"The NATO alliance...conducted aerial combat operations during the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo during the 1990s, but it has yet to conduct major ground
combat operations since it was founded in 1949." Its move into southern Afghanistan, however, signalled "the first time the alliance has conducted land combat operations...." [11]
The war in Afghanistan has in fact represented a historic expansion for NATO in Abizaid's words of four years ago, inaugurating the bloc's "jumping outside European boundaries" to Africa and elsewhere. That is exactly what has occurred in the interim.
It has also been employed to meld the militaries of over fifty nations - including those of Afghanistan and Pakistan - under a unified command and into a combat-experienced and integrated global force ready for future attacks, invasions, occupations and other interventions far from Euro-Atlantic space. Never before have troops from 50 nations served in one war theater, in one country. Last week a meeting of NATO's Military Committee was attended by the defense ministers of 49 nations with troops assigned to the International Security Assistance Force.
The Afghan war has secured the U.S. and its NATO allies military bases in the Central Asian nations of Kyrgyzstan, where an estimated 50,000 U.S. troops passed through to and from Afghanistan this March, and Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
It has allowed the inauguration of the world's first multinational strategic airlift operation in Hungary last year, one firmly under the control of Washington and NATO, for supplying the war effort.
It has accelerated the U.S.'s and NATO's military integration of the three former Soviet republics in the South Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
Azerbaijan, a Caspian Sea nation bordering Iran and Russia, recently doubled the size of its troop contingent in Afghanistan.
Georgia, eager to gain combat training under war conditions for its next military confrontations with Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Russia, will shortly have 900 troops in Afghanistan, the largest per capita contribution of any nation to NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
At NATO headquarters on May 5 the permanent representatives (ambassadors) of the bloc's 28 member states met with senior Georgian military officials within the framework of the NATO-Georgian Commission. "The representative stressed that the alliance appreciates Georgia's cooperation with NATO and especially the participation of Georgian soldiers in peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan and will continue to support the reformation of the country's defense system in the future." [12]
That is, Georgia will provide NATO with troops for the war in Afghanistan and NATO will reciprocate by assisting in the modernization of Georgia's armed forces in anticipation of future conflicts with its neighbors.
On May 11 Germany hosted a meeting of defense ministers and military chiefs of staff from nations that have troops deployed in northern Afghanistan where Germany is the main NATO force.
The nation's defense minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, "also invited representatives of NATO, the European Union and Afghanistan to the informal May 11 meeting.
"The ministry did give details on who exactly was invited. Nations with a presence in northern Afghanistan now include the United States, Norway and Sweden." [13]
Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan led a delegation from Armenia to the Berlin meeting. Armenia is the first member of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to supply NATO with troops for Afghanistan. The CSTO's other members are Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and it has long been viewed as a Russian effort to counter NATO expansion into the former Soviet Union.
The day after the meeting in Germany, the Armenian defense minister and the country's foreign minister were in Brussels to attend a meeting of the North Atlantic Council, NATO's highest governing body, where an assessment of NATO's Individual Partnership Action Plan for Armenia was assessed.
The two events are inextricably connected and are an integral part of NATO's plan to gain control over the South Caucasus. Armenia, like Azerbaijan, borders Iran. Azerbaijan and Georgia border Russia.
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