Russia and NATO have begun practical fulfillment of the agreements to restore military ties in the framework of the joint council.
Yahoo StumbleUpon Google Live Technorati del.icio.us Digg Reddit Mixx Propeller On January 26, Russia’s and NATO’s chiefs of staff approved a framework military cooperation treaty. They also agreed upon a military cooperation plan for the year 2010 Chief of the General Staff, General Nikolay Makarov, represented Moscow at the meeting.
Read more
Top military officials will hold their next meeting on May 6 in Brussels to finalize a draft treaty and determine joint practical actions. The military ties were frozen after the August 2008 events in the North Caucasus.
Makarov’s visit to NATO “has continued the chain of steps to restore relations between the alliance and Russia,” Gazeta daily said. It started last summer during the meeting of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with his NATO counterparts in Corfu, and continued with the official meeting of the ministers in December and a recent visit by the alliance’s Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen to Moscow, the paper said.
Now a new format of cooperation has become possible, the daily noted, citing its sources in NATO. Russian servicemen may take part not only in joint military exercises, but also in the alliance’s trainings and seminars, it added.
Russia has already supported NATO’s operation in Afghanistan, allowing military transit of US planes via its airspace. The two sides have also agreed to cooperate in the fight against terrorism and piracy.
The meeting of the Russia-NATO Council on January 26 focused on efforts in Afghanistan, where the alliance relies quite a lot on Moscow’s assistance, Russia’s envoy to the alliance Dmitry Rogozin said. NATO is interested in strengthening Afghanistan’s army, which “likes military equipment produced in Russia,” the envoy stressed.
Afghanistan was the only direction of cooperation between Russia and NATO that was not frozen in 2008, Kommersant daily noted. This issue has become “the basis” for the “rapprochement” that started last year. The negotiations on this issue will be continued at the international conference on Afghanistan on January 28 in London, the daily added.
“Russia is going to reconstruct Afghanistan for Western money,” the paper said. Moscow is ready to restore 142 industrial and infrastructure facilities in the war-torn country. According to Rogozin, Moscow expects to get these contracts “without tenders,” the daily noted. The work might be also financed by the international community, it added.
Western diplomats agree that the part of facilities built by Soviet specialists should be restored, however, they have spoken in favor of tenders, the paper said. The alliance has its own priorities in cooperation with Moscow in Afghanistan. They include supplies of Russian helicopters, cooperation in the fight against drug production and training of Afghan national troops and police on Russian territory.
However, the work on these directions is not going smoothly, Rogozin told the paper. Russia is ready to supply the helicopters to Afghanistan, but only on the commercial basis. It is not clear if the alliance is ready to pay for them.
Fighting drug trafficking is one of the key issues for Russia, and it proposed to create “a security belt around Afghanistan,” as well as the cooperation between the alliance and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in this sphere, but NATO is avoiding this,” the paper said.
The talks on the transit of NATO’s lethal military cargo through the Russian airspace are not easy either. “Let NATO first organize the transit of non-lethal cargo, about which we have been talking for two years, and then we will start negotiating the lethal one,” the envoy said.
Russia’s proposals on the reconstruction in Afghanistan will likely get a cold response in the West, Vedomosti daily said. “NATO’s priority in that country concerns reconstructing the agricultural sector and only separate infrastructure facilities,” the paper noted.
Another key task for Moscow is to “persuade NATO’s representatives to step up the fight against Afghan drug trafficking, from which Russia and countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States suffer a lot,” Moskovsky Komsomolets daily said.
Some results of the cooperation in this sphere have been already achieved. About 300 Afghan specialists in the sphere of fighting drug trafficking have been prepared during four years in the Moscow Region, in the framework of the joint pilot project of NATO and the Russian Interior Ministry. This year, the training of Afghan officers will be continued in Moscow Region and St. Petersburg.
At the same time, NATO’s partners want Russia to “widen supplies, maintenance and modernization of arms for Afghan troops,” the paper said. The alliance needs Russia’s fuel, helicopters and personnel for their maintenance, Tatyana Parkhalina, director of the Center for European Security, told the daily.
However, observers say that the two parties cannot boast of many joint programs. “The Russia-NATO Partnership for Peace program is 16 years old, but it has only one real achievement: the two sides have not become partners, but have saved peace,” Argumenty i Fakty weekly said.
Earlier, all attempts of military cooperation encountered political obstacles because the parties see Bosnia, Kosovo, South Ossetia and Iraq differently,” the weekly said. And when Georgia and Ukraine “rushed towards NATO,” talks lost any sense, it added.
This time, simultaneously with the Russia’s chief of staff his counterparts from Ukraine and Georgia were invited to Brussels. “The West is interested in Ukraine and Georgia… but these countries present no military interest and Georgian troops will not win the war in Afghanistan, the weekly said. Conversely, it is useful for NATO to speak about the cooperation with Russia, it added.
Many in Russia still take the NATO abbreviation in a negative way, Argumenty i Fakty said. “Of course, it is not a pro-Russian bloc, and one can hardly expect it to love our values,” it noted, adding that Moscow also should not “oppose itself to the alliance.”
“We can defend ourselves and our close allies,” the weekly said. “But in global operations, NATO can well do without Russia,” it added. “In Asia, the alliance counters terrorists who otherwise could have had a free hand for operations in the North Caucasus. If we cannot oppose the North Atlantic bloc, we should learn how to turn its activities to maximum advantage.”
The meeting of chiefs of staff has become a practical fulfillment of agreements achieved in December last year, political analyst Sergey Markedonov believes. “But can we say that the session of the Russia-NATO Council will be the turning point in resetting relations between Moscow and the alliance?” he asked, writing in Kommersant.
Before freezing its relations with Moscow, the bloc “exaggerated its strength and abilities and underestimated Russia’s interests in Eurasia,” the analyst said. The change of “the rhetoric of ‘hot August’ that has not brought real dividends to the alliance was inevitable,” he added.
“The events in the North Caucasus have demonstrated that despite the unwillingness to recognize Russia’s hegemony on the space of the former Soviet Union, NATO has no determination to openly oppose Moscow’s aspirations in that part of the world,” the analyst said.
However, improving relations with NATO is equally important for Russia, Markedonov said. “Otherwise, its involvement in Afghan affairs will not be limited only by the transit,” he stressed.
Source:rt.com/
Showing posts with label U.S. policy confusion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label U.S. policy confusion. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
U.S. policy confusion on Pakistan and India
What is the U.S. policy towards Pakistan and India, and in particular over how to deal with their rivalry over Afghanistan which complicates U.S. efforts to bring stability there? I’ve been trying to find an answer for weeks now amid a raft of contradictory signals and statements coming from different U.S. officials.
First we had the leaked report by General Stanley McChrystal in September suggesting the issue should be handled with caution given Pakistani sensitivities about a big rise in India’s presence in Afghanistan following the fall of the Pakistani-backed Taliban in 2001.
“Indian political and economic influence is increasing in Afghanistan, including significant development efforts and financial investment,” it said. “In addition the current Afghan government is perceived by Islamabad to be pro-Indian. While Indian activities largely benefit the Afghan people, increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani counter-measures in Afghanistan or India.”
Then we had a series of reports, most recently here, suggesting Washington might welcome a bigger role for India in Afghanistan – precisely the kind of development that would exacerbate tensions with Pakistan given the current sour mood between New Delhi and Islamabad.
U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke toured the region saying President Barack Obama’s administration would welcome better relations between India and Pakistan. But then he was followed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates who, if anything, actually worsened tensions between the two by saying that India might retaliate in the event of a another big attack like the Nov. 2008 assault on Mumbai.
Gates made a similar comment towards the end of last year, when he said al Qaeda and its Islamist allies might try to use an attack to provoke a conflict between Pakistan and India. The problem this time around was the context. Saying this in Washington is one thing; saying it in India is quite different. Pakistan had already been jumpy about Indian intentions after its army chief said the military should be prepared to fight a two-front war against both China and Pakistan. Indian analysts describe those remarks, made at a closed-door seminar, as an aspirational view of the need for military preparedness, rather than any kind of immediate threat; but they went down badly in Pakistan and therefore coloured the way Gates’ remarks were interpreted.
You have to wonder whether Gates had been properly briefed about the context when he talked about Indian losing patience in the event of another big attack, or indeed why someone with such long experience of the region would make what appeared to be a diplomatic gaffe shortly before flying into Pakistan to try to win support there. Did he, to borrow a word from the now U.S. Secretary of State, ”misspoke”?
Juan Cole, who has generally been supportive of the Obama administration, was unforgiving, writing on his blog Informed Comment that its policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan were in disarray:
“Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates’s trip to Pakistan this weekend has in many ways been public relations disaster, and I think it is fair to say that he came away empty-handed with regard to his chief policy goals in Islamabad. Getting Pakistan right is key to President Barack Obama’s policy of escalating the Afghanistan War, and judging by Gates’s visit to Islamabad, Obama is in worse shape on the AfPak front than he is even in Massachusetts. Since he has bet so heavily on Afghanistan and Pakistan, this rocky road could be momentous for his presidency.”
Meanwhile Britain is hosting a conference on Afghanistan this week aiming to flesh out the timetable set by Obama for drawing down troops by 2011 and to convince regional players to cooperate rather than compete over a country which has long been a battleground for proxy wars. But as I wrote in this analysis, anything that might now be achieved in terms of easing tensions between India and Pakistan is likely to come too little, too late to deliver policy results in time for the 2011 deadline.
According to Steve Coll at the New America Foundation, who I quoted in the analysis, Washington’s need to achieve results in Afghanistan by 2011 is at odds with the longer-term clock followed by India and Pakistan. ”My sense is that the administration feels stymied by India’s continued insistence that it does not want any outside help and the frustratingly slow pace by which India and Pakistan are trying (to find a way back to negotiations),” he said. ”The U.S. doesn’t seem to be able to construct a breakthrough.”
The tensions between India and Pakistan complicate the current situation by undermining U.S. efforts to convince the Pakistan Army to turn on Afghan Taliban militants which it may eventually need to counter Indian influence in Afghanistan in the event of a U.S. withdrawal. Pakistan has also kept the bulk of its forces on the Indian border, limiting its capacity to mobilise troops to fight militants on the Afghan border. In the short to medium term, India and Pakistan are at odds over how far Taliban fighters should be brought into a process of reconciliation in Afghanistan. And in the long term, both could end up backing opposite sides in any renewed civil war between a weak government in Kabul and Taliban militants active in parts of the countryside. Then of course, both countries have nuclear weapons, so even without Afghanistan, it’s not a place where you would ever want tensions to escalate out of control.
So you would think that after a year in office, the U.S. administration would have a policy on how to deal with relations between India and Pakistan and their roles in Afghanistan. But I’m still looking for it.
Source:blogs.reuters.com/
First we had the leaked report by General Stanley McChrystal in September suggesting the issue should be handled with caution given Pakistani sensitivities about a big rise in India’s presence in Afghanistan following the fall of the Pakistani-backed Taliban in 2001.
“Indian political and economic influence is increasing in Afghanistan, including significant development efforts and financial investment,” it said. “In addition the current Afghan government is perceived by Islamabad to be pro-Indian. While Indian activities largely benefit the Afghan people, increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan is likely to exacerbate regional tensions and encourage Pakistani counter-measures in Afghanistan or India.”
Then we had a series of reports, most recently here, suggesting Washington might welcome a bigger role for India in Afghanistan – precisely the kind of development that would exacerbate tensions with Pakistan given the current sour mood between New Delhi and Islamabad.
U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke toured the region saying President Barack Obama’s administration would welcome better relations between India and Pakistan. But then he was followed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates who, if anything, actually worsened tensions between the two by saying that India might retaliate in the event of a another big attack like the Nov. 2008 assault on Mumbai.
Gates made a similar comment towards the end of last year, when he said al Qaeda and its Islamist allies might try to use an attack to provoke a conflict between Pakistan and India. The problem this time around was the context. Saying this in Washington is one thing; saying it in India is quite different. Pakistan had already been jumpy about Indian intentions after its army chief said the military should be prepared to fight a two-front war against both China and Pakistan. Indian analysts describe those remarks, made at a closed-door seminar, as an aspirational view of the need for military preparedness, rather than any kind of immediate threat; but they went down badly in Pakistan and therefore coloured the way Gates’ remarks were interpreted.
You have to wonder whether Gates had been properly briefed about the context when he talked about Indian losing patience in the event of another big attack, or indeed why someone with such long experience of the region would make what appeared to be a diplomatic gaffe shortly before flying into Pakistan to try to win support there. Did he, to borrow a word from the now U.S. Secretary of State, ”misspoke”?
Juan Cole, who has generally been supportive of the Obama administration, was unforgiving, writing on his blog Informed Comment that its policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan were in disarray:
“Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates’s trip to Pakistan this weekend has in many ways been public relations disaster, and I think it is fair to say that he came away empty-handed with regard to his chief policy goals in Islamabad. Getting Pakistan right is key to President Barack Obama’s policy of escalating the Afghanistan War, and judging by Gates’s visit to Islamabad, Obama is in worse shape on the AfPak front than he is even in Massachusetts. Since he has bet so heavily on Afghanistan and Pakistan, this rocky road could be momentous for his presidency.”
Meanwhile Britain is hosting a conference on Afghanistan this week aiming to flesh out the timetable set by Obama for drawing down troops by 2011 and to convince regional players to cooperate rather than compete over a country which has long been a battleground for proxy wars. But as I wrote in this analysis, anything that might now be achieved in terms of easing tensions between India and Pakistan is likely to come too little, too late to deliver policy results in time for the 2011 deadline.
According to Steve Coll at the New America Foundation, who I quoted in the analysis, Washington’s need to achieve results in Afghanistan by 2011 is at odds with the longer-term clock followed by India and Pakistan. ”My sense is that the administration feels stymied by India’s continued insistence that it does not want any outside help and the frustratingly slow pace by which India and Pakistan are trying (to find a way back to negotiations),” he said. ”The U.S. doesn’t seem to be able to construct a breakthrough.”
The tensions between India and Pakistan complicate the current situation by undermining U.S. efforts to convince the Pakistan Army to turn on Afghan Taliban militants which it may eventually need to counter Indian influence in Afghanistan in the event of a U.S. withdrawal. Pakistan has also kept the bulk of its forces on the Indian border, limiting its capacity to mobilise troops to fight militants on the Afghan border. In the short to medium term, India and Pakistan are at odds over how far Taliban fighters should be brought into a process of reconciliation in Afghanistan. And in the long term, both could end up backing opposite sides in any renewed civil war between a weak government in Kabul and Taliban militants active in parts of the countryside. Then of course, both countries have nuclear weapons, so even without Afghanistan, it’s not a place where you would ever want tensions to escalate out of control.
So you would think that after a year in office, the U.S. administration would have a policy on how to deal with relations between India and Pakistan and their roles in Afghanistan. But I’m still looking for it.
Source:blogs.reuters.com/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)