On the same day the U.S. guided missile destroyer USS Ramage docked in the Polish city of Gdynia on the Baltic Sea. A Polish official stated "that similar visits to Poland by ships from the United States, France or Denmark are rather frequent." [15]
After the unannounced visit by the top U.S. and NATO military commander in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, at the NATO defense chiefs' meeting in Slovakia last week, the Polish Defense Ministry announced that "Polish authorities plan to send 600 more soldiers to Afghanistan in spring 2010," raising the nation's total to 2,800. [16]
Troops abroad and bases and missiles at home. The NATO formula for new and candidate members.
As with the Baltics, so with the South Caucasus, all six nations in both locales providing troops for the Afghan war.
After the requests by NATO chief Rasmussen, Pentagon head Robert Gates and General McChrystal at the two-day NATO meeting in Slovakia last week "Azerbaijan gave an oral agreement to increase its military contingent. According to the agreement, NATO will assume the expenses of the personnel and material-technical provision." [17]
Azerbaijan's neighbor and adversary Armenia sent its defense minister to the NATO meeting and has for the first time offered troops for Afghanistan. Evidently the U.S. and NATO are making mutually exclusive promises to Azerbaijan and Armenia, at loggerheads over the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, in exchange for sending troops to the Afghan war zone.
Armenia, being one of seven members of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), seen by many as a fledgling counterpart to NATO in former Soviet space, is a more significant acquisition than Azerbaijan (and Georgia), already long in the NATO camp. In Slovakia last week "NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen welcomed the [Armenian] Defense Minister and expressed his intention to continue collaboration with Armenia on the Afghanistan issue." [18]
From October 22-24 NATO held a conference in Istanbul, Turkey on Non-Traditional Security Threats and Regional Cooperation In the Southern Caucasus. "Experts from Armenia, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia" participated. [19]
On October 24 in the third South Caucasus nation, Georgia, U.S. Marines launched two-week training exercises ominously codenamed Immediate Response [20] to train the first of 700 local troops for the Afghan war. According to the American embassy in Tbilisi, "The program is specifically designed to enhance Georgia's ability to conduct joint counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan together with U.S. forces." [21]
In Bratislava last week NATO chief Rasmussen praised the Georgian deployment as "a very important signal" and "a positive step" towards NATO integration. [22] He also stated "that Georgia might become a member of the alliance without passing through a Membership Action Plan" [23], the traditional path to full membership. As a full member Georgia would be covered by the Alliance's Article 5.
The past few days were as busy in Georgia as they were in Eastern Europe in the pursuit of U.S. geopolitical offensives.
The new American ambassador, John R. Bass, presented his credentials to President Mikheil Saakashvili on October 16, with his predecessor John Tefft deployed to Ukraine to protect America's "orange" asset Viktor Yushchenko ahead of a presidential election in which the latter faces a crushing defeat in his reelection bid.
A Georgian website described Bass's curriculum vitae:
"Bass has previously served as Chief of Staff to Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, coordinating policy and operational planning for strategic arms reduction discussions with the Russian Federation between 2004-2005. As Talbott's Special Assistant for Europe and Eurasia (1998-2000) Bass was a member of the U.S. negotiating team that brokered a settlement to the war in Kosovo on NATO's terms and shaped the composition and command arrangements of the peacekeeping force in Kosovo.
"Bass has also worked widely on U.S. policies and initiatives to convince Russia to accept U.S. missile defence systems...." [24]
On October 22 new U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Tina Kaidanow, previously Washington's first ambassador to Kosovo after its unilateral declaration of independence [25], paid a visit to the Georgian capital and "met with Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Giga Bokeria to discuss issues of the implementation of the U.S.-Georgia Charter on Strategic Partnership and bilateral relations...." [26]
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