Streit Council joins the Atlantic Council of the U.S. and the Allied Command Transformation’s Department of Strategic Vision, NATO Public Diplomacy Division in Sponsoring the Achilles Seminar on Transformation and the Transatlantic Relationship
October 16 - 19 2006, Washington, DC
Named for former Vice Deputy of the North Atlantic Council and Atlantic Council Chairman Theodore Achilles, this four-day conference will offer briefings on defense policy with government officials, think tanks analysts, and other experts in Washington DC. Then, students will travel to Norfolk, Virginia to visit Allied Command - Transformation (ACT) and learn about new directions in military capabilities and doctrine and how these will affect nato and its operations. The Atlantic Council of the U.S. is working with Allied Command Transformation’s Department of Strategic Vision., NATO Public Diplomacy Division, and the Streit Council for a Union of Democracies to coordinate this event. Read More Learn more about Theodore Achilles

 

"Global Threats, Atlantic Structures"
Challenges ahead for Atlantic Institutions

September 21-22, 2006 Washington DC.

The event was jointly organized by the Streit Council, the Hudson Institute and Radio Free Europe. The conference featured a variety of foreign policy experts and officials from both sides of the Atlantic to discuss how transatlantic structures should be adapted to meet the imperatives of the 21st-century. These specialists addressed whether an effective transatlantic homeland security system could be created; what role NATO can play in meeting new threats; the future of the trans-Atlantic economy; and whether an Atlantic identity exists or should be forged to meet the ideological challenges of the 21st-century. See More

What's New...

 

NATO chief's plan takes aim at 'caveats'
November 24
BRUSSELS -- The head of NATO plans to push for a new rule to force countries to provide troops in "emergencies" in Afghanistan, a measure aimed at delivering desperately needed help to Canada and other countries bearing the brunt of the action in the country's conflict-ridden south.
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the Dutch Secretary-General of the 26-member military alliance, said he was confident that countries such as Germany could be persuaded to assist the isolated Canadian and British forces in the south through a new "emergency" provision to be introduced at a NATO summit in Riga next week. Some countries, such as Germany, have used exemptions in their NATO agreements, known as "caveats," to escape dangerous forms of combat or avoid activity in high-risk regions. Read More

NATO to include counter-terrorism in its role
November 23
LONDON (Reuters) - NATO countries will endorse a plan next week to widen the alliance's role to include counter-terrorism, prevention of cyber attacks and security of natural resources, the Financial Times reported on Friday.
The Financial Times said the plan would be signed by the leaders of the 26-nation alliance who are due to meet in Riga, Latvia on November 28-29.
It said NATO should put a premium on "the ability to deter, disrupt, defend and protect against terrorism, and more particularly to contribute to the protection of the alliance's populations, territory, critical infrastructure and forces". Read More

US in push for NATO ties
November 23
THE US is pushing for NATO to forge closer links with key Western allies including Australia as the organisation expands its military deployments beyond Europe.
But Canberra is lukewarm about developing any formal association with the group.
Washington wants Australia, Japan and South Korea to become global partners with the 26-member Atlantic alliance, together with two European non-NATO allies - Sweden and Finland.
US President George W. Bush is expected to push the idea at a NATO summit meeting in the Latvian capital of Riga next week as NATO becomes more involved in the struggle against Islamist terrorism.
Australia already has military ties with NATO through its task group in Oruzgan province in Afghanistan, which comes under overall NATO command. Read More

The Future of Europe: The Ties that Bind and Divide
Kurt Volker, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs
November 13
Europeans love to argue that America knows nothing but hard power, and even does that poorly. They see themselves as the champions of soft power. Americans love to argue that Europeans are unwilling to use force when necessary, and even unwilling to use other means such as sanctions to achieve a goal.
But take a look around: America has massively increased foreign aid (some figures show a tripling), pledged $15 billion to fight AIDS, it is the largest foreign aid donor in Gaza ($468 million in direct assistance this year), and has led the drive to rebuild Afghanistan, to name a few examples. We are the largest investor in research into clean technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Europe, meanwhile, is deploying forces around the globe as we have not seen in over a generation, and for far nobler reasons. France, followed by Italy, is leading the peacekeeping force in Lebanon. Europe is running the force in the Congo and has over 50,000 troops for security missions deployed around the globe. Remember Cote d'Ivoire? Sierra Leone? Bosnia? Europe is leading on those.
The truth is that Americans and Europeans are both using hard and soft power and we are doing so in coordinated fashion, toward common ends. Read More

US to Propose NATO Partnership With South Korea Next Week
November 22
WASHINGTON (Yonhap) - The United States will propose that South Korea and four other nations be added as partners to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) at the group’s summit next week, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said Tuesday.
President George W. Bush will suggest establishing a “program of global partners” that would include South Korea, Japan, Australia, Sweden and Finland to have the Atlantic organization reach out to the Pacific, Burns said at a briefing. They are not being asked to join NATO, nor do they seek to, Burns said.
“But we seek a partnership with them so that we can train more intensively, from a military point of view, and grow closer to them because we are deployed with them,” he said. Read More

NATO Parliamentary Assembly releases DECLARATION ON NATO’S RIGA SUMMIT
Quebéc
November 17
The Riga summit of Alliance Heads of State and Government provides an opportunity for Alliance leaders to reconfirm the continuing importance of NATO as the key transatlantic forum to ensure our collective security. In today's global environment risks and threats to our security are many and diverse. They result from multiple origins: failed or failing states, underdevelopment, bad governance, demographic imbalances, religious radicalization, the resurgence of ideologies hostile to democracy, competition for natural resources and energy, regional instability, transnational organised crime, the spread of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. NATO's core mission of collective defence must now address these new threats. The Riga Summit should give leadership and direction to this process. Read Full Text

EU and US united in efforts to strengthen economic integration and boost jobs, growth and competitiveness
November 10
The US Government hosted the second informal US-EU economic ministerial meeting to discuss transatlantic economic integration and shared economic challenges on 9 November. European Union Commission Vice President Verheugen and Finnish Minister for Trade and Industry Mauri Pekkarinen met Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez and Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman to review joint progress , in the most significant areas of the transatlantic economy, including innovation, intellectual property rights (IPR), and regulatory cooperation.
Read More

Allies Dressed in Green
October 27
HEIDELBERG, Germany: Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Western allies have been asking: What will replace the threat of communism as the cement that holds together the Atlantic alliance? Some have argued terrorism, but I don't think so. I think my German friends have the best idea: The issue that will and should unite the West is energy and all its challenges.
After all, nothing is a bigger threat today to the Western way of life and quality of life than the combination of climate change, pollution, species loss, and Islamist radicalism and petro-authoritarianism - all fueled by our energy addictions. And no solution is possible to these problems without concerted government actions to reduce emissions, to inspire green innovation and to shift from oil to renewable power. Read More

The G8 Gets into Peackeeping
October 30, 2006
US Department of State

The Political-Military Bureau's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Regional Security, Michael W. Coulter, spoke today to the 132 members of the third class of stability police trainers to graduate from the Center of Excellence for Stability Policy Units (COESPU) in Vicenza, Italy. COESPU, a joint effort of the Governments of the United States and Italy, was established in the fall of 2005 as an international training center designed to fill the "security gap" between military forces and civilian police in peacekeeping operations...

COESPU is one of three primary components under the President's five-year Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI) that is part of a broader effort agreed to by the G-8 at the 2004 Sea Island Summit to address major gaps in international peace operations...

In addition to working with Italy to establish COESPU and train 3,000 stability police trainers by 2010, GPOI's goals include training and equipping over 75,000 peacekeepers worldwide by 2010 and working with G-8 and other partners to develop a transportation and logistics support arrangement designed to address the current gap in deployment and logistics support available to peace operations. Read More

 

DON'T DIMINISH NATO'S EFFECTIVENESS
By Michele Alliot-Marie
October 20, 2006
The Washington Times

 

 

A NATO for the World Economy: An Argument for a Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Zone
By Gabor Steingart
October 20, 2006
Der Spiegel online

Asian businessmen are probably the friendliest conquerors the world has ever seen. But despite the politeness and the smiles, Western governments must act quickly to combat the rise of China and Asia. The West should discuss an ambitious project: a European-American free-trade zone.
For 50 years it was a highly controversial institution. Today, though, every schoolchild knows that without the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, free Europe wouldn't exist. If the Western alliance hadn't ostentatiously demonstrated its power -- with its fighter jets, tank divisions and continually updated weaponry -- Soviet communism would have expanded westward instead of imploding as it did. By the end of the Cold War, even NATO's fiercest critics had learned their lesson: The dove of peace could only survive because the hawk was ready on his perch.
The world war for wealth calls for a different, but every bit as contradictory, solution. Alas, once again many lack the imagination to see that the aims of our economic opponents are far from peaceful. Yet what sets this situation apart from what we usually call a conflict -- what paralyzes the West -- is how quietly the enemy is advancing. Read More

 

NATO's Renaissance
October 11
Last week, NATO assumed command over some 32,000 peacekeeping troops from 37 countries in Afghanistan, including 12,000 U.S. forces in the eastern part of
the country. The move confirmed that the half-century-old organization has
entered a new era -- and is now facing unprecedented challenges. As Ivo Daalder
and James Goldgeier point out in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, NATO is
going global, expanding both its geographical reach and the scope of its
operations. But, warned Strobe Talbott four years ago, to succeed, the
U.S.-dominated organization will have to remain cohesive despite growing rifts
between the United States and its other members. Daalder and Goldgeier Strobe Talbott

How to keep NATO relevant
Charles A. Kupchan International Herald Tribune
October 5
As next month's NATO summit meeting in Latvia draws near, debate is heating up over how to ready the alliance to meet the challenges of the future. Many of the ideas on the table are impressively bold, envisaging a NATO that not only continues to take in Europe's new democracies, but also extends its membership and missions well beyond the European heartland.
Such expansive proposals might be alluring in their ambition, but they are more likely to lead to NATO's demise than its renewal. With the alliance already overextended in Afghanistan, NATO's current agenda should focus on consolidation, not on pursuing a global agenda that promises only to saddle the organization with an unsustainable range of commitments.
Many prominent analysts think NATO should become the go-to organization for the world's most pressing security challenges. By adding countries as far flung as Japan and Australia to its ranks, some say, NATO would enhance its legitimacy and fortify itself with the troop contributions of its many new members. But such visions are woefully divorced from today's strategic realities. To be sure, NATO could use a fresh supply of able soldiers, but it does not need to extend its reach to the Pacific to get them. Read More

 

Merkel for EU Agreement with US
October 2
With the Doha Round of trade talks threatening to come to naught, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has come up with a plan B: a free-trade zone with the US. Such a zone would encompass 60 percent of the global economy.
The World Trade Organization has set a difficult task for itself. Since the Doha Round of negotiations began in November 2001, the WTO has been trying to come up with a tariffs and trade agreement that all members can agree on. Success depends on satisfying the 149 countries participating -- which is far from an easy task. The talks collapsed most recently in late July of this year.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, though, has a backup plan. Should the Doha talks ultimately prove untenable, she is open to the idea of forming a trans-Atlantic free-trade zone between the European Union and the United States.Read More

Nato gets more US troops
October 2
Kabul - Nato will soon assume direct control over most military operations in Afghanistan, a move that will place 12 000 more US troops under its authority, a spokesperson for the alliance said.
The expansion will consolidate military command under top Nato leader British Lieutenant General David Richards and phase out the role of US Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, whose troops will be transferred to Nato, alliance spokesperson Mark Laity said on Sunday in Kabul.Read More

Transatlantic Trends is an annual public opinion survey examining American and European attitudes toward the transatlantic relationship. A project of the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Compagnia di San Paolo, with additional support provided by Fundação Luso-Americana, Fundación BBVA, and the Tipping Point Foundation, this year’s survey examines what citizens on both sides of the Atlantic think about a broad range of topics, including: