NATO in Afghanistan till 2015 (merged thread)

[SWJED]

NATO: Bucharest and Beyond by Dave Dilegge at SWJ Blog.

National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies has posted its proceedings of the 2008 European Symposium - NATO: Bucharest and Beyond. Here are several take-aways from the report:

1) The NATO-ISAF operation poses the most critical test to date of NATO’s ability to generate the military forces required to meet its level of political ambition. In several categories, ranging from maneuver battalions to helicopters to C4ISR assets to Operational Mentoring and Liaison Teams (OMLTs) intended to build the capabilities of the Afghan National Army (ANA), Allied nations as a group are not filling the Combined Joint Statement of Requirements (CJSOR) set by NATO Military Authorities. This allows opposition forces to operate in the space between what NATO-ISAF has and what it requires.

2) There exists a lack of “political will” among Allies whose publics and parliaments are questioning the goals and strategy of the Alliance commitment and, in some cases, are increasingly worried about casualties suffered by their forces and/or incidents of collateral damage affecting Afghan civilians. In addition, numerous Allies lack the required capabilities and/or funding to deploy and sustain their forces, particularly in the more challenging operational environment of Afghanistan. For some Allies, this is complicated further by their competing commitments to other operations (e.g., in the Balkans, Lebanon, and Africa.)...

More at the link.

[Stan]

On the surface, it seems Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin each got what they wanted most at the NATO and Sochi summits.

Bush is moving forward with the placement of anti-Iranian missiles in Poland, and Putin kept Ukraine out of NATO, at least for the time being.

In fact, Bush's anti-Iranian missile plan was a godsend for Putin. It gave him something to protest as long as he got what he really wanted -- to keep Ukraine out of NATO.

Losing his temper, Putin revealed his real attitude toward Ukraine..."Do you understand, George, that Ukraine is not even a state?" Putin told Bush in an outburst at a closed session of the NATO-Russian Council in Bucharest...

What is beyond doubt, however, is that the Poles are hitting up Washington for billions in military aid in exchange for allowing 10 missiles to be based on their territory. But Moscow's demands for a permanent monitoring presence on Polish territory could be a deal-breaker. Moreover, Warsaw is aware that if the next U.S. president is a Democrat he or she will be very unlikely to sign onto this foolish, costly and unpopular project. In other words, the U.S. missile-defense system, which might not work anyway, may never get built in the first place. That hardly sounds like a success.

But this Bush initiative did succeed in one respect. It infuriated the Russians. Of course, only the most paranoid and gullible could believe that these missiles would ever be targeted at Russia.

This could lead to hostilities...

The Kremlin has already threatened to target Ukraine with nuclear weapons, and now it might just be tempted to use them.

But hold on a minute...

Thanks to Bush, there might be a missile-defense system in Poland that now could be used to shoot down Russian missiles -- the first 10 anyway.

[Jedburgh]

Eurasia Insight, 2 Apr 08: Russia and NATO: A Meeting of the Minds on Afghanistan?

During the run-up to the NATO summit in Bucharest, expert attention has tended to focus on the differences between Russia and members of the Atlantic alliance, specifically on Kosovo’s independence, a Central European anti-missile shield and Georgia’s and Ukraine’s gravitation toward Brussels. But there is one important area where interests are converging -- in Afghanistan.

Both Russia and Washington have become alarmed by the revived Islamic radical insurgency in Afghanistan. And both countries want to stamp it out. Of course, there is no way that Russia will deploy troops to Afghanistan. For one, NATO would not consent to it. And, more importantly, the Soviet legacy of brutalization, left behind after the 1979-89 occupation, precludes such an option.

Still, Russia is interested in doing what it can do to help the United States and NATO keep Islamic radicalism at bay in Central Asia....