Word: nato
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...would pop up in a minute if he were still alive. Last October, Mehsud posed for visiting journalists like a B-movie action hero with a rocket-propelled grenade on his shoulder, and then again leering behind the wheel of a humvee that his men had looted from a NATO convoy trapped in the canyons of the Khyber Pass. (See pictures of Pakistan's class divisions and ethnic rivalries...
...setbacks come as Washington struggles to persuade Pakistan to turn up the heat on Taliban and related militants who use its territory to mount operations against NATO troops in Afghanistan. Last month, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates was visiting, the Pakistan military's chief spokesman said there were no plans to launch fresh offensives for at least six months, if not a year. That was a pretty blunt "No" to the Americans. Now, with suspicions deepening over the nature and extent of the U.S. presence in Pakistan, winning its cooperation and shifting public attitudes has become an even more trying...
With nowhere to go, Gates was given an impromptu tour at the airport by his former military adviser General David Rodriguez, now No. 2 to General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. He ushered Gates through a hangar outfitted as NATO's new cyber-command-and-control center. One of his staff whispered, "An enormous well-oiled machine for eatin' bad guys." In another hangar, Gates got a glimpse of the fledgling Afghan air force and stepped into the cockpit of an old Russian Mi-17 attack helicopter. "Don't you love the irony of Gates...
...same thing happened in Afghanistan. The absurdities of the NATO campaign, in which each country's forces operate according to their own particular caveats - many of which include no fighting - shocked Gates during his visit a year and a half ago. "He heard that we had a soldier who was shot and was in Spain's AOR [area of responsibility]. The Spanish troops had to call back to Madrid to seek permission to medevac him," a Pentagon aide told me. "The soldier lived. But Gates was furious." He also heard that while wounded soldiers in Iraq were guaranteed a medevac...
Russia has been the regional master for centuries and there are few signs that it is ready to stop interfering. After unsuccessfully backing Yanukovych in the 2004 election, the Kremlin repeatedly slammed Yushchenko for his attempts to join NATO and his support of Georgia during its 2008 war with Russia. Twice Moscow has turned off the gas to Ukraine amid payment disputes, as it repeatedly tried to throw a wrench in Ukraine's Western integration...