Moscow Tries To Undermine Western Alliance

[Ronald_Barbour]

Reprinted from NewsMax.com

Moscow Tries to Undermine Western Alliance

Col. Stanislav Lunev

Thursday, June 7, 2001

Continuing its attempts to restore Russia's international prestige and military influence, Moscow is trying hard to drive a deeper wedge between the U.S. and America's traditional friends and allies. The Kremlin is exploiting the differences in positions between American and liberal Western governments over the proposed Nuclear Missile Defense(NMD) system, the European Union (EU) rapid reaction force - the so-called Euro-army - and other controversial issues.
Having been under the umbrella of U.S. protection for more than a half of century while a spending minimum of their own annual budgets for defense, some European nations had no problem putting their own interests over America's when US policy was at its weakest point under the Clinton-Gore administration.

For this reason some socialist European governments are looking out for themselves instead of trying to further the West's interests, and have found Russian policy helpful to their selfish plans and intentions in this regard.

Last February, Moscow handed NATO its proposal for a cut-rate European anti-missile defense system instead of the U.S. NMD, which the Kremlin claims threatens to create a new arms race. According to NATO officials, the plan suggested that both NATO and Russia recognize the threat of missiles from rogue states, and need to work together to counter it.

Some European members of NATO share Russian misgivings over American plans for NMD and have sought details of Moscow's proposal. Moscow said its plan is far cheaper than its U.S. rivals which would provide Europe with only a partial umbrella against missile attack from Russian-made weapons systems and technologies.

The Russian plan calls for missile threats to be eliminated early by political efforts. This idea found hearty welcome in many European nations, whose governments prefer to talk, but not to do anything seriously. Also, according to the Russian plan, a mobile missile force would be deployed near a potential aggressor as a last resort. NATO members have promised to study the Russian proposal but want more details.

Since that time, only few details of the scheme have emerged, but last month Russian military officials said that Moscow's plan for a European anti-missile defense could include an international rapid-reaction force and a center to watch for missile attack. In other words, Moscow proposed that European nations create some kind of duplicate to NATO, or a new military infrastructure where Russia and European countries will play a leading role at the expense of U.S. and Canadian interests.

For example, on the basis of the Euro army, where European military forces could be independent from NATO, with all its potential for splitting the alliance. The Kremlin leaders have loved this idea from the beginning and consider creation of a Euro army as a basis for future NATO's disintegration.

As Russia's defense minister Sergei Ivanov said at the end of October when he was then head of influential Russia's Security Council, future ties between Moscow and a planned Euro army may be used by Russia as a counterbalance to NATO, its Cold War foe.

Last December, in the French resort of Nice, EU leaders decided to create the Euro army, which will consist of 60,000 troops, 100 ships and 400 aircraft. At the time the Clinton-Gore administration expressed reservations but agreed to support the idea if EU nations will increase their own defense spending and guarantee that the Euro army will not conflict with NATO's traditional military infrastructure.

Unfortunately, there has been a development that shows that that something wrong is going on within the new EU military structure. The Euro army, as it currently stands, intends to stay out of NATO and, moreover, duplicates the alliance's military structure, excluding the U.S. and Canada from the new European military force and discriminating against non-EU members of NATO in Europe such as Turkey.

According to the latest news from Europe, creation of the Euro army threatens to weaken NATO and its links with the U.S. and Canada, as well as America's ties with traditionally friendly European nations. In the view of some European socialist governments, the Euro army will be independent and autonomous from NATO, which will be excluded from the planning of many operations of new military structure.

The EU will retain full political control throughout any military operations with the Euro army's involvement, not NATO's. As a result of this situation the creation of the Euro army is not strengthening NATO, which protected Western democracy for almost half century. This is exactly what Moscow is looking for in its policies aimed at European countries.

While some Americans, including skeptical lawmakers on Capitol Hill, continue their debates over the technological capabilities of U.S. to create NMD as envisioned by President Bush plans, Russia and its allies are also trying to undermine the program. Contrary to the negative claims of some US politicians, they are perfectly aware that American scientists and engineers can and will make NMD work.

At the same time Moscow continues to develop its own anti-missile defense by testing and deploying a new generation of missile interceptors and other technologies. According the Russian press, on May 2 Russia tested a new missile-defense rocket at the Sary Shagan military range in Kazakhstan, which has an agreement for military cooperation with Moscow.

The anti-missile rocket, which is reportedly both environmentally safe and extremely precise, was successfully tested with Russian scientists and top military officials watching. This test came shortly after President Bush's landmark policy speech, in which he vowed to deploy a shield against ballistic-missile attacks and to replace the 1972 Cold War Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty with the former Soviet Union.

There is no doubt that the sooner we have missile defense for ourselves and our friends and allies the better. At the same time we need to preserve our alliances with our traditional friends and allies, first of all, with NATO's structure and capabilities, which proved its worth during almost a half-century. The US also needs to have sufficient capabilities to withstand Russian attempts to undermine American interests and its unity its traditional friends and allies.

[trigger]

Originally posted by Ronald_Barbour

Reprinted from NewsMax.com

Moscow Tries to Undermine Western Alliance

Col. Stanislav Lunev

Thursday, June 7, 2001

Continuing its attempts to restore Russia's international prestige and military influence, Moscow is trying hard to drive a deeper wedge between the U.S. and America's traditional friends and allies. The Kremlin is exploiting the differences in positions between American and liberal Western governments over the proposed Nuclear Missile Defense(NMD) system, the European Union (EU) rapid reaction force - the so-called Euro-army - and other controversial issues.
Having been under the umbrella of U.S. protection for more than a half of century while a spending minimum of their own annual budgets for defense, some European nations had no problem putting their own interests over America's when US policy was at its weakest point under the Clinton-Gore administration.

For this reason some socialist European governments are looking out for themselves instead of trying to further the West's interests, and have found Russian policy helpful to their selfish plans and intentions in this regard.

Last February, Moscow handed NATO its proposal for a cut-rate European anti-missile defense system instead of the U.S. NMD, which the Kremlin claims threatens to create a new arms race. According to NATO officials, the plan suggested that both NATO and Russia recognize the threat of missiles from rogue states, and need to work together to counter it.

Some European members of NATO share Russian misgivings over American plans for NMD and have sought details of Moscow's proposal. Moscow said its plan is far cheaper than its U.S. rivals which would provide Europe with only a partial umbrella against missile attack from Russian-made weapons systems and technologies.

The Russian plan calls for missile threats to be eliminated early by political efforts. This idea found hearty welcome in many European nations, whose governments prefer to talk, but not to do anything seriously. Also, according to the Russian plan, a mobile missile force would be deployed near a potential aggressor as a last resort. NATO members have promised to study the Russian proposal but want more details.

Since that time, only few details of the scheme have emerged, but last month Russian military officials said that Moscow's plan for a European anti-missile defense could include an international rapid-reaction force and a center to watch for missile attack. In other words, Moscow proposed that European nations create some kind of duplicate to NATO, or a new military infrastructure where Russia and European countries will play a leading role at the expense of U.S. and Canadian interests.

For example, on the basis of the Euro army, where European military forces could be independent from NATO, with all its potential for splitting the alliance. The Kremlin leaders have loved this idea from the beginning and consider creation of a Euro army as a basis for future NATO's disintegration.

As Russia's defense minister Sergei Ivanov said at the end of October when he was then head of influential Russia's Security Council, future ties between Moscow and a planned Euro army may be used by Russia as a counterbalance to NATO, its Cold War foe.

Last December, in the French resort of Nice, EU leaders decided to create the Euro army, which will consist of 60,000 troops, 100 ships and 400 aircraft. At the time the Clinton-Gore administration expressed reservations but agreed to support the idea if EU nations will increase their own defense spending and guarantee that the Euro army will not conflict with NATO's traditional military infrastructure.

Unfortunately, there has been a development that shows that that something wrong is going on within the new EU military structure. The Euro army, as it currently stands, intends to stay out of NATO and, moreover, duplicates the alliance's military structure, excluding the U.S. and Canada from the new European military force and discriminating against non-EU members of NATO in Europe such as Turkey.

According to the latest news from Europe, creation of the Euro army threatens to weaken NATO and its links with the U.S. and Canada, as well as America's ties with traditionally friendly European nations. In the view of some European socialist governments, the Euro army will be independent and autonomous from NATO, which will be excluded from the planning of many operations of new military structure.

The EU will retain full political control throughout any military operations with the Euro army's involvement, not NATO's. As a result of this situation the creation of the Euro army is not strengthening NATO, which protected Western democracy for almost half century. This is exactly what Moscow is looking for in its policies aimed at European countries.

While some Americans, including skeptical lawmakers on Capitol Hill, continue their debates over the technological capabilities of U.S. to create NMD as envisioned by President Bush plans, Russia and its allies are also trying to undermine the program. Contrary to the negative claims of some US politicians, they are perfectly aware that American scientists and engineers can and will make NMD work.

At the same time Moscow continues to develop its own anti-missile defense by testing and deploying a new generation of missile interceptors and other technologies. According the Russian press, on May 2 Russia tested a new missile-defense rocket at the Sary Shagan military range in Kazakhstan, which has an agreement for military cooperation with Moscow.

The anti-missile rocket, which is reportedly both environmentally safe and extremely precise, was successfully tested with Russian scientists and top military officials watching. This test came shortly after President Bush's landmark policy speech, in which he vowed to deploy a shield against ballistic-missile attacks and to replace the 1972 Cold War Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty with the former Soviet Union.

There is no doubt that the sooner we have missile defense for ourselves and our friends and allies the better. At the same time we need to preserve our alliances with our traditional friends and allies, first of all, with NATO's structure and capabilities, which proved its worth during almost a half-century. The US also needs to have sufficient capabilities to withstand Russian attempts to undermine American interests and its unity its traditional friends and allies.

I think the Mister who wrote this article is dumb a bit I think that there's no facts that Moscow is doing so but who is undermining western aliance it's Germany trying to make European Strikefoces alliance instead of NATO