Word: nato
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...world's finance ministers wring their hands over the global financial crisis, a quieter multilingual chorus of dismay is emanating from the military compounds and foreign offices of one of the planet's most powerful nations. Afghanistan, NATO's first post-Cold War, non-European experiment and the U.N.'s most significant mission to date, has been termed a failure, leading many decision makers to contemplate the unthinkable: negotiations with the very same Taliban leadership that was defeated in 2001. The only problem is, negotiations are unlikely to be successful, and reliance on such stopgap solutions may only make things...
...June, Dan McNeil, the outgoing NATO commander in Afghanistan, estimated that it would take some 400,000 troops to win the war. Currently, the total allied force stands at just over 70,000, with an additional 60,000 poorly equipped Afghan troops in various states of training. McNeil's replacement, U.S. General David McKiernan, has appealed to the White House for 15,000 more U.S. troops "as quickly as possible" but has been promised less than half that number by spring of next year. More troops are unlikely to be forthcoming until the U.S. starts pulling out of Iraq...
...same moment Iceland, a NATO member and until very recently a prosperous Western nation, seemed ready to bite the dust in the global financial crisis, a cavalry rode to the rescue, just as it does in the movies. Except the cavalry in this case came from an unexpected direction: Russia...
Ahtisaari, 71, may be best known for his work in Kosovo, where he helped midwife the cease-fire that led to the withdrawal of Serbian troops from the province after the NATO bombing campaign in 1999. He also played a key role when, as the United Nations' special envoy to the former Serbian province, he drew up a plan for its independence. That plan was ultimately vetoed by Russia in the U.N. Security Council. But many of its recommendations for power-sharing and administration are currently being implemented by the new government in Pristina. The Norwegian committee's decision...
...rivalry between the two has persisted, and the summer's hostilities between Russia and Georgia sharpened the differences between the President and his erstwhile partner over Ukraine's direction. Yushchenko rushed to side with Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili and urged NATO members to expedite Ukraine's NATO membership; Tymoshenko was sharply critical of his response, arguing instead for neutrality and promising voters that she would keep Ukraine out of conflicts between other countries. While committed in principle to NATO membership at some point in the future, she is in no hurry to force the matter or take any steps that...