NATO Military Chief Weighs Options as Russian Forces Stay

[Purveyor]

By James G. Neuger and Gopal Ratnam Apr 1, 2014 7:10 PM ET

NATO’s top military commander is exploring ways to strengthen collective security in Europe, as the alliance vowed to boost support for eastern nations unnerved by Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

Options being considered by U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove include putting a U.S. warship in the Black Sea, beefing up previously scheduled NATO exercises and improving the readiness of the alliance’s 13,000-member rapid-response force, according to an American defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military planning.

“We directed our military commanders to develop additional measures to enhance our collective defense and deterrence against any threat of aggression,” Anders Fogh Rasmussen, secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, said yesterday after NATO foreign ministers met in Brussels.

Rasmussen said allied intelligence had seen no sign that Russia was scaling back its “massive military buildup” along Ukraine’s eastern borders. As many as the 40,000 Russian troops have taken positions along the frontier, stirring concerns that they’re poised to invade on the pretext of protecting ethnic Russian inhabitants of eastern and southern Ukraine.

Yesterday’s meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s foreign ministers was the first since Russia rocked the post-Cold War order by wresting Crimea, a region with a majority of Russian speakers with historic ties to Moscow, away from Ukraine. Shrugging off U.S. and European sanctions, Putin has justified the move as righting a historical wrong that split off Crimea from Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed.

more...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-01/nato-military-chief-weighs-options-as-russian-forces-stay.html

[dipsydoodle]

1. Just an excuse to spend money

and make NATO look important as opposed to the anachronism it is.