Interesting Article: Is The Western 'Alliance' Healing?

[Annie]

This gives me pause, as there are points here that I may have missed or misinterpreted at the time, (I really hope this is so):

http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2006/0407nj1.htm

COVER STORY
Divided We Fall


Q&A:
Beyond The North Atlantic


Related Resources On
NationalJournal.com

National Journal Cover Story: "Charm Offensive" (2/18/05)
·
National Journal: "Washington on the Senne" (2/18/05)
·
National Journal: "NATO Metamorphosis" (2/8/02)
·
National Journal: "NATO Is Too Busy To Be Irrelevant" (2/8/02)
·
Well-Read Wonk: "Opening NATO's Door" (1/23/03)
·
Poll Track: National Polling On NATO (6/13/99)
·


Additional Resources
On The Web

President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair Discuss the Role of NATO at Brussels (2/22/05)
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Remarks by President Bush and NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer at the White House (11/11/04)/A>
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NATO Statement Invoking Article Five of Its Charter in Response to 9/11 Attacks (9/15/01)
·

By James Kitfield, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, April 7, 2006

BRUSSELS -- When the history of the West's long war with violent Islamic extremism is finally written, the current period of turmoil and setbacks may be marked as decisive. In the past year, a radical ideologue has risen to power in Tehran, proposing to wipe Israel off the map and provoking a showdown with the international community over Iran's possible quest for nuclear weapons. In the Palestinian territories, democratic elections swept the Islamist militant group Hamas into power. In Iraq, a badly stretched U.S. military and its coalition partners have proven incapable of stemming the mounting sectarian violence pushing that nation toward civil war.

In Afghanistan, U.S. and NATO forces have confronted a resurgent Taliban and a marked increase in suicide bombings in recent months that bear the indelible signature of Al Qaeda. Both groups and their fugitive leaders are thought to have found sanctuary in the lawless tribal lands of neighboring Pakistan -- a Muslim country and the possessor of nuclear weapons that remains one successful assassination attempt away from chaos and potential radicalization.

In Europe, Qaeda-affiliated terrorist cells have struck repeatedly since 9/11, with major attacks in Madrid, London, and Istanbul. More recently, France was forced to declare a state of emergency late last year to stanch countrywide riots by its disaffected Muslim youth, and cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad that were published in a Danish newspaper recently sparked worldwide protests from Cairo to Kuala Lumpur. Those protests left 11 people dead and included the first-ever mob attack on NATO troops in Afghanistan, where five Norwegian soldiers were injured in the northern town of Maimana.

Confronted by these divergent crises, a Western alliance already weakened by divisions over the Iraq war might have retrenched or splintered even further. Instead, Washington and the capitals of Europe have responded to the mounting pressure by forging a degree of strategic consensus not seen since shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. The essence of that accord is the belated recognition that united the Western alliance stands, divided it could fall.

"I think it goes back to President Bush's visit to Brussels in February 2005, which the media underestimated in terms of its impact, because that was a rather decisive moment of outreach," Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO secretary general, told National Journal. Along with many senior officials and security experts, de Hoop Scheffer believes that a major miscalculation in the prelude to the Iraq war was Washington's failure to use the North Atlantic Council -- the main decision-making body at NATO -- to try to reach a strategic consensus among the Western democracies. By contrast, senior U.S. officials and security experts have constantly shuttled to Brussels over the past year.

"One of the problems in the run-up to Iraq was that the Atlantic Council was underused for political consultations," de Hoop Scheffer said. "We don't always have to agree, because 26 democracies will argue and disagree from time to time, but since Bush's visit last year, the political dialogue at NATO has deepened considerably. And because the United States' participation is absolutely necessary to address any crisis or hot spot around the world -- be it Iran, or proliferation, or the fight against terror -- then NATO is the only place to have that political and military discussion," he continued. "It has led to a common recognition on both sides of the Atlantic that if we don't face these threats and challenges together, well, can we face them at all?"

Strategic Convergence
Signs of greater strategic cooperation are evident on numerous fronts.

The West's recent response to Iran's nuclear brinkmanship has so far stood in stark contrast to its response to the Iraq war, when France and Germany eventually sided with Russia and against the United States. Recently, Paris and Berlin have joined the United States and Great Britain in taking the crisis to the U.N. Security Council to bring greater pressure on Iran, despite the resistance of Russia and China. Meanwhile, Western nations have largely spoken with one voice in denouncing Russia for temporarily cutting off European energy supplies over a price dispute with Ukraine in January. And within the alliance, members have been offering blunter criticism about Russian President Vladimir Putin's backtracking on democratic reforms.

In response to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a flash point of trans-Atlantic tensions in Bush's first term, both the United States and its allies have so far remained steadfast in their mutual insistence that Hamas must renounce violence and recognize Israel before it can be considered a viable partner in the peace process. Regarding Asia, in contrast to last year, there has been very little talk in Europe about the European Union lifting its arms embargo on China, something Washington has fought vigorously.

"There is a definite feeling across the European Union and in European capitals that for all its complexity, the trans-Atlantic relationship has improved markedly in both style and substance over the past year," said a knowledgeable E.U. official who was not authorized to speak on the record. "When Bush came to Brussels last year and visited European Union headquarters for the first time, we understood that it was a big gesture and that we needed to seize America's outstretched hand."

Since Bush's visit, the senior E.U. official noted, the United States and Europe have not only narrowed their differences on Iran and the China arms embargo; they've also worked together on crises in Lebanon and Darfur, Sudan, and helped to bolster Ukraine's nascent democracy. "We haven't reached decisive breakthroughs on many of those fronts, but that's not because of any rivalry between the United States and Europe," the official said. "It's because these are intrinsically very difficult matters."

By far the most remarkable display of allied resolve has been NATO's decision to steadily assume greater control of military operations in Afghanistan. In the midst of the cartoon-driven riots and some of the fiercest fighting to date with Taliban forces, the Dutch parliament voted on February 2 to send 1,400 more troops to NATO's International Security and Assistance Force, which operates in Afghanistan under a U.N. mandate. Along with thousands of additional British and Canadian troops, the Dutch force will soon spearhead the riskiest and most ambitious operation in NATO's history as the alliance pushes into the nation's volatile southern region.

As part of that "Stage 3" expansion, NATO plans to nearly double its troop levels in Afghanistan (from 9,000 to approximately 17,000) and to increase its area of operations from 50 percent to 75 percent of the country. If the subsequent "Stage 4" expansion is completed as expected, the alliance's troop levels would increase to as many as 25,000, with operations spread over the entire country, including the eastern border area with Pakistan where resistance to the Afghan government in Kabul is strongest. Not coincidentally, the United States now plans to reduce its separate "Operation Enduring Freedom" force in Afghanistan by 4,000 troops (out of 18,000 today).

"What NATO is doing is huge, and not just for the alliance and for Afghanistan itself -- it's also huge for the trans-Atlantic relationship," said Victoria Nuland, the U.S. ambassador to NATO. "Everyone understands that southern Afghanistan is dangerous. This is not blue-hat peacekeeping. You can get shot at, and you had better be ready to come back at those doing the shooting."...THIS WAS A BIT LESS THAN HALF THE ARTICLE...

Here's a related article from Feb. '05:

http://www.strategypage.com/onpoint/articles/2005222.asp

The Second VE Day
by Austin Bay
February 22, 2005
Discussion Board on this On Point topic

Chalk it up as a second VE Day (Victory in Europe), and credit President George W. Bush for following Sir Winston Churchill's wise counsel: "In Victory: Magnanimity."

Bush's low-key shellacking of France's crook in chief, Jacques Chirac, signals the political defeat of "Old Europe" on the issue of Iraq. This past Monday, before a state dinner in Belgium, a reporter asked Bush if he would invite Chirac to his Texas ranch. Bush quipped, "I'm looking for a good cowboy."

Remember, "cowboy" is Euro-snob code for "pathological American suffering from hyper-power and gigantisme militaire."

Chirac responded by praising the excellence of U.S.-French relations.

Yes indeed, my Parisian pod-nuh, we're all cowboys now -- "High Noon" cowboys dedicated to defending justice and freedom...

 

[nosarcasm]

One has to understand that the current chancellor Angela Merkel
is deeply opposed to Communism and dictatorship thanks to living through
the oppression in former East Germany. She has made a point to meet
the opposition leader of Beo-Russia a.k.a. White Russia before the rigged elections and now after it. So the Russian German axis ended with Schroeder's departure who disgraced himself with a secret credit gurantee to Gasprom, the company he now represents.

Chancellor Merkel for ideological reasons supports democracy in Eastern Europe.
She alot pro America and was derrived for that in the mainly leftwing press.
And I mean left wing. Because most make look the NYT fair and balanced.