The agreement was reached at talks in Brussels attended by Ukraine's acting Defense Minister Valery Ivashchenko, Lithuania's Minister of National Defense Rasa Jukneviciene and Poland's Komorowski.
The combined military unit will be stationed in Poland and include as many as 5,000 troops. The joint buildup on Russia's western and northwestern borders "may have a political objective. It is meant to set up an alternative center of military consolidation for West European projects, a center which could embrace former Soviet republics (above all Ukraine), now outside NATO. There is no doubt who will control this process, considering U.S. influence in Poland and the Baltics." [34]
On the same day that the Polish, Lithuanian and Ukrainian defense chiefs reached the agreement, Poland hosted multinational military exercises codenamed Common Challenge 09 with "2,500 troops from Germany, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland - forming the so-called EU Combat Group....Common Challenge is being held for the first time in Poland. Exercises are conducted simultaneously in Poznan, western Poland, and the nearby military range in Wedrzyn." [35]
In a complementary development, The Times of London published an interview with Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on November 15 in which he "said Italy would push for the creation of a European Army after the 'new Europe' takes shape at this week's crucial November 19 EU summit following the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty." [36] A commentary from Russia, which of course will not be included in the plans, mentioned that "NATO has been actively discussing the possibility of establishing a joint European army for a long time" and that Frattini had "reiterated the need for deploying a joint naval fleet or air force in the Mediterranean or other areas crucial to European security." [37]
In a Wall Street Journal report titled "Central Europe Ready To Send More Soldiers To Afghanistan," Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, again emphasizing the connection between war zone training in Afghanistan and preparation for action much closer to home, was quoted as saying "The credibility of NATO will be decided in Afghanistan. If NATO can be successful with what was a success in the Balkans and Iraq, its deterrent potential will rise, and it is in Poland's national interest. [38]
On November 18 the ambassadors from all 28 NATO member states gathered in Brussels commented on Belarusian-Russian military exercises conducted months earlier, Operation West, and "expressed concerns about the large scale of the exercises and a scenario that envisioned an attack from the West...." [39]
Sikorski's allusion to so-called NATO deterrent potential is, then, clearly in reference to Russia.
On November 17 the European Union's Special Representative for the South Caucasus Peter Semneby announced that the first foreign ministers meeting of the Eastern Partnership program will be held next month. He said that "The Eastern Partnership will be under the jurisdiction of a new representative for foreign affairs and security. The appointment will come after the Lisbon summit, [40] as will the creation of the new European Army Italian Foreign Minister Frattini spoke of earlier.
Participants will include the foreign ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, half - six of twelve - of the members or former members of the Commonwealth of Independent States and all those in Europe and the Caucasus except for Russia, which is not invited.
Comparable efforts to pull the five Central Asian CIS members - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - away from cooperation with Russia through a combination of an analogous EU partnership, energy project agreements and involvement in the Afghan war are also proceeding apace.
The eighteen-year-old project of Paul Wolfowitz, Zbigniew Brzezinski et al. to destroy the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States and effect a cordon sanitaire around Russia, enclosing it with NATO member states and partners, has continued uninterruptedly since 1991.
Washington will not tolerate rivals and will ruthlessly attempt to eliminate even the potential of any nation to challenge it globally or regionally. In any region of the world. Russia, because of what it was, what it is, where it is and what it has - massive reserves of oil and natural gas, a developed nuclear industry and the world's only effective strategic triad outside the U.S. - is and will remain the main focus of efforts by the United States and NATO to rid themselves of impediments to achieving uncontested global domination.
Carthage must be destroyed is the West's policy toward the former Soviet Union.
1) Eastern Partnership: The West's Final Assault On the Former Soviet Union
Stop NATO, February 13, 2009
http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/26/eastern-partnership-the-wests-final-assault-on-the-former-soviet-union
2) Georgia Online, November 9, 2009
3) Azeri Press Agency, November 10, 2009
4) Azeri Press Agency, November 12, 2009
5) Azeri Press Agency, November 17, 2009
6) Azeri Press Agency, November 16, 2009
7) Azertag, November 18, 2009
8) Azeri Press Agency, November 18, 2009
9) Azeri Press Agency, November 18, 2009
10) Azerbaijan Business Center, November 19, 2009
11) Azertag, November 20, 2009
12) Ibid
13) Ibid
14) Azeri Press Agency, November 18, 2009
15) Trend News Agency, November 18, 2009
16) Focus News Agency, November 11, 2009
17) Itar-Tass, November 12, 2009
18) Civil Georgia, November 20, 2009
19) Voice of Russia, November 20, 2009
20) Trend News Agency, November 20, 2009
21) Georgia Ministry of Defence, November 20, 2009
22) Rustavi2, November 19, 2009
23) Civil Georgia, November 18, 2009
24) Rustavi2, November 17, 2009
25) Azeri Press Agency, November 11, 2009
26) Russian Information Agency Novosti, November 11, 2009
27) Voice of Russia, November 10, 2009
28) Civil Georgia, November 14, 2009
29) Voice of Russia, November 9, 2009
30) Voice of Russia, November 13, 2009
31) Interfax-Ukraine, November 19, 2009
32) NATO, November 16, 2009
33) Reuters, November 16, 2009
34) Russian Information Agency Novosti, November 18, 2009
35) Polish Radio, November 16, 2009
36) Russian Information Agency Novosti, November 17, 2009
37) Ibid
38) Wall Street Journal, November 12, 2009
39) Reuters, November 18, 2009
40) Azertag, November 17, 2009
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