Word: nato
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...During his stay, Obama is expected to seek Turkish support for his Afghanistan and Pakistan plans, a cornerstone of his foreign policy. Turkey currently maintains about 900 soldiers in Afghanistan as part of the NATO contingent there, and, as the only Muslim country involved, its presence is crucial to securing support on the ground. Obama is expected to push for an increase in Turkish forces and to ask for Ankara's help in facilitating a smooth withdrawal from Iraq...
...Obama's influence has already been telling. On Saturday he convinced Turkey to drop its objections to Dane Anders Fogh Rasmussen becoming the next head of NATO. Turkey had threatened to veto Rasmussen because of his handling of a 2006 crisis over controversial Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad. According to White House officials, Obama promised Turkey that one of Rasmussen's deputies would be a Turk and that Turkish commanders would be present at the alliance's command...
...Europe. After his packed schedule at London's G20 summit, his day in Strasbourg seemed almost relaxed, and included an hour at a youth town-hall meeting, where he answered questions about issues such as climate change and African poverty, before meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel; the NATO summit itself is scheduled as a three-hour meeting on Saturday morning. At the press conference with Sarkozy, Obama limited himself to saying that "the more capability we see here in Europe the happier the United States will be, the more effective we will be in coordinating our activities...
...Such coordination is not easy. The abilities and equipment of the U.S. military are on a different level from armies in the rest of NATO. The Pentagon spends about 15% of its huge defense budget on researching new weapons systems, while the next-biggest research spender - Britain - spends just 9%, and many other NATO members spend "nil - that's zero [on military research], according to Jonathan Eyal, Director of International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London. Although the EU's economy is slightly bigger than that of the U.S., Europe "remains an absolute dwarf when...
...London on Wednesday, at a press conference with Prime Minister Gordon Brown, where the American President said he had come "to listen, not to lecture." At a joint appearance with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Baden-Baden on Friday, a German reporter asked Obama about his "grand designs" for NATO. "I don't come bearing grand designs," Obama said, scrapping the leadership role the U.S. maintained through the Cold War. "I'm here to listen, to share ideas and to jointly, as one of many NATO allies, help shape our vision for the future...