NATO In Panic Following US Pullout Plan

[Asian.Century]

NATO In Panic Following US Pullout Plan

Dr. Jassim Taqui

Islamabad: Viewing the US plan to pullout 33,000 troops from Afghanistan as acknowledgment of defeat, the NATO states seem to be in a state of panic and deep concern.

Almost all NATO states indicated that they too would pullout their troops.

Germany and France promptly announced they would look at scaling down their own presence in Afghanistan.

The French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office said Paris would carry out a progressive pullback France’s 4000 forces with a timetable similar to the one announced by Obama.

Germany has voiced concern on the safety of its troops especially when Taliban militias are emboldened and motivated to hit back following what they conceive as US defeat in Afghanistan. Berlin decided to also pullout its troops in Afghanistan. Germany has 4,900 troops in Northern Afghanistan that has seen increasing fights in recent years. Other NATO allies including Canada and Italy have been earlier set deadlines for their troops withdrawal.

Over a decade in Afghanistan, the NATO military commanders have failed to defeat Taliban militia despite deployment of a large number of troops, air superiority and the liberal use of the most advanced and lethal weapons against the resistance. There seems to be confusion within the White House.

The troops withdrawal’s timetable is arbitrary and one sided. The Obama administration made a blunder by ignoring to negotiate with Taliban a truce so as the withdrawal of the troops would be orderly and safe. Ostensibly, Obama is more focused on winning the next presidential elections than the safety of the American troops. Obama’s policy of using military force to achieve foreign policy objectives has been opposed in the Congress. The US House of Representatives dealt a blow to President Obama by resoundingly rejecting a bill to authorize United States military operations in Libya. The resolution to support the military mission failed 295 to 123 with 70 Democrats joining Republicans in a rebuff to Obama.

Source: Pakistan Observer

 

[Asian.Century]

It’s time to find new allies as NATO withers away
By ERIC ROSENBERG

HEARST NEWSPAPERS
June 24, 2011, 8:50PM

WASHINGTON — This is what the end of the world's most powerful military alliance looks like:

When outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates delivered a blistering critique of European "allies" recently, it wasn't to cajole them to pony up and act like NATO alliance members for once. That ship had long before sailed and sunk.

Rather, it had the effect of bellowing to the world that NATO as a defender of European and U.S. freedom for decades - first against the Soviets and then against the perils that followed - is pretty much a sham and has been for some time.

For the better part of the last 25 years, Washington has made the occasional public nudge of the European allies to share some of the burden and pull their weight in an alliance that served as the principal tool of containment against the Soviet Union.

But the twin effects of the debt crisis in Europe, which has forced governments to pare their already paltry defense budgets, and massive budgetary pressures in the U.S. that have put Pentagon spending in the cross hairs have provided Gates the platform for a very public, and much deserved, lashing.

"What I've sketched out is the real possibility for a dim, if not dismal, future for the transatlantic alliance," Gates told the allies earlier this month.

Libya underscores the point. A nation at the doorstep of Western Europe convulses in civil war. The alliance commits military forces, but it can't sufficiently project and sustain power a mere 90 minutes' flying time from Rome without the U.S. taking over. That isn't an alliance.

That's an addiction to weakness on their part, enabled by the U.S. arsenal whose caretakers are usually eager to put it to use.

"Frankly, many of those allies sitting on the sidelines (in Libya) do so not because they do not want to participate, but simply because they cannot. The military capabilities simply aren't there," Gates said. "The mightiest military alliance in history is only 11 weeks into an operation against a poorly armed regime in a sparsely populated country - yet many allies are beginning to run short of munitions, requiring the U.S., once more, to make up the difference," he said.

The Bosnia and Kosovo crises of the 1990s. The current Libyan crisis of 2011. Not much has changed in the intervening years.

While our European allies bristle at the U.S. position in the world and lament what some regard as American hegemony, they rely heavily on American might to protect their status as very junior NATO partners. The result is that the U.S. and Europe are drifting apart, so far apart that the alliance is merely an acronym at this point. As Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the NATO secretary general, said earlier this year, "The United States might look elsewhere for reliable defense partners."
While NATO was the bedrock by which we and our allies had guaranteed our collective security for more than 60 years, the alliance now has become a shining example of European neglect and European abdication of global leadership. When roused, the alliance is a mere lever of American power, guided by Americans, largely funded by Americans, with the most risk assumed by Americans.

A picture tells the story. At U.S. bases in Afghanistan, visitors and troops can buy military-style patches with the acronym "ISAF," the official name for the NATO International Security Assistance Force. But one popular joke patch also for sale translates ISAF as "I Saw Americans Fight."

The patch reflects the grunt-level, foxhole view that Afghanistan is largely an American show augmented by a small segment of brave NATO allies doing the bulk of fighting and dying. This despite that after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, NATO for the first time invoked its "Article 5," the central tenet of the NATO Treaty that says an attack on one member is an attack on all.

As Gates points out, the allies have struggled in Afghanistan to maintain a small deployment of 25,000 to 45,000 troops, compared to 100,000 Americans, while facing shortages of key combat and support gear.
The wasting away of the alliance, and indeed Europe's ability to defend itself, is an important security problem with stark implications. The European abandonment of NATO is a reality we and our allies must come to grips with as the crisis in Libya drags on, as other security issues arise down the road as they surely will (Iran, Syria, terrorism), and as the European debt crisis spurs our allies to invest even less in defense and their national security for years to come.

Earlier this year, Rasmussen chided European governments for their hesitance to support the alliance. "Ten years ago, the United States accounted for just under half of NATO members' total defense spending. Today the American share is closer to 75 percent," Rasmussen said. He warned against suggestions in some European capitals that the continent should engage in humanitarian projects, leaving the U.S. to do most of the fighting. Rasmussen added: "As a committed European, I find this suggestion at best naive, and, at worst, dangerous."
Gates believes that Europe already has made that choice, tempting what he called "collective military irrelevance."

It's time to find new allies.

Rosenberg is a former national security correspondent for Hearst Newspapers. His email address is eric.rosenberg@jhu.edu.

It’s time to find new allies as NATO withers away | Viewpoints, Outlook | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

 

[Respect4Respect01]

dude they got their @sses kicked.

 

[raavan]

They came to kill laden and they did it....

 

[Zeeshan360]

dude they got their @sses kicked.

Their aim of stopping terrorists from attacking US and disbanding terror groups succeeded .
They won

 

[AUz]

They came to kill laden and they did it....

Ok .

War on terror has been won with the death of Bin Laden,right?

 

[VelocuR]

it doesn't make sense. Uncle Sam left, and then strong country like France, UK, and other countries become PANIC themselves. Hilarious.

 

[Respect4Respect01]

Their aim of stopping terrorists from attacking US and disbanding terror groups succeeded .
They won

who are real terrorist, the ppl who killed over 200,000 ppl in the name of peace. Plus they caused many problems in asia.

 

[Oldman1]

who are real terrorist, the ppl who killed over 200,000 ppl in the name of peace. Plus they caused many problems in asia.

Define real terrorist please. Cause I would like to provoke you by saying that the Taliban are freedom fighters in Pakistan doing all those bombings in the name of FREEDOM! The Pakistani govt. are the real terrorists.

 

[Awesome]

They came to kill laden and they did it....

As if they hadn't announced the pullout long before that... They failed because "they came to kill Bin Laden and they did it". This sort of mentality was the cause of their failure.

 

[King Solomon]

USA is undoubtedly the main terrorist. Others are just associates who will follow USA wherever it goes or leaves.

 

[Awesome]

Define real terrorist please. Cause I would like to provoke you by saying that the Taliban are freedom fighters in Pakistan doing all those bombings in the name of FREEDOM! The Pakistani govt. are the real terrorists.

More than the people, real terrorism is an ideology and believe it or not the bulk of the people you define as terrorists really are of the opinion Pakistan (under orders from the US) wants to subjugate the FATA residents and curtail their freedom - coupled with the ones that believe they have to seek vengeance from Pakistan for the killings of their loved ones, you're left with a terrorism ideology where if you simplify things, we are wrong and they are right, their methods of killing children and civilians may be wrong, but their horrible cause has a twisted justification and they only see that far.

Your methodology has failed too, since if there is a huge motivation to join the Taliban out of concerns of freedom or revenge rather than out of Islam as it all originally started and the Islamic argument was a weak debatable position, vengeance and freedom is not - its a necessity.

 

[Solomon2]

Your methodology has failed too, since if there is a huge motivation to join the Taliban out of concerns of freedom or revenge rather than out of Islam as it all originally started and the Islamic argument was a weak debatable position, vengeance and freedom is not - its a necessity.

Do you think anyone from Swat still thinks that way?

 

[Safriz]

there is an end to everything.
this should be the natural end of American military campaign in the region..
will be good for everybody.including American public

 

[Riz]

Their aim of stopping terrorists from attacking US and disbanding terror groups succeeded .
They won

No there job was to eleminate taliban and al qaida from afg, in which they have failed badly