At a strategy meeting in Poland late last month he said: "I think there is broad support among allies for the balance between NATO's traditional missions of Article 5, which is collective defence, and also the need for the Alliance to deal with new security challenges around the world, and we are very comfortable with that balance." [16]
The Swedish parliament has extended the deployment of troops to Afghanistan, where Sweden is engaged in combat operations and has lost troops for the first time in two centuries, months after the government abolished the last vestige of conscription to meet NATO "professionalization" demands and announced a mandatory foreign deployment obligation for all troops.
Last week German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg visited Mongolia, which also borders China and Russia, and met "with soldiers of the first Mongolian mission contingent, which had been deployed to the German defense area in Afghanistan." [17]
Against the backdrop of President Obama's visit to Mumbai and New Delhi, reports have surfaced that India could be enlisted to provide troops for NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. Indian defense analyst Bharat Singh recently asserted that "The almost 9,000 Indian troops deployed on UN peacekeeping missions could easily be re-deployed in Afghanistan." [18]
In Bulgaria, where the Pentagon has acquired four new military bases including two air bases since 2006, Defense Minister Anyu Angelov recently stated that 7 percent of his nation's defense if it can be called that budget is allotted for the war in Afghanistan, where troop strength will rise from 536 to over 600. He also said that Bulgaria "will be setting no deadline for withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan." [19]
Nevertheless, James Warlick, U.S. ambassador to the country, spoke at a conference entitled Europe for Afghanistan: from Understanding to Support held at the Military Club in the Bulgarian capital, saying "Bulgaria could up its efforts in Afghanistan and do more." [20]
The consolidation of a far-reaching military nexus for and dependent on the Afghan war is not limited to Europe's east. Last month "A small corner of Cornwall [became] Afghanistan." At the Royal Air Force St Mawgan facility 1,000 troops from NATO's Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) participated in "a major NATO training exercise, the first of its kind in the UK" [21] in preparation for deployment to Afghanistan in January.
"The ARRC servicemen were in the county preparing for their final training before being deployed for operational service in Afghanistan next year.
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