Word: nato
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Last month, ethnic Albanians in Kosovo celebrated the one-year anniversary of their country’s independence from Serbia. This anniversary is, in some ways, a triumph for Kosovo. The United Nations-backed government is slowly taking over some of its own administration, although 15,000 NATO troops are still deployed there to maintain security and internal stability...
...Kosovo also aims to join the EU, and it already uses the euro as its currency. It is, however, far from ready to join. It is still dependent on NATO security forces, and its economy is extremely weak—at least 40 percent of the population is unemployed...
...Kosovo and Serbia are certainly not ready for EU membership right now and probably will not be for some time–-at least until Serbia agrees to at least a de facto recognition of Kosovo’s independence and Kosovo can govern itself without the assistance of NATO forces deployed there. Nevertheless, the EU can and should play its own role in shaping the politics of this region by showing Kosovo and Serbia that it intends to extend EU membership to both of them when they are ready. This is the only way to permanently bring stability...
...Obama has authorized the deployment of 17,000 U.S. troops to reinforce the NATO mission currently struggling to contain the Taliban's advance. That's only half the number requested by U.S. commanders there; the President is awaiting the completion of a strategy review (the third since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in late 2001) before committing to a new plan. And his comments on Saturday, in an interview with the New York Times, suggest that reconciliation with elements of the Taliban may be a key part of that strategy. For many observers on the ground, however, proposing negotiations and compromises...
...forces numbering some 600,000 troops and police officers (Iraqi and foreign), whereas in Afghanistan, which is larger both in land mass and population, there are only 160,000 troops. The moderate Sunni insurgents in Iraq could be confident that they would be protected if they switched sides, but NATO forces in Afghanistan would not be in a position to offer the same guarantees to Taliban-aligned warlords who change their allegiance, making such defections less likely...