"The Department of Defense, in coordination with the Department of State, should engage its appropriate counterparts among NATO Allies in reassessing and confirming the role of nuclear weapons in Alliance strategy and policy for the future.
"The Department of Defense should ensure that the dual-capable F-35 remains on schedule. Further delays would result in increasing levels of political and strategic risk and reduced strategic options for both the United States and the Alliance."
The F-35 is the Joint Strike Fighter multirole warplane discussed earlier, which its manufacturer Lockheed Martin boasts "Provides the United States and allied governments with an affordable, stealthy 5TH generation fighter for the 21st century." [17]
Far from the end of the Cold War signaling the elimination of the danger of a nuclear catastrophe in Europe, in many ways matters are now even more precarious. NATO's expansion over the past decade has now brought it to Russia's borders. Five full member states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Poland) and as many Partnership for Peace adjuncts (Azerbaijan, Finland, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine) directly adjoin Russian territory and for over five years NATO warplanes have conducted air patrols over the Baltic Sea region, a three minute flight from St. Petersburg. [18]
If launching the first unprovoked armed assault against a European nation since Hitler's wars of 1939-1941 ten years ago and currently conducting the world's longest and most large-scale war in South Asia were not reasons enough to demand the abolition of the world's only military bloc, so-called global NATO, then the Alliance's insistence on the right to station - and employ - nuclear weapons in Europe is certainly sufficient grounds for its consignment to the dark days of the Cold War and to oblivion.
1) Time, June 19, 2008
2) Ibid
3) Time, December 2, 2009
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1943799,00.html?xid=rss-topstories
4) Global Security
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/b61.htm
5) Popular Mechanics, January 2007
6) Turkish Daily News, June 30, 2008
7) NATO's Sixty Year Legacy: Threat Of Nuclear War In Europe
Stop NATO, March 31, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/natos-sixty-year-legacy-threat-of-nuclear-war-in-europe
8) www.nato.int/docu/stratdoc/eng/intro.pdf
9) http://www.nato.int/docu/handbook/2001/hb0206.htm
10) NATO, April 24, 1999
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_27433.htm
11) Time, June 19, 2008
12) Ibid
13) http://www.un.org/events/npt2005/npttreaty.html
14) Time, December 2, 2009
15) http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/Phase_I_Report_Sept_10.pdf
16) www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/PhaseIIReportFinal.pdf
17) Lockheed Martin
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/products/f35
18) Baltic Sea: Flash Point For NATO-Russia Conflict
Stop NATO, February 27, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/baltic-sea-flash-point-for-nato-russia-conflict
Scandinavia And The Baltic Sea: NATO's War Plans For The High North
Stop NATO, June 14, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/scandinavia-and-the-baltic-sea-natos-war-plans-for-the-high-north
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