Word: nato
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...achieve. "I am absolutely convinced that you cannot solve the problem of Afghanistan, the Taliban, the spread of extremism in that region solely through military means," he told an interviewer on Tuesday. But more troops are needed simply to arrest and begin to reverse a perilous slide in NATO's fortunes in Afghanistan...
...With the Taliban growing in confidence and feeling the wind at its back, the bad news out of the Afghanistan theater just keeps getting worse for the U.S. NATO commanders have long expressed frustration at the failure of the Pakistani military to prevent Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters maintaining sanctuaries in Pakistan from which they can launch attacks inside Afghanistan. But Pakistan's announcement on Monday of a peace agreement to accommodate the domestic Taliban insurgency in the Swat Valley suggests that an all-out war against militants on their soil is not what Pakistan's generals have in mind...
...Ferguson says the French are particularly secretive due to their position outside NATO's command structure. And past policy-level discussions have suggested a concern over the lack of communication. In 1994 Britain and France discussed closer cooperation between their navies and a possible carving up of deployment zones for their nuclear-armed submarine patrols. It took until September 2000 for arrangements to be formalized, in what was named the U.K.-French Bilateral Defense Cooperation Agreement. That called for port visits for British and French nuclear-armed submarines and regular exchanges on nuclear policy. (See pictures of the French President...
...unclear whether the agreement called for an exchange of information regarding nuclear-armed submarine positioning; many arms experts say it probably did not. "The fact that the collision occurred at all indicates that the two allies need to talk more," says Hans Kristensen, who monitors NATO's weapons for the Federation of American Scientists...
...fact the collision could have been prevented by better communication between France and NATO, the revelation comes at a politically sensitive time: France is set to rejoin NATO's military infrastructure in April. Its secrecy policy on the location of its nuclear-armed subs could come under fire before then, especially as the French say they will not budge on the issue. Explains Erulin of the French Navy: "Because this is so essential to France's strategic defense interests, this is something that will be maintained even after France is fully reintegrated into NATO's military command structure...