NATO says its logistics hub in Russia will become operational soon, reports the Moscow Times:
General Knud Bartels, who chairs the alliance's military committee, told reporters Friday that containers are being shipped from Afghanistan to Britain via that route.
"A live trial along the northern distribution route is running since Dec. 3," the Danish general said after meetings with Russia's top military brass in Moscow.
Russia signed an agreement with NATO in June to allow the alliance to use Ulyanovsk, on the Volga River, as a multimodal transit hub for getting military cargo in and out of Afghanistan. But in all those intervening months, NATO has still not used the route. There has been some reporting in the Russian press that there are commercial disputes holding up the transit. Again, the Moscow Times:
National media have speculated that money is an issue and that Volga-Dnepr, the freight company that would handle the flights from the Volga Federal District hub, is demanding more payment than NATO countries are willing to spend.
But a senior representative of the alliance said Tuesday that although to his knowledge no shipping contract had been signed, both sides were testing how the hub could work in practice.
"A dry run has been completed, and a real test to ship containers from Latvia to Afghanistan and back via Ulyanovsk is expected for the next days," said Robert Pszczel, head of NATO's Information Office in Moscow.
Pszczel would not comment on why it was taking so long for the agreement to lead to actual results. He merely said "mundane commercial considerations" play a role.
U.S.-Turkey relations are at their strongest in recent years, and the most significant reason for that is Turkey's decision last year to host a new NATO radar connected to the alliance's air defense system against the missile threat from Iran. That is according to two experts who spoke this week at the Brookings Institution.
One of the experts, Brookings's Ömer Taşpınar, said that after Turkey's fallout with the U.S.'s close ally Israel, which highlighted worry that Turkey could be "moving East," relations between Ankara and Washington have rebounded to the point where some call it a "Golden Age" of bilateral relations. Part of the reason for that is the Arab Spring, which has elevated Turkey's relevance in Washington.
"But more tangible, more concrete, what put Turkey under a positive light, in 2011, was Turkey's very strategic decision to say 'yes' to most radars necessary for the anti-missile defense system under the framework of NATO. That decision, in my opinion, was almost a make-or-break move for the Obama administration in terms of testing Turkey's commitment to NATO, testing Turkey's commitment to the trans-Atlantic partnership."
Another of the experts, Soli Özel, said that the radar has ensured that the U.S. will not be excessively concerned about Turkey's political system -- that confidence in Ankara's "strategic Westerness" will override any concerns about its "political Westernness," despite concerns that Turkey may be backsliding away from democracy:
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili says that NATO was ready to offer his country the long-coveted Membership Action Plan to join the alliance but that "events of recent months" have scuttled those hopes. That seems to contradict statements made a day earlier by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, in which he said there were never any such plans.
Saakashvili was speaking to Georgian journalists in Warsaw, on the way back to Georgia from NATO meetings in Brussels, reports Civil.ge:
“We were permanently making progress in respect of NATO [integration]. At Bucharest summit [in April 2008] we failed to get MAP, but we got a direct declaration that Georgia will become a NATO member and it was a real geopolitical breakthrough. Then NATO-Georgia Commission was established [in September, 2008]… Then we received a status of an aspirant state [December, 2011]… Then there was a statement at the NATO Chicago summit [in May, 2012] that at the next summit NATO should expand and that Georgia was one of the major candidates,” Saakashvili said....
“Yesterday [December 5] NATO-Georgia Commission meeting was held in Brussels. After the elections we had a chance of receiving MAP, because at the time discussions were ongoing that because elections were held so well and because we had a consensus between the new [government] and the President about NATO membership, there was a chance of at last getting this MAP by December – I was personally told about it at the very highest level,” Saakashvili said....
“Unfortunately, events of recent months – and I am saying it with great regret – did not allow us [to get MAP].”
“Yesterday’s [NATO-Georgia Commission] meeting was held actually without having new institutional progress [with NATO],” Saakashvili said.
So, how will US troops come home from Afghanistan? According to Baku officials, by catching a train in Azerbaijan.
To borrow from American journalist H.L. Mencken’s line, war, like love, is easy to begin, but hard to end, and the 2014 NATO pullout from Afghanistan is likely to be a logistical nightmare, with thousands of troops to transport and scads of guns to pack and ship.
But worry not: Azerbaijan, NATO’s Caspian-Sea chum, is offering a cheap ticket home for American and other troops via the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, scheduled for completion in 2014.
If it all goes as planned, troops from Georgia, the largest non-member troop contributor to the NATO campaign, can get off midway.
To date, 35 percent of the “non-lethal” military supplies for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan went through Azerbaijan, Mammadyarov stated.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars Railroad, constructed by NATO-friendly Azerbaijan, NATO-aspiring Georgia and NATO member Turkey, was presented to the Alliance last month by envoys of the three countries. The presentation included other existing and upcoming sea, air and land transport infrastructure.
Russia has weighed in on ongoing discussions between Turkey and NATO about the possibility of stationing NATO missile defense systems on the Turkey-Syria border, saying that it would destabilize the situation. From RIA Novosti:
"The militarization of the Turkish-Syrian border would be an alarming signal," said ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich. "It would do nothing to foster stability in the region."
"Our advice to our Turkish colleagues is to use their influence on the Syrian opposition to draw them closer to dialogue, instead of flexing their muscles and taking the situation down a dangerous path," he added.
A NATO team is making a visit to Turkey next week to assess the possibility of deploying a system there, and NATO is expected to approve the request. Nevertheless, the AP reports that the systems could still be several weeks from being deployed:
Due to the complexity and size of the Patriot batteries, their radars, command-and-control centers, communications and support facilities, they cannot be sent quickly by air to Turkey, officials said.
"These are not drop-and-go systems," said an official who could not be identified in line with standing NATO regulations.
Additional time will be needed to install the systems, realign their radars and link them into Turkey's air defense network before the Patriots can be considered fully operational, the official said.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, in Brussels in March.
Armenia has lately been boosting cooperation with both NATO and Russia, prompting questions about how far it can play both sides of the geopolitical conflict.
This fall, Armenia has hosted top NATO officials and the U.S. secretary of the navy, and in September Armenian units trained by the U.S. and NATO countries for deployment in international missions, like that in Afghanistan, conducted an exercise, reported RFE/RL:
[S]ome 600 soldiers of the volunteer unit simulated their participation in a multinational peacekeeping operation in an exercise watched by U.S. military instructors. The exercise also involved what the Armenian Defense Ministry described as a successful “self-appraisal with NATO standards” by the brigade’s Staff Company.
But this fall, Armenia also hosted exercises of the Russia-run Collective Security Treaty Organization and has signed an agreement with Russia on joint arms production, a provision of which requires Armenia to "rely exclusively on Russian-made and supplied weapons," writes analyst Richard Giragosian in a piece at Oxford Analytica:
For the first time, Armenia is being excluded from procuring Western arms, limiting its options and potential partners and, at least in theory, hindering its pursuit of interoperability with NATO standards.
Ivanishvili and Rasmussen meet in Brussels, Nov. 14
Georgia's new prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili visited Brussels and NATO headquarters this week, amid worries that recent arrests of top military officials represent political reprisals against the allies of President Mikheil Saakashvili. Prior to Ivanishvili's visit, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen had already voiced his displeasure over the arrests, saying he was "extremely concerned." At a joint press conference after his meeting with Ivanishvili, Rasmussen was a little milder, suggesting he was mostly concerned about Georgia's image:
I am concerned if these trials are perceived to be politically motivated that would be damaging for the image of the country and the government. Even if it's not true. That's my concern. This is the reason why it is of utmost importance to stress that such trials must take place in accordance with the basic principles of rule of law, ensure full transparency, ensure due process. That's what I have made clear.
The Prime Minister has assured me that will be the case. And based on that, I also have to say, and really stress, we're not going to interfere with ongoing trials. We have confidence that they will be conducted without political interference and live up to the fundamental principles of rule of law.
Democracy expert Jay Ulfelder, in a worthwhile blog post, applies some political science to what he calls the "Mexican standoff" between Ivanishvili, Saakashvili and the Georgian security forces, also noting that perception here is at least as important as reality:
The other day, NATO chief Anders fogh Rasmussen posted on his Facebook page a little video in which he soliloquized about the progress made by the allied forces in Afghanistan. The secretary-general, no doubt, was hardly expecting that another bland talk making the usual points would harness over 280 likes and get peppered by an endless litany of comments on the night of November 12.
But compulsively posting passionate comments under the video were not tax-paying citizens of NATO countries or the Afghans. Rather, these were NATO-aspiring Georgians, who hijacked the secretary-general’s page, turning it into a battleground of their own political differences that has very little to do with the Afghanistan campaign.
The Georgians, who tend to be the most ardent followers of Rasmussen's Facebook status reports, debated his November 12 comment that he is “extremely concerned” about the Georgian government's recent arrests of ex-Defense/Interior/Prisons Minister Bacho Akhalaia, Army Chief of Staff Giorgi Kalandadze and Fourth Brigade Commander Zurab Shamatava.
Rasmussen said this just as Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili made his debut foreign visit to Brussels.
In his home country, Ivanishvili is often seen as a messiah who defeated President Mikheil Saakashvili's powerful political machinery and arrested an ex-minister (Bacho Akhalaia) reputed to have abusive ways.
Turkey's protracted shopping for a long-range air defense system has been a sort of geopolitical bellwether for the country: in addition to considering systems from NATO allies U.S. and Italy, Ankara has been looking at Russian and Chinese options. If it goes for the latter, NATO has reportedly promised to cut Turkey out of its air defense monitoring system. But now it looks like Turkey may be abandoning the purchase altogether, reports Defense News:
Turkey's highest defense body might decide to indefinitely postpone the country's $4 billion air defense program, effectively killing it, sources and observers said.
In addition to analysts' criticism that the long-range air and missile defense system is too expensive, other recent developments have raised questions about the project.
This month, for example, MBDA of Italy, one arm of bidder Eurosam, arranged a tour for several Turkish journalists to observe firing tests at two Italian land and naval installations. Turkish defense authorities at the last minute declined to permit reporters to visit the Italian sites, and MBDA had to cancel the tour.
This led to speculation that the program was going to be canceled or indefinitely postponed.
(Not really germane to the main point, but it's remarkable that the Turkish government could forbid reporters from visiting Italy to see an Italian company exhibition.)
The problem is that Turkey may not need such a system:
Georgia's new defense minister nominee Irakli Alasania has said that he wants to decrease the size of the country's military, making it leaner and quicker:
“We need a very small but highly mobile army that will be able to stand up to new threats” such as terrorism and extremism, said Alasania, leader of the Our Georgia-Free Democrats party, in an interview with RIA Novosti.
This is standard 21st century defense ministry rhetoric around the world, and it's especially something that U.S. defense advisers work on with partner post-Soviet militaries, which inherited a legacy of poorly trained but large armed forces, focused primarily on territorial defense.
But Georgia is an interesting case, since it does have a territorial dispute with Russia and the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Jane's Sentinel (full entry subscription only) notes that Georgia had been on the path to a smaller, leaner armed forces, but that that was derailed by the 2008 war with Russia:
The Georgian Armed Forces (GAF) are currently in the midst of wide-reaching reforms. The Strategic Defence Review (SDR) of 2007 set out a restructuring programme for the period to 2015 that ultimately sought to develop relatively small, numerous and more deployable brigades within a joint forces command structure that would ultimately do away with separate combat naval and air forces.
