Home » Posts tagged 'jens stoltenberg'

Tag Archives: jens stoltenberg

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg issued some shocking words over the weekend which the Kremlin will likely take as a threat. “NATO is not looking for war with Russia. But we have to prepare ourselves for a confrontation that could last decades,” he told German daily Welt am Sonntag on Saturday. His words also reflect a new emphasis and drive among NATO planners for European countries to urgently invest more heavily in defense and domestic weapons production, as is happening for example in Germany and France.

So far, defense leaders and officials from NATO countries have tended to speak about a time frame of the conflict lasting “years” – but to hear Stoltenberg tell the West it must brace for a war going on for “decades” is somewhat unprecedented.

“If Putin wins in Ukraine, there is no guarantee that Russian aggression will not spread to other countries,” Stoltenberg continued, echoing an assumption that’s been a persistent talking point out of Zelensky and his Western backers.

He urged that to prevent this future scenario, the allies must ramp up support to Ukraine and member states must invest in NATO military infrastructure. “Deterrence only works if it is credible. As long as we invest in our own security and remain united, we will continue to deter any form of aggression,” Stoltenberg said.

Interestingly the words followed on the heels of the Tucker Carlson interview with Vladimir Putin wherein the Russian leader appeared to appeal directly to the US government saying he is ‘ready’ for sincere talks to end the war. “We are willing to negotiate,” Putin had told Carlson and said in reference to the Biden administration: “You should tell the current Ukrainian leadership to stop and come to the negotiating table.”

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Russia Planning Series Of Missile Tests Amid NATO’s “Largest Military Exercise Since The Cold War”

October 31, 2018

Russia Planning Series Of Missile Tests Amid NATO’s “Largest Military Exercise Since The Cold War”

As 50,000 NATO troops mass in Scandinavia for the military alliance’s annual “Trident Juncture” military exercises, an annual affair that has been expanded to become the largest NATO exercise since the end of the Cold War in reflection of the deepening hostilities with Russia, it appears President Vladimir Putin has decided to flex some military muscle of his own.

As Radio Free Europe reports, the Russian Navy has alerted NATO that it is planning to test missiles in international waters off Norway’s coast this week. And while the missiles Russia will be testing aren’t of the hypersonic variety that Russia is planning to introduce in the coming years, NATO commanders will undoubtedly seize on Russia’s decision to help justify even more aggressive displays of military force in the future.

For what it’s worth, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg tried to play down the missile tests as part of routine activity by the Russian military.

“Russia has a sizable presence in the north, also off Norway,” Stoltenberg told the Norwegian news agency NTB.

“Large [Russian] forces take part in maneuvers and they practice regularly.”

Russian officials did not immediately comment on the planned missile tests, which come amid persistent tension between NATO and Russia, which seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and backs separatists in an ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine but accuses the alliance of provocative behavior near its borders.

A spokesman for Avinor, the organization that operates Norwegian airports and air-navigation services, told RFE that Russia had informed them about the tests in a NOTAM (a type of “routine message” to pilots about potential hazards along a flight route). The tests are set to take place between Nov. 1 and Nov. 3 west of the coastal cities of Kristiansund, Molde, and Alesund.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fate Of Key Gas Pipeline In The Balance As Putin, Merkel Begin Meeting

August 18, 2018

Fate Of Key Gas Pipeline In The Balance As Putin, Merkel Begin Meeting

“Russian influence will flow through that pipeline right into Europe, and that is what we are going to prevent,” an unnamed U.S. official told the Wall Street Journal just as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chancellor Angela Merkel meet outside of Berlin on Saturday centered on the two countries moving forward with the controversial Russian-German Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, but also involving issues from the Iran nuclear deal to ending the war in Syria.

Intense pressure from Washington is overshadowing the project, construction of which is already in advanced stages, as the WSJ citescurrent and former US officials who say sanctions are under discussion and could be mobilized in a mere matter of weeks.

These potential sanctions, ostensibly being discussed in response to US intelligence claims of Russian interference in the 2016 election,could target companies and financial firms involved in the massive pipeline’s construction.

This comes after comments from President Trump at the opening of a NATO summit in July made things uncomfortable for his German counterpart when he said that Germany is so dependent on Russia for energy that it’s essentially being “held captive” by Vladimir Putin and his government.

“Germany is captive of Russia because it is getting so much of its energy from Russia. They pay billions of dollars to Russia and we have to defend them against Russia,” Trump told NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg at a televised opening breakfast.

The pipeline has been opposed by multiple US administrations, who have long accuse the Kremlin of seeking to accrue political leverage over Europe given the latter’s already high dependence on Russian natural gas. The pipeline has been a frequent talking point and target of attacks by Trump, who has threatened to escalate the trade war against Germany going back months if it supported the construction of the pipeline.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

NATO is a Goldmine for the US/Military Industrial Complex

August 4, 2018

NATO is a Goldmine for the US/Military Industrial Complex

Photo source Parker Gyokeres | CC BY 2.0

Countries of the NATO military alliance have been ordered by President Trump to increase their spending on weapons, and the reasons for his insistence they do so are becoming clearer. It’s got nothing to do with any defense rationale, because the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, has admitted that “we don’t see any imminent threat against any NATO ally” and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) recorded in its 2018 World Report that “Russia’s military spending in 2017 was 20 per cent lower than in 2016.”

Even Radio Free Europe, the US government’s official broadcaster, acknowledged that “Russia, one of the world’s top military spenders, reduced its defense budget by 20 percent in 2016-2017 to $55.3 billion” compared, for example, to the $56.3 billion of France. As SIPRI records, “together, the European NATO members spent over 4 times more on the military in 2017 than Russia,” and Nato Watch summed it up by pointing out that the 29 US-NATO countries “collectively spent over 12 times more on the military in 2016 than Russia.”

There is demonstrably no threat whatever to any NATO country by Russia, but this is considered irrelevant in the context of US arms’ sales, which are flourishing and being encouraged to increase and multiply as a result of Congressional and Pentagon scare-mongering.

On July 12, the second and final day of the recent US-NATO pantomime gathering, Reuters reported Trump as saying that “the United States makes by far the best military equipment in the world: the best jets, the best missiles, the best guns, the best everything.” He went on “to list the top US arms makers, Lockheed Martin Corp, Boeing Co and Northrop Grumman Corp by name.”

On July 11 the Nasdaq Stock Exchange listed the stock price of Lockheed Martin at $305.68. The day after Trump’s speech, it increased to $318.37.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Lessons That Should Have Been Learned From NATO’s Destruction of Libya

July 14, 2018

Lessons That Should Have Been Learned From NATO’s Destruction of Libya

Photo by Bernd.Brincken | CC BY 2.0

The summit meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the military alliance that is expanding its deployments of troops, combat and surveillance aircraft and missile ships around Russia’s borders, took place on July 11-12 and was a farce, with Trump behaving in his usual way, insulting individuals and nations with characteristic vulgarity.

Before the jamboree, NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg (one of those selected for a Trumpian harangue), recounted in a speech on 21 June that “NATO has totally transformed our presence in Afghanistan from a big combat operation with more than 100,000 to now 16,000 troops conducting training, assisting and advising.” But then he had a bit of a rethink when he was asked a question about whether NATO had learnt any lessons that might make it think about “intervening in the future.” To give him his due, Stoltenberg replied that he thought “one of the lessons we have learned from Iraq, from Afghanistan, from Libya, is that military intervention is not always solving all problems.”

He is absolutely right about that, because the US-NATO military interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have been catastrophic.

It is intriguing that NATO’s secretary general can at last admit that military muscle doesn’t solve every problem, but he did not expand on the subject of Libya, which unhappy country was destroyed by US-NATO military intervention in 2011, and it is interesting to reflect on that particular NATO debacle, because it led directly to expansion of the Islamic State terrorist group, a prolonged civil war, a vast number of deaths, and hideous suffering by desperate refugees trying to flee from Libya across the Mediterranean.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

NATO Chief Says Recent Cyber Attack Could Spark Mutual Defense Response

June 29, 2017

NATO Chief Says Recent Cyber Attack Could Spark Mutual Defense Response

A major global cyber attack which struck particularly hard in Ukraine on Tuesday could potentially trigger NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense commitment, according to NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg.

On Tuesday, computer systems around the world were subjected to ransomware cyber attacks that spread from Ukraine and Russia, across Europe to the United States and then on to Asia.

The attack appeared to be a modification of the “WannaCry” cyber attack in May which hit more than 200,000 users in more than 150 countries.

According to NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg, the attack means that the NATO alliance must step up its defense against cyber attacks and that the military alliance’s Article 5 mutual defense commitment could potential be sparked over such an event.

Article 5 provides that if a NATO Ally is the victim of an attack, each and every other member of the Alliance will consider the attack against all members and will take the actions it deems necessary to assist the ally attacked.

Stoltenberg said the “attack in May and this week just underlines the importance of strengthening our cyber defenses and that is what we are doing.”

“We exercise more, we share best practices and technology and we also work more and more closely with all allies,” he told reporters ahead of a NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels on Thursday.

In July 2016, NATO allies reaffirmed defensive mandates and recognized cyberspace as a domain of operations in which NATO must defend itself as effectively as it does in the air, on land and at sea.

Interior Minister of Ukraine, MP Anton Gerashchenko was quick to place the fault of the attack on Russia, saying that “a huge cyber-attack at Ukrainian companies on Tuesday has been organized by Russian intelligence services and it is one of the elements of the hybrid war against Ukraine.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

NATO places 300,000 troops on high alert, ready to attack Russia over fictional “cyber attacks” and “propaganda”

November 7, 2016

NATO places 300,000 troops on high alert, ready to attack Russia over fictional “cyber attacks” and “propaganda”

NATO a preparing a military force of up to 300,000 personnel, capable of being deployed within just two months to attack Russia.

As the world remains fixated on the outcome of Tuesday’s US elections, NATO continues its aggressive troop build up around Russia.

With each passing day, the constant NATO activity is looking more and more like a preparation for full scale conflict with Russia. Something that would become a very real possibility should Hillary Clinton make it to the White House.

Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg announced that NATO member nations are at this very moment putting hundreds of thousands of troops in a state of high alert, in an effort to deter the fantasy threat from Russia.

Stoltenberg said…

“We have seen Russia being much more active in many different ways.”

“We have seen a more assertive Russia implementing a substantial military build-up over many years; tripling defence spending since 2000 in real terms; developing new military capabilities; exercising their forces and using military force against neighbours.”

“We have also seen Russia using propaganda in Europe among NATO allies and that is exactly the reason why NATO is responding. We are responding with the biggest reinforcement of our collective defence since the end of the Cold War.”

The UK’s Examiner reports…

Adam Thomson, the outgoing permanent representative to Nato, estimates that at present, it would take the military alliance 180 days to deploy a force of 300,000, and that speeding up this rate is of top importance.

The measures come in response to Russia flexing its military might abroad, allegedly conducting cyber attacks on Washington and holding nuclear war drills at home.

Last week, Moscow was seen as deliberately antagonising Nato by sending hundreds of paratroopers to a Serbian airbase despite Nato holding disaster relief exercises just 150 miles away in Montenegro.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

NATO as a War-Racket

April 10, 2016

NATO as a War-Racket

NATO Causes Refugees, Then Uses Them As Excuse for More Invasions

NATO is the anti-Russia military club of nations, even after the communist Soviet Union and its military club against the U.S., the Warsaw Pact, ended in 1991 — NATO didn’t reciprocate that by ending itself, as it should have done (and would have done if the U.S. President at the time, George Herbert Walker Bush, had had any basic decency; instead, he said in private, “To hell with that; we won, they didn’t!” but he continued telling Gorbachev that NATO wouldn’t move “one inch to the east” — which promise he was planning to violate, and which his successors have been violating).

With the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact gone, NATO’s claimed raison d’etre was also gone, but NATO shamelessly continued on, and it even has expanded right up to Russia’s borders (just try to imagine what John Fitzgerald Kennedy would have thought if it hadn’t been Soviet nuclear missiles merely in Cuba in 1962, but all surrounding the U.S. — and that’s the situation today but reversed: today’s Russia is in the situation of 1962’s U.S., but even more so, though NATO has the audacity to accuse Russia of ‘aggression’ for, essentially, defending itself from NATO — from the enemies that are increasingly surrounding it!). (Yes, what America has been doing, really, is that bad.)

On April 6th, NATO’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (son of Norway’s Defense Minister) said that NATO must now expand outside Europe and North America:

Millions fleeing the region in a humanitarian crisis of a magnitude not seen since World War Two.Terrorist groups like ISIL taking hold of ungoverned spaces. And spreading violence across the region and beyond. Inciting attacks on our streets. From Brussels to Istanbul, Paris to San Bernardino. These are attacks on our open societies. On the values we share.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“We Are In A New Cold War”: Russia PM Delivers Stark Warning To NATO

February 13, 2016

“We Are In A New Cold War”: Russia PM Delivers Stark Warning To NATO

It was just two days ago when Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev warned that if Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar invade Syria in a transparent attempt to shore up their Sunni proxy armies currently under siege by Moscow’s warplanes and Hezbollah, a “new world war” would be inevitable.

He also indicated that such a conflict would likely drag on for “decades.”

“Do they really think they would win such a war very quickly? That’s impossible, especially in the Arabic world,” Medvedev said. “There everyone is fighting against everyone… everything is far more complicated. It could take years or decades.”

On Saturday, Medvedev was back at it with the hyperbole (or at least we hope it’s hyperbole) in Munich where more than 60 foreign and defense ministers are gathered for the 52nd Munich Security Conference. In his speech, the PM challenged NATO’s military maneuvers in the Baltics as well as the alliance’s general approach towards relations with The Kremlin.

“The political line of NATO toward Russia remains unfriendly and closed,” he said in a speech to the conference. “It can be said more sharply: We have slid into a time of a new cold war.”

“NATO on Wednesday approved new reinforcements for eastern Europe, including stepped-up troop rotations on its eastern flanks and more naval patrols in the Baltic Sea,” Bloomberg notes. “In response, the Kremlin dismissed the alliance’s argument that the move was merely defensive.”

“Russia’s rhetoric, posture and exercises of its nuclear forces are aimed at intimidating its neighbors, undermining trust and stability in Europe,” NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg told the conference earlier. “We strive for a more constructive and more cooperative relationship with Russia.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Russia Slams US/NATO Attempts To Draw It Into Military Conflict With Ukraine

January 21, 2015

Russia Slams US/NATO Attempts To Draw It Into Military Conflict With Ukraine

NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg unleashed the latest tirade against Russia this morning proclaiming – though offering no proof – that there are Russian forces and heavy equipment in Ukraine and a high number of Russian forces on the border which “doesn’t contribute to a peaceful solution.” Apparently pre-empting this outburst, Pravda reports Anatoly Tsyganok, director of the Military Forecasting Centre, exclaims, “Ukraine reiterates that Russia is in the war, but it’s not true,” adding that in fact “the USA and the NATO have artificial satellites continuously circulating above this territory and control the situation,” concluding with a jab at The US & NATO that “Russia has never participated in the military conflict. And no attempt to involve Russia in the conflict will be crowned with success.”

Putin offered a peace plan but it was rejected…As Reuters reports,

Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko rejected a peace plan proposed to him last week by his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday evening, according to Russian media.

Peskov said the plan, contained in a letter sent by Putin on Thursday evening, proposed a ceasefire by both government forces and separatist militiamen in southeastern Ukraine, as well as the withdrawal of heavy artillery by both sides.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tag Archives: jens stoltenberg

Content

Post categories

Economic Links

Energy/Resource Links

Environmental Links

Geopolitical Links

Liberty Links

News Links

Other Links

Survival Skills

Post Archives by Category

Latest Posts