Word: nato
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...action to combat the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea and to quit bullying democratic neighbors like Ukraine and Georgia. Russia would like the U.S. to recognize that it has its own sphere of influence in the "near abroad" - the territory of the old Soviet Union - and halt NATO's expansion to the east. More generally, Moscow would like some respect. "The Russians want to belong. They want to feel big," says Finland's Foreign Minister, Alexander Stubb, who has met with both Medvedev and Putin since Obama's Inauguration. "There's a sense of greatness in Russian history...
...commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, U.S. General Stanley McChrystal has inherited a 7½-year war that appears to be getting worse. Yet U.S. Congressmen have given him only a year to turn it around. In a wide-ranging interview with TIME magazine on the back porch of his office at ISAF headquarters in downtown Kabul, McChrystal discussed his new approach to the Afghan fight, why the military alone can't be a solution and what he's currently reading on his new Kindle...
...Sphere of influence" is a term of diplomatic art, which is often invoked by the Russian government and Western nations in discussing plans for a NATO expansion and the European Commission's Eastern Partnership effort. In his speech, Obama distinguished between Europe's efforts to grow its diplomatic relations with former Soviet bloc countries and Russia's efforts to keep significant influence over its neighboring nations. "America will never impose a security arrangement on another country. For any country to become a member of an organization like NATO, for example, a majority of its people must choose to [join]," Obama...
...Germany currently has 4,000 troops serving as part of the NATO-led international force, most based in northern Afghanistan, away from the violent southern provinces. An additional 200 soldiers are heading there in the run-up to the Afghan presidential election on August 20, bringing the total number to 4,200 - still below the limit of 4,500 set by Germany's strict parliamentary mandate. But on Thursday, the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, gave the green light under a separate mandate to deploy up to 300 more soldiers to support NATO's AWACS surveillance aircraft in Afghanistan...
...longer treated as a concern secondary to Iraq, the Afghanistan theater will see the number of American soldiers serving there increase by 17,000 by this fall. And under McChrystal, they'll be waging a different kind of war. Limited troop availability in the past meant that while NATO forces could clear an area of insurgents, they were unable to hold the terrain. Now the plan is for the Marines to set up combat posts in villages to provide the residents with lasting security. Still, some Afghans are skeptical. "I hope this operation gives a positive result," says Haji Nimatullah...