Word: nato
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Wednesday's NATO summit in Bucharest may be remarkable for the presence of Russia's President Vladimir Putin, leader of the power against whose precursor the alliance was originally created. Moreover, Putin will follow the summit by taking its most powerful leader, President George W. Bush, back to his vacation home at the Black Sea resort of Sochi. But the formal bonhomie won't hide the escalating tension in the relationship between Washington and Moscow. President Bush on Tuesday strongly backed NATO membership bids by the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia, a move fiercely opposed by Moscow, which...
...Whatever the state of their personal chemistry, then, Bush and Putin will engage each other over a widening chasm in the coming days. Besides NATO's expansion eastward, they also differ strongly over U.S. plans to deploy its missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland by 2012, ostensibly to intercept potential attacks from Iran. And Russia has been irked by the NATO powers' enabling of Kosovo's breakaway from Serbia, which Moscow deems illegal...
...Putin may have a compromise up his sleeve: If Russia's priority is to avoid Ukraine and Georgia being drawn into the NATO fold, a concession on the missile defense system may be part of the quid pro quo envisaged by the Russian president...
Afghanistan will top the agenda when NATO member nations gather this week in Bucharest to discuss the state of the alliance. General Dan McNeil, commander of the alliance's 43,250 troops in Afghanistan, has lobbied for reinforcements to help battle the rising insurgency in the country's south. But commanders on the ground would also like a little more help from the Afghans on whose behalf they're fighting. "Frankly, defeating the Taliban is the least of our worries," says one. "They are not going to beat us. It's not them that are crippling the economy. What...
...probably in anticipation of such complaints that Sarkozy conditioned the troop augmentation to NATO acceptance of a French plan he said will "allow the Afghan people and its legitimate government to build a peaceful future". Sarkozy isn't saying publicly what such a plan would involve, or how it might reverse the setbacks suffered by NATO. But its contents may well decide the fate of French involvement in Afghanistan...