NATO to implement 'biggest' defence boost since Cold War

[unhappycamper]

http://www.france24.com/en/20150618-nato-implement-biggest-defence-boost-russia-terrorism-stoltenberg

Push 'Play' before reading rest of article


NATO to implement 'biggest' defence boost since Cold War
2015-06-18

NATO head Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday the alliance was implementing its biggest defence reinforcement since the Cold War, as the region grapples with terrorism and an increasingly assertive Russia.

He spoke a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow would add more than 40 new intercontinental ballistic missiles to its nuclear arsenal this year.

“NATO is facing a new security environment, both caused by violence, turmoil, instability in the south—ISIL in Iraq, Syria, North Africa—but also caused by the behaviour of a more assertive Russia, which has used force to change borders, to annex Crimea and to destabilise eastern Ukraine,” Stoltenberg told reporters, using another acronym to refer to the jihadist Islamic State group.

“And therefore NATO has to respond. We are responding, and we are doing so by implementing the biggest reinforcement of our collective defences since the end of the Cold War and the Spearhead force is a key element of this reinforcement, and it’s great to see that it’s functional, and that it’s exercising here in Poland,” he said.

[jakeXT]

1. Gee .. instabilty in North Africa, where did that come from ?

[unhappycamper]

2. Did you push 'Play' before reading?

The music adds ambiance.

[jakeXT]

4. I had to change from my mobile device to a Notebook

[bemildred]

3. These buffoons are hilarious.

I wonder why he is feeling so defensive?

[jakeXT]

5. The Wall Street Urinal complained that his radicalism is only dilluted

Maybe that mysterious Breivik guy helped him to change his mind fully.

The Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik, who shot dead more than 90 young socialists at their summer camp on Friday after mounting a huge bomb attack on the centre of Oslo, has been described as a fundamentalist Christian. Yet he published enough of his thoughts on the internet to make it clear that even in his saner moments his ideology had nothing to do with Christianity but was based on an atavistic horror of Muslims and a loathing of "Marxists", by which he meant anyone to the left of Genghis Khan.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2011/jul/24/norway-anders-behring-breivik-beliefs

Stoltenberg, as a socialist politician, is known with his NATO-resistance in mid-1980s. When Jens Stoltenberg was forthcoming AUF leader in 1985, he had resisted against Norway’s NATO accession.

- AUF goal is to dismantle the blocks and Norwegian withdrawal from alliance, Stoltenberg had said.

Afterward, he had said that they recognized that Norway is likely to be a member of NATO in the coming years. Therefore, they should impose requirements on Norway to fight for nuclear-free zones and freeze nuclear arsenals in the alliance. Also Dagsavisens wrote he has changed his position for NATO membership after he became the leader of the Youth branch of his party two years later.

Stoltenberg or other in Labor Party did not provide any confirmation or denial of Aftenposten’s claims proposed on Sunday night.

http://www.tnp.no/norway/politics/4407-from-nato-opponent-to-nato-chief-norwegian-ex-pm-to-be-next-nato-secretary-general-norway-usa-france

On the face of it, the 55-year-old career politician appears an unobjectionable choice. During his premiership—he served from 2000-01 and again from 2005-13—Norway contributed troops to NATO's Afghanistan campaign and aircraft to its Libya campaign. Yet Mr. Stoltenberg's worldview raises questions about his suitability to lead NATO as the alliance enters a turbulent new era.

His early radicalism is an initial red flag: While serving as a minister of industry and energy, he joined a 1995 bicycle rally from Oslo to Paris to protest French nuclear-weapons testing. His defenders might object that many a responsible European politician—think Joschka Fischer—spent his youth in Europe's far-left fever swamps.

Fair enough. But with Mr. Stoltenberg, it appears that his radical notions have been merely diluted with age—but not altogether discarded.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304679404579461691460825368