Late this month a U.S. warship, the guided missile cruiser USS Vicksberg, joined a Norwegian counterpart for anti-submarine exercises, after which the two ships "proceeded above the Arctic Circle." The exercises included "a series of complex Air Defense Exercises (ADEX) supported by Norwegian F-16 squadrons out of [the] Bodo Main Air Station." [17]
In the Black Sea region, American ambassador to Georgia John Bass recently assured the government of former State Department fellowship recipient and New York resident Mikheil Saakashvili of continued Pentagon support in two spheres: Ongoing training of the Georgian armed forces by U.S. Marine Corps personnel stationed in the country (by all indications permanently) and "improvement of defense systems and support structures." [18]
Shortly afterward Saakashvili appeared at a joint press conference at NATO headquarters with Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
The Georgian leader's comments included:
"We are the biggest per capita contributor to the Afghan...to the ISAF [International Security Assistance Force]....But we also are willing to engage in training their troops in Georgia and on site in Afghanistan."
The NATO chief said:
"I have reiterated to the president that NATO's policy towards Georgia has not changed. We will continue to support Georgia in its Euro-Atlantic aspirations. NATO is fully committed to Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Our Allies stick to their policy of non-recognition of the Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions of Georgia....I can assure you that there will be no change of the wording of what the NATO summit decided at the Bucharest Summit in 2008. And you will recall that we decided that Georgia as well as Ukraine will become members of NATO....And we have no intention whatsoever to change this wording. So the NATO position is unchanged." [19]
On the same day it was reported that Georgia's State Minister for Euro-Atlantic Integration, Giorgi Baramidze, said his government "is pushing for rapid entry into NATO with plans to meet membership requirements within the next three years...." [20]
In February the governments of fellow Black Sea nations Romania and Bulgaria confirmed their willingness to accede to U.S. requests to base intermediate-range interceptor missiles on their territories. Shortly after the countries' NATO accession six years ago the Pentagon secured the permanent use of four new military bases in Romania and three in Bulgaria.
Last week the Romanian government disclosed it was purchasing 24 second-hand F-16 multirole jet fighters from the U.S. "to modernise its air force." [21]
Concurrently, the nation's foreign minister, Teodor Baconschi, met with NATO Secretary General Rasmussen, reiterating "the NATO open door policy" toward Georgia, Ukraine and the Balkans and a commitment "to the diversification of partnership relations with NATO countries in the Western Balkans and in the Black Sea region."
The two also insisted that "bilateral cooperation with the U.S. in the field of anti-missile defence represents one of Romania's contributions to the development of a NATO anti-missile defence system, to be based on the principles of indivisibility of security of the Alliance and allied solidarity, as stated at the Summit in Bucharest and reaffirmed at the Summit in Strasbourg-Kehl." [22]
Also last week, Romania's President Traian Basescu called on members of parliament to pass a new national security law in view of three recent developments: The nation's absorption into NATO, the deployment of U.S. military personnel to bases in the country, and "developments related to the anti-missile shield." [23]
On the same day it was reported that the Bulgarian Defense Ministry had "approved a memorandum to exchange military personal staff with the U.S. navy.
"The memorandum sets up a bilateral program in the framework of which the navies of Bulgaria and the U.S. will have the opportunity to exchange experience and experts." [24]
U.S. and NATO military expansion along Russia's western and southern flanks diminishes the need for Cold War era nuclear arsenals and long-range delivery systems appreciably. Washington can well afford to reduce the number of its nuclear weapons and still maintain decisive worldwide strategic superiority, especially with the deployment of an international interceptor missile system and the unilateral militarization of space. And the use of super stealth strategic bombers and the Pentagon's Prompt Global Strike project for conventional warhead-equipped first strike systems with the velocity and range of intercontinental ballistic missiles to destroy other nations' nuclear forces with non-nuclear weapons.
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