Qaida have found haven. By the Pentagon's count, 15 U.S. and two allied troops were killed in action in Iraq last month, a total of 17. In Afghanistan it was 19, including 14 Americans and five coalition troops. One month does not make a trend, but in this case the statistics are so out of whack with perceptions of the two wars that Gates could use them to drive home his point about Afghanistan.
Observing Hermann has posted a revealing article that references the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) most recent survey on global arms transfers (HT: Joe Noory):
The survey says that the USA, Russia and Germany are the world’s leading weapons exporters, with Germany’s latest weapons export piece of the pie profits coming in at around $3.395 billion. Damn, just think of all the ploughshares you could buy with that.
Taking a look at the numbers more closely reveals some interesting facts:
In 2007: • The USA, Russia, and Germany held 31, 19, and 14 percent of global exports respectively
• France was the fourth largest arms exporter, with 11% of the global market
From 2006 to 2007: • Russia’s market share dropped 25% to 19%
• Germany’s market share rose 11% to 14%
• France’s market share rose 6% to 11%
The chart above shows Germany's global arms exports have increased steadily over the past few years. This is interesting considering Germany's resistance to take on an active combat role in Afghanistan, instead preferring to focus on reconstruction projects. As Observing Hermann wryly states:
All I can say is that it’s good to know that all of these German weapons are being used for goodness and niceness and purely defensive purposes (did you know that Wehrmacht meant defensive force?), not like some other countries’ weapons out there, if you know what I’m sayin’.Otherwise a whole lot of people in this country wouldn’t be able to sleep well at night.
Due to a shortfall in contributions from NATO allies, the Pentagon is considering sending as many as 7,000 more US troops to Afghanistan, write Steven Lee Myers and Thom Shanker in the New York Times:
[Senior Bush administration officials] said the step would push the number of American forces there to roughly 40,000, the highest level since the war began more than six years ago, and would require at least a modest reduction in troops from Iraq.
The planning began in recent weeks, reflecting a growing resignation to the fact that NATO is unable or unwilling to contribute more troops despite public pledges of an intensified effort in Afghanistan from the presidents and prime ministers who attended an alliance summit meeting in Bucharest, Romania, last month.
Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp., wrote about Alliance enlargement in his own newspaper this week, the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Murdoch argues that a proactive Alliance—one willing to take on new members who share and are willing to fight for Western values—is necessary to address the various threats faced by the West today.
According to Murdoch however, many Allies have not carried their own weight in NATO’s Afghanistan mission. To little surprise, Europe has been identified as the source of weakness in the Alliance:
We must face up to a painful truth: Europe no longer has either the political will or social culture to support military engagements in defense of itself and its allies. However strong NATO may be on paper, this fact makes NATO weak in practice. It also means that reform will not come from within.
In other words, a strong and successful Atlantic alliance will have to ground itself more on shared principles rather than accident of geography. And we need to show we are serious about defending those principles by standing with those who are standing up for them.
Javier Solana, the EU's High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy and a Spanish Fulbright Alumnus, said according to AFP that he backed the new Pakistani government's moves to hold talks with Taliban militants, but ruled out any negotiations with Al-Qaeda.
This puts Europe at odds with the United States, not just with the Bush administration, but also with all remaining presidential candidates. Even Barack Obama, who is willing to meet with Iran's President Ahmadinejad, seems to be against negotiations with Taliban. He wrote in Foreign Affairs last summer:
Our strategy must also include sustained diplomacy to isolate the Taliban and more effective development programs that target aid to areas where the Taliban are making inroads.
I agree with Niklas Keller, who argued in the Atlantic Community that "negotiations with the Taliban may be the West's most effective tool to successfully 'divide and conquer' the Afghani insurgency."
Posted by Nanne Zwagerman in
Quotes on Saturday, April 5. 2008
Spiegel Online has an interview up with US author Steve Coll on his new book: 'The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century'. Steve Coll, who is currently Director of the New America Foundation, states the reasons for his interest in the Bin Laden family in the following way:
I believe that Osama bin Laden and the broad contradictions among religion, tradition and modernity in the Middle East, with enmity toward the West on one side and the attractiveness of our ideas and way of life on the other, is best understood through the prism of this clan.
There are some intriguing 'did you know that...?' facts in the interview. For instance, both Bin Laden's father and Bin Laden's elder brother Salem died in airplane crashes. The general arguments on the contradictions of modernity in the Middle East, and the conceptualisation of fundamentalist Islam as an essentially modern phenomenon itself are perhaps more familiar.
What Coll's angle does enlighten is the extent to which Osama Bin Laden and his family have a personal connection to the various conflicts and contradictions in the recent history of the Middle East, showing that history in an overarching frame.
David Vickrey, editor of Dialog International and a volunteer for Senator Obama's presidential campaign, discusses in the following guest blog post the likely development of transatlantic relations in an Obama presidency:
Recently Stern Magazine polled German readers concerning who they supported in the US primaries in the race for president. Barack Obama was the clear preference. You could say that Obamamania has gripped Europe just as it has much of America. Many Germans share the view of Elmar Brok - a German member of the European Parliament- that "Obama's candidacy is romantic".
But would an Obama administration meet the expectations of his European fans? Or is this a case of "be careful what you wish for" and the reality of a President Obama will disappoint?
Obama has said very little about his views on Europe and transatlantic relations. The focus of his campaign has understandably been on his plans to end the war in Iraq and his policies for addressing the economic meltdown in the US. But he has written and spoken enough about foreign policy to provide some clues on his approach to Europe:
Washington Post blogger William M. Arkin says that the "non-lethal European approach" in Afghanistan is right, while the US approach is wrong: "The notion that we can just ship the Iraq surge strategy to the country and win is thoughtless. " He blames Defense Secretary Gates for creating the public image that "if there were more shooters from Europe, somehow the war would be going better."
Arkin, who also served in the U.S. Army as an intelligence analyst in West Berlin from 1974 - 1978, opines:
Complaining about the Europeans is old sport for the Cold Warrior. From decades-old bitching about "burden sharing" to 1990's frustrations with NATO's fighting spirit in the former Yugoslavia, to the era of freedom fries after 9/11, conventional wisdom is that rules of engagement and strategies authored in Paris and Berlin are to blame for American loss. Afghanistan is just the latest refrain, and the normally judicious Gates has taken on an almost Rumsfeldian tone in calling the Europeans weak. Jump on the bandwagon if you like. I'm sure all three presidential candidates could happily articulate some version of Gates' lament on Afghanistan as diversion therapy. But the truth is that hesitant Europeans are right. More firepower isn't going to "win" the war in Afghanistan.
Chancellor Merkel attacked suggestions that Germany had taken the easy option in Afghanistan: "We're not just digging wells and building houses; we also have a military mission." Hugh Williamson reports in the Financial Times:
In her most outspoken comments on Afghanistan since Germany came under pressure this month to send more troops, the German chancellor said she had "absolutely no time" for proposals to redeploy Nato troops within Afghanistan.
According to Williamson she made those comments in a meeting with foreign correspondents in Berlin. It's bad diplomacy to tell the foreign press that she has no time to consider proposals for better burden sharing in Afghanistan. Usually, Merkel is more careful.
Continue reading "Afghanistan: Merkel Has "No Time" for Burden Sharing Proposals"
The escalating conflict between European countries and the United States over the level of commitment to Afghanistan has spurred a good deal of commentary. There are very different perspectives on who is to blame, but a consistent theme is that the conflict has deeper roots in what Europe and the US see as the future role of NATO.
In a long, complex argument - Cracks in the Foundation: NATO's New Troubles - the CATO Institute's Stanley Kober compares NATO's current troubles in Afghanistan to the long-forgotten SEATO. The South East Asian Treaty Organisation eventually dissolved in 1977 after failing to engage in Vietnam, a war the US fought on its own and eventually disengaged from. Although circumstances are different, he argues that a loss in Afghanistan might bring the alliance into an existential crisis.
America, Kober argues, should not extent security guarantees when it is not absolutely certain that it can back up these guarantees. Therefore, instead of seeking to expand NATO even further, the US should consider the real possibility that it will not last, and he concludes:
Given the difficulties the alliance is confronting, it is not too early to begin discussions with our allies about what a post-NATO world would look like. They have put their trust in us, and we have an obligation to them, and to ourselves, to face the world honestly.
In the Los Angeles Times, Boston University international relations professor Andrew Bacevich has a similarly bleak piece called NATO at Twilight. Bacevich focuses on the degraded capacities of European countries, and the lower amount of solidarity the alliance can now command. His main criticism, however, is directed at the Bush administration, which, he states "is kidding itself if it thinks Europeans will save the day in Afghanistan." According to Bacevich, the only realistic remaining purpose of NATO is securing European integration.
At this week's NATO conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, an angry U.S. Secretary of Defence Robert Gates accused some Europeans of not being prepared to "fight and die" in Afghanistan in the battle against the Taliban.
The undiplomatic Gates is quite right. Most Europeans regard the Afghan conflict as a) wrong and immoral; b) America's war; c) all about oil; or d) probably lost.
Margolis himself seems to choose door 'd)', citing increasing attacks on supply lines in Pakistan, and a recent statement by ISAF commanding officer Dan Mcneill that a proper counterinsurgency campaign would require 400,000 troops. He also argues that by pushing this impopular, distant war, the United States is undermining its power in Europe, which is mostly provided through the alliance.
The role of NATO is understood on very different levels. It is alternatively seen as an institution furthering European integration; a possibly obsolete but also potentially overstretched check on Russia, and a tool for furthering American influence in Europe.
The US itself does have a clear policy spelling out what it wants from NATO: A more outward looking alliance that will support its global missions. Disagreement on whether that is something Europe wants NATO to do is perfectly valid, but European countries can only reach a compromise with the US when there is a European policy on NATO's role. Unlike the increasingly disaffected public, European government leaders still believe in the alliance. Quite what they want from it is less clear.
(hat-tip to the European Tribune for the Margolis piece and to reader Don S for the Bacevich piece)
On Sunday, two German police trainers got injured in an attack in northern Afghanistan, while at least 20 Afghan civilians, including many women and children, got killed in a US air attack, writes Deutsche Welle (in German) in a single article. That's one of the reasons why most Germans do not think that increased military commitment will do any good in Afghanistan.
In 2007:
or 
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