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NATO
As the Bible teaches us, it is impossible to make bricks without straw. It also is impossible to have a modern, capable military without money. When Pharaoh ordered the Israelites to make bricks without straw, God saved the Chosen People by performing a miracle. Today, there is nothing that will
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Date:
5/9/2013
The United States is not alone in being confronted by a “perfect storm” in defense caused by the combination of tightening budgets, the transition out of a wartime posture, a changing threat environment, a broadening spectrum of missions and the desire to access new and potentially revolutionary
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Date:
3/6/2013
Proliferation of ballistic missiles has posed a danger to NATO’s security for years. Over 30 countries have or are in the process of acquiring ballistic missile technology. As a result, Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) is on top of the transatlantic agenda and the United States is implementing a
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Date:
2/27/2013
There is a clear and growing negative tilt in the strategic military balance between the United States and its allies on the one side of the scales and rogue states and prospective adversaries on the other side. A combination of factors -- war weariness, financial crises, unfavorable demographics,
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Date:
2/13/2013
Syria’s civil war has dragged on for almost two years and has resulted in over 60,000 casualties. The uprising has spilled into Turkey since it shares a 600-mile border with Syria. Syria shot down a Turkish warplane in the Mediterranean Sea and killed two crew members last June; five Turkish civilians
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Date:
1/31/2013
An essential part of the U.S. plan to deal with the threat of global terrorism while simultaneously reducing direct U.S. involvement is a buildup of the capacity of partner nations to do more for themselves. The U.S. has spent many tens of billions of dollars training and equipping Iraqi and Afghan
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Date:
1/15/2013
The crisis de jour in the European Union is over the scope and reach of a proposed banking union. Lender nations, Germany in particular, and debtor nations, notably Spain and Greece but potentially France, are at odds over how much integration is necessary and tolerable. Without some kind of oversight
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Date:
9/27/2012
Students of defense studies are routinely assigned Barbara Tuchman’s excellent study of the outbreak of the First World War, The Guns of August. The thrust of Tuchman’s analysis was that the stars were aligned in favor of war. Over a number of years national politics, alliance relationships,
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Date:
8/24/2012
Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has been struggling to find its role in a complex and changing security environment. Complicating this effort is the fact that most of European NATO’s military forces were oriented towards territorial defense of a Soviet conventional assault on Western Europe.
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Date:
8/22/2012
The Syrian civil war now threatens to spread to its neighbors. Last Thursday, a Syrian pilot flew his fighter to Jordon. On Friday, Syrian air defenses shot down a Turkish fighter on a training mission over the eastern Mediterranean. Regardless of whether or not the plane had strayed into Syrian
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Date:
6/25/2012
The problem with Europe, surprisingly, is that it does not have enough rules. The basis for the Eurozone’s current financial crisis is that establishment of a monetary union was not accompanied by the creation of a fiscal one. The root cause of the current Euro crisis is the unwillingness of the
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Date:
6/12/2012
In purely quantitative terms, NATO constitutes a powerful military machine. NATO at 27 members (not including the United States) has around 3 million men and women in uniform, possesses over 2,000 combat aircraft, 500 naval vessels (including six aircraft carriers) and more than 5,000 tanks and
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Date:
5/22/2012
2012 has already demonstrated signs that it will be a year of significant progress in the development and deployment of missile defenses. Just last week, the Missile Defense Agency conducted a successful test of its next in a series of improved ballistic missile interceptors, the Standard Missile-3
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Date:
5/14/2012
At this month’s NATO Summit in Chicago, the alliance’s leaders will roll out a specific set of proposals under the banner of “Smart Defense” for how to improve their deployable military strength. Smart Defense, simply defined, is a way of doing more without having more. NATO leaders, including the
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Date:
5/10/2012
Today, it is no exaggeration to say that the fate of two of Europe's -- really the world's -- greatest collective organizations of nations hang by a proverbial thread. Having successfully ended the Gaddafi regime in Libya, but at the price of revealing to the world its fundamental weaknesses in
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Date:
5/2/2012
The NATO juggernaut is rolling forward to next month’s summit in Chicago. A key theme of the summit will be improvements to the Alliance’s capability to defend its members and meet evolving threats. NATO has promised concrete deliverables in Chicago including a long-term capability strategy for
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Date:
4/13/2012
Calls are intensifying for the United States, NATO and the Arab League to intervene to halt the bloodbath being perpetrated in Syria. Commentators on both the Left and Right are castigating the Obama Administration for its seeming hypocrisy in refusing to act in Syria having done so in Libya. The
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Date:
3/27/2012
In his latest masterpiece, Civilization, historian Niall Ferguson attributes the success of the West (by which he means Western Europe and its overseas offspring) to six "killer apps.” Ferguson defines these applications as complexes of institutions and associated ideas and behaviors. The
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Date:
1/19/2012
Seventy years ago almost to the day the first American military personnel, liaison officers and strategic planners arrived in Europe. They were the vanguard of the millions that would eventually follow to liberate the continent,
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Date:
1/13/2012
There is one international organization that has contributed more than all the others combined to creating the current international system and ensuring the relative peace, stability and prosperity of the world. No, it is not the United Nations. No, it is not the International Monetary Fund. It
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Date:
11/11/2011
When it is not focused on the repetitive crisis in the European Union, Washington’s attention, including that of the Pentagon, is increasingly focused on Asia, in general, and China, in particular. This is understandable for economic, political, demographic and security reasons. China’s march towards
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Date:
11/9/2011
The modern international system was created by Europe and, for the last 65 years, has been largely maintained by the United States with help from allies across the globe. Now, as both the United States and Europe face their worst financial crises in post-war history they are looking for ways to
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Date:
11/4/2011
In many ways, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is the antithesis of his predecessor, Robert Gates. He is a consensus-builder who tries to work with the military services rather than dictating to them. But when it comes to concerns for the future of the NATO alliance Panetta appears to be channeling
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Date:
10/5/2011
Could the EU collapse? Unthinkable! Impossible! Yet, that is what was being said just a few months ago about the possibility that Greece would default on its debt. Now, as Europe struggles to put together a second bailout package for that country, the conversation has increasingly focused not on
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Date:
9/21/2011
Across a large swathe of the world, from Libya and Yemen to Afghanistan and the tribal regions of Pakistan, western airpower is almost continually engaged in combat. In an attempt to bring the Libyan civil war to a successful conclusion NATO has increased the intensity of air strikes against Gaddafi’s
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Date:
9/19/2011
Washington as a whole and defense experts, in particular, are bracing for massive reductions in defense spending coming out of the deliberations of the Congressional super committee. If automatic budget cuts are triggered, defense could see budgets decline by around $1 trillion over the next decade.
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Date:
8/24/2011
All but ignored amidst the whirlwind of bad news coming out of the United States is the reality that Europe is broke. European leaders met late last week and cobbled together its third bailout of Greece. No one believes that this will be the final bailout or Greece can avoid, in the end, default.
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Date:
8/10/2011
NATO is more active today than it has been at any time in its 62 year history. Some 40,000 non-U.S. troops, most from NATO member countries, are operating in Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). In addition, NATO countries have been engaged in a three month
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Date:
7/11/2011
One of the eye-opening features of the three month old NATO air campaign in Libya is the hollowness of the world’s premier military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Let’s be honest, this is not a major conventional war against a capable adversary. The real challenge for NATO
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Date:
7/1/2011
The ongoing NATO air campaign in Libya is providing two interrelated lessons for the future of the Alliance as a military instrument. The first is you play with what you pay for. Or in the case of NATO it might be stated if you don’t pay you cannot play. The lack of investment by this country’s
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Date:
6/23/2011
On the heels of its recently released defense review, the new British government has moved aggressively to restructure its strategic relationships both with Washington and its allies in Europe. As part of a new agreement on defense cooperation, Great Britain and France will substantially deepen their
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Date:
11/2/2010
The original idea of NATO essentially as an alliance of equals standing shoulder to shoulder in the defense of one another is dead. It died with the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the threat of massive physical aggression or of the political intimidation of individual NATO members. NATO's
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Date:
10/19/2010
All leaks emerging out of the new British government's defense review indicate a budgetary bloodbath is in the offing. Reports indicate that the review was seeking cuts as deep as 15 percent in the UK’s defense budget. Later reports suggested reductions in the range of 10 percent. In addition,
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Date:
10/15/2010
The Army's air defense portfolio is taking a beating as the service downsizes its modernization plans. We reported on September 30 that Army leaders want to kill a program called SLAMRAAM that was aimed at fielding an air defense system more capable than the short-range Stinger but more affordable
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Date:
10/14/2010
The British Government is about to complete its Defense Review 2010. Scheduled under the former Labor government, the review is taking place under the guiding hand of the new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government and in the midst of the most severe economic crisis in Britain’s post-war
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Date:
9/9/2010
In the wake of his announcement that the United States will be reducing its defense expenditures and force structure over the next five years, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates went to Europe to plead with the NATO countries not to shrink their militaries any further. According to press reports,
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Date:
6/10/2010
One of the most important lessons not only of the Cold War but of the new conflicts beginning in the late 20th century is the value of collective military capabilities. NATO is the archetype of the way to pursue collective defense. First, there is the integrated military command structure. Second,
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Date:
6/4/2010
A panel of distinguished former defense leaders and diplomats chaired by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has produced a vision for the future of the trans-Atlantic alliance called NATO 2020. According to this proposal, NATO needs to do more, spend more and be more visible
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Date:
5/20/2010