RUSSIA TO CUT ALL MILITARY TIES WITH NATO
August 21st, 2008As this unfolds (into the fall and winter months), here’s something to keep in mind.
The following states now have strategic dependencies on natural gas from Russia:
Germany
Turkey
France
Austria
Poland
Greece
(See: Russian Natural Gas: Regional Dependence)
Via: AP / Guardian:
Russia has informed Norway that it plans to suspend all military ties with NATO, Norway’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday.
The report comes a day after NATO foreign ministers said they would make further ties with Russia dependent on Moscow making good on a pledge to pull its troops back to pre-conflict positions in Georgia. However, they stopped short of calling an immediate halt to all cooperation.
The Nordic country’s embassy in Moscow received a telephone call from “a well-placed official in the Russian Ministry of Defense,” who said Moscow plans “to freeze all military cooperation with NATO and allied countries,” Espen Barth Eide, state secretary with the Norwegian ministry said.
Eide told The Associated Press that the Russian official notified Norway it will receive a written note about this soon. He said Norwegian diplomats in Moscow would meet Russian officials on Thursday morning to clarify the implications of the freeze.
“It is our understanding that other NATO countries will receive similar notes,” Eide said. The ministry said the Russian official is known to the embassy, but Norway declined to provide a name or any further identifying information.
A Kremlin official declined to comment on the report. But the Interfax news agency, citing what it called a military-diplomatic source in Moscow whom it did not identify, reported that Russia is reviewing its 2008 military cooperation plans with NATO.
Officials at NATO headquarters in Brussels said Moscow had not informed the alliance it was taking such a step.
Washington described the reported move as unfortunate.
“If this indeed is the case, it would be unfortunate. We need to work with Russia on a range of security issues, but we are obviously very concerned about Russian behavior in Georgia,” U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood said.
The ITAR-Tass and RIA-Novosti news agencies, citing an unidentified member of the Russian mission to NATO in Brussels, reported that Russia’s NATO envoy Dmitry Rogozin has been called back to Moscow for consultations on relations and between Russia and NATO, including military cooperation.
RIA-Novosti said Rogozin would return to Moscow late this week.
Eide said he hoped NATO and Moscow would get back on track with dialogue and cooperation but said that Russia would first have to comply with a cease-fire in Georgia.
“I regret the situation has come to this,” he said.
The hostilities between Russia and Georgia began earlier this month when Georgia cracked down on South Ossetia. The region is internationally recognized as being within Georgian borders but leans toward Moscow and regards itself as independent. Russia answered by sending its troops and tanks across the Georgian border.
Ha! The title uses the verb ‘cut’ but the Russians say ‘freeze’, which is very telling especially as winter approaches…
I like how Paul Craig Roberts explains the situation in his essay “I Resign from the Mont Pelerin Society”:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts257.html
Pookie,
I believe it was Robert Silverberg (sp) in a great dissertation that wrote about how the world achieved a great PEACEFUL statis when there was a bi-polar power struggle – US and Russia. And that the world world would dissolve into chaos when there were numerous players instead of two.
I dunno. Also, one of those great writers of politics said that you “cannot have economic peace at home when all of your efforts are abroad.”
I used to be a great and copius notetaker, and saved all of my notebooks. Without going back to my classroom chickenskrach, it seems to me, all of the great teachings of common sense that I learned of at one time have been replaced by neocon nonsense.
Seems to me that the teachings are you can’t have it both ways, and yeh verily, here we have it. Our domestic in the US is in continual flush mode, and or foreign policy sucks as well.
Obviously, we need to do a lot of work on both fronts.
OOps, Robert Silverburg is a science fiction writer that I love.
I have the Deadulus book at the office that has the essay I am speaking of.
Will repost correct article tomorrow.
Meanwhile, R. Silverburg writes some rocking Science Fiction.
Sorry for the misdirection.
E