Word: nato
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...collision between a British nuclear-powered submarine carrying multiple nuclear warheads and a French nuclear submarine armed with a similar payload may have been the result of lack of communication between France and NATO nations, according to a former British submarine commander whose revelations were partially corroborated by an official at the French navy...
...Sometime on Feb. 3 or 4, the British HMS Vanguard and France's Le Triomphant collided in the mid-Atlantic Ocean. The accident probably happened because the two submarines were not aware of each other. NATO operates a traffic-control system that alerts allied nations to the deployment zones of friendly submarines. The system is designed to avoid collisions. But because France is not part of NATO's military command structure, it does not provide information on the location of its mobile nuclear arms to that system, according to Julian Ferguson, who commanded one of Britain's four V-class...
...There is a system for operating areas that are reserved for American, British, Norwegian, Dutch and Canadian communities, and if you want to go into someone's area of influence, you tell them what you are doing. But if you are not in the NATO military structure, you don't have to do that," says Ferguson...
...former NATO official in Afghanistan compares the warlords to shrapnel lodged in an artery: Infection is a risk, he says, but pulling it out could be even worse. "There are so many other things we have to worry about, so why go and open this can of worms?" he asks. In some areas, tackling the militias can backfire. In the northeastern province of Badakhshan, local commander Nazir Mohammad runs the provincial capital, Faizabad, as one big protection racket. Foreign humanitarian organizations that don't hire his security services face attacks. When organizers at the German-run regional military-assistance base...
...Richard Holbrooke, Obama's new envoy to Afghanistan, acknowledged this reluctance when he said the U.S. "inherited a situation of very grand rhetoric with inadequate, insufficient resources." At the same time, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer cajoled Europe not to rule out more troops. "That is not good for the political balance of this mission," he said. "If Europe wants a greater voice, it needs to do more...