NATO's War Plans For The High North

Scandinavia and the Baltic Sea
by Rick Rozoff

Global Research, June 14, 2009

Stop NATO

Since the beginning of the year the United States and NATO have repeatedly indicated in both word and deed their intention to lay claim to and extend their military presence in what they refer to as the High North: The Arctic Circle and the waters connecting with it, the Barents and the Norwegian Seas, as well as the Baltic.

Washington issued National Security Presidential Directive 66 on January 12, 2009 which includes the bellicose claim that "The United States has broad and fundamental national security interests in the Arctic region [which] include such matters as missile defense and early warning; deployment of sea and air systems for strategic sealift, strategic deterrence, maritime presence, and maritime security operations." [1] Later in the same month the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] held a two-day Seminar on Security Prospects in the High North in the capital of Iceland attended by the bloc's secretary general and its top military commanders.

This coordinated initiative has been covered in a previous article in this series [2] and plans by the West to encroach on Arctic territory and confront Russia in the western region of the ocean have been addressed in another. [3]

Over the past month efforts by NATO member states, individually and collectively, to increase their military presence and warfighting ability in the High North have accelerated dramatically.



Sweden: NATO's Testing Ground And Battleground

The alarming and aggressive campaign is exemplified by the ongoing 10-day Loyal Arrow 2009 NATO military exercises being conducted in Sweden, described by a major American daily newspaper as "A NATO rapid-reaction force...on a war footing in Swedish Lapland" which consists of "Ten countries, 2,000 troops, a strike aircraft carrier, and 50 fighter jets -  including the US Air Force's F-15 Eagle...participating in war games near contested Arctic territories."

The same source reflects that "Choosing this place for war games reflects the growing strategic importance of the Arctic, which is estimated to contain a quarter of the Earth's oil and gas...." [4]

A NATO website offers these details:

"Ten NATO and non-NATO nations will participate in the live flying exercise LAW 09 in Sweden from 8 to 18 June 2009. Some 50 fast jets, which will be based at Norrbotten Wing, Sweden will participate in the exercise. The aim of the exercise is to train units and selected parts of the NATO Response Force Joint Force Air Component Headquarters in the coordination and conduct of air operations. Additionally, NATO Airborne Warning and Control (AWACS) aircraft, as well as other transport aircraft and helicopters, will support the exercise. Some of the participating units will be flying in from bases in Norway and Finland.

"The exercise is based upon a fictitious scenario. Within this scenario, elements of the NATO Response Force (NRF)...will be deployed to a theatre of operations. The NRF was created to provide the Alliance with an effective tool to face the new security threats of the 21st century. It is a rapidly deployable, multinational and joint force with modern equipment able to carry out the full range of Alliance missions whenever and wherever needed, as tasked by the North Atlantic Council.

"About 800-900 troops from Germany, Finland, the United Kingdom, Italy, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Turkey and the United States as well as NATO’s airborne early warning component will participate." [5]

US Air Force personnel flew in from the US-used base in Mildenhall, England and "Air and ground crews from United States Air Forces in Europe joined military units from about 10 other nations June 8...." [6]

The war games are based in the Bothnian Bay in the Northern Baltic Sea and are the largest display of air power in the area's history.

On the first day of the exercises, June 8, it was reported that "The NATO-led air force drill Loyal Arrow started in Northern Sweden today. The British aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious [with 1,000 soldiers] reached the Bothnia Bay. 50 airplanes and 2,000 persons, aircraft carrier personnel included, from ten countries will take part in what will be the biggest air force drill ever in the Finnish-Swedish Bothnia Bay." [7]

Sweden's Lulea airbase and Norway's at Bodo and Finland's at Oulu are being employed for the NATO war games.

Loyal Arrow is centered on a "fictitious scenario" in which "the NATO Response Force (NRF) [is] deployed to a theatre of operations, Lapistan.

"Lapistan is a fictitious undemocratic, unstable country that is ruled by a military clique which hosts terrorist training camps. The exercise's scenario is centered over a conflict over oil and natural gas with Bothnia, a fictitious neighboring NATO country, with some presence of nearby neutral fictitious countries Nordistan and Suomia, who refer to Norway and Finland, respectively." [8]

As the war games were getting underway Stefan Lindgren, vice chairman of Afghan Solidarity in Sweden, filed a complaint with the official ombudsman for discrimination matters and stated that the NATO exercise was both a defamation of the Sami people and also Muslims in Sweden. The "istan" ending reveals a mental connection with NATO's war in Afghanistan.

The indigenous people of the region, the Sami, protested against the racist term "Laps" - forbidden in Sweden - and also against the description of the exercise. [9]

A mainstream newspaper elaborated on the controversy in reporting that "The main indigenous people of Northern Sweden, the Sami, are discontented with the fact that the 'enemy nation' in the exercise's scenario is called 'Lapistan' and have joined the protesters against NATO in the demonstrations. The name is invented by NATO and resembles the derogatory term for Sami people, 'Lapps'". [10]

The American Christian Science Monitor followed up on the story on June 11 with the following quotes:

"'These exercises increase the risk of a conflict,' says Anna Ek, head of Sweden's Peace and Arbitration Society. 'They send out offensive and aggressive signals. Should we really be planning for a conflict with Russia while there is still a window of opportunity for cooperation in the Arctic?'

"'Neither the Parliament nor the defense committee were informed about the size of this exercise,' says Peter Radberg, a Green Party member of Parliament. 'It looks like a serious attempt to market NATO in Sweden....It risks causing a military escalation in a region where we should be disarming.'" [11]

As the first excerpt reveals, not only were the security, livestock and the very status of the Sami people of northern Sweden endangered, but Loyal Arrow 2009, in conjunction with other military exercises and initiatives to be examined later, is directly targeted against Russia, NATO's only challenger in its drive into and for domination over the Arctic.

The NATO Out of Sweden group organized activities in Lulea (the site of the Swedish airbase used in the drills) and demonstrated against NATO's use of Norrbotten County as a training ground and firing range for prospective actions at home and abroad.

The organization's Anna-Karin Gudmundson said, "This [exercise] can be perceived as very provocative. The Barents region with its proximity to the Arctic makes it a sensitive area. With all the talk about melting ice and the fight over natural resources this can look like a demonstration of power from NATO's side." [12]

Ofog, another Swedish peace group, announced on June 8 that it was deploying activists to a bombing range near the Vidsel Air Base in Norrbotten to "stop the preparation of war crimes" and to "prevent NATO from bombing the area further." [13]

The group issued a press release that said "Just like NATO we will be in the air, on the land and in the sea. We will do everything in our power to show NATO that their business is hideous and deadly.

"NATO is not a defensive alliance. It is the world's largest nuclear weapons club and war machine." [14]

On the second day of the exercises, June 10th, five members of Ofog were arrested after penetrating the bombing range.

Six more members were arrested as the NATO bombing continued and one of the Ofog activists at the range, Miriam Cordts, said: "NATO is the world's biggest war machine and nuclear weapons club. This aerial exercise in northern Sweden is their largest this year and is designed to make the NATO Response Force even more able to attack wherever they want. 90% of those who are killed in NATO's wars are civilians. It is our responsibility as human beings to do all we can to stop this exercise.” [15]

The Ofog activists' intention was to bring a halt to the bombing with their presence, but the NATO exercise continued.

A spokesman for the group commented, "We know that NATO bombs civilians, but this is the first time they have threatened to bomb civilians in Sweden” [16]

Sweden, though not yet a full member of NATO, is hosting the exercises through obligations to the Alliance's Partnership for Peace program and in doing so advancing ever closer to complete NATO integration despite opposition by the majority of Swedes.

Sweden In NATO: Neutrality Is Past Tense

The groundwork for Sweden's incorporation into NATO has been methodically planned for years.
     
In mid-May Member of Parliament and Liberal Party foreign policy spokesperson Birgitta Ohlsson stated that "For me, and for the Liberal Party (Folkpartiet), it is more evident than ever before that Sweden should be a member of NATO. Political parties can't just follow public opinion, they have to influence it too - and isolationism is very passe." [17]

Shortly thereafter the nation's defense minister, Sten Tolgfors, announced the "biggest restructuring of Sweden's armed forces in modern times" and that "Sweden will, for the first time in many decades, have one defense organization."

What he meant was defined more clearly when he added, "Today, we have a force with one organization for national use, based on a conscript system, and another for international use, based on standing units.

"We will reform our defense based on the lessons we learned from our lead-nation position with the Nordic Battle Group. We will have a battle-group-based defense in the future.

"We have built the Nordic Battle Group together. We are together with Finland in Afghanistan."

That Afghanistan wasn't the only rationale behind Sweden's increased militarization and integration into NATO structures was revealed when Tolgfors, while speaking of the Loyal Arrow exercises in June, said, "Russia has certainly raised its tone of voice over the last couple of years...." [18]

Two days later he visited NATO Headquarters in Brussels where he met with Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and "briefed the Secretary General on the upcoming transformation of Sweden's defence capabilities, which should make Swedish forces more efficient, more deployable and more capable of conducting international operations." [19]
   
Four days before NATO launched the Loyal Arrow war games, Sweden's ambassador to France, Gunnar Lund, "speaking on behalf of Sweden's foreign minister Carl Bildt," promoted the use of a five-nation Nordic contingent of the European Union's battle groups (to function under NATO's lead through the Berlin Plus and related agreements) in saying "On the military side, I would like to draw your attention to the use of battle groups - a potentially very useful tool to the support of international peace and security."   

The Swedish government regretted that the EU hadn't earlier employed the Nordic battle group - with forces from Sweden, Finland, Norway, Ireland and Estonia - and "did not give the green light to sending it to Chad and the Central African Republic last year." [20]

(Sweden, Finland and Ireland are three-fifths of Europe's remaining - nominal - neutral nations, the other two being Switzerland and Austria. All five have now deployed military contingents of varying sizes to serve under NATO in the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. In Switzerland a peace group, Switzerland without an Army, "accus[ing] the government of trying to move neutral Switzerland to the NATO military alliance," recently turned in over 100,000 signatures - the amount required to introduce legislation in the parliament - to the federal government against a proposed purchase of new fighter jets, to insure NATO interoperability.)

1,300 Kilometer Border With Russia: NATO Integrates Finland

Last month a meeting of the Nordic Defence Ministerial [the defense chiefs of Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway and Iceland; there is also a joint Nordic-Baltic Defence Ministerial) occurred in Finland where the defense ministries of the five nations "discussed security developments in Northern Europe and exchanged views on the ongoing national defence transformation processes" and "evaluated common challenges in Africa and Afghanistan."

"The ministers discussed developments in the High North and possibilities for Nordic cooperation there.

"Similarly, they analyzed possibilities for enhanced Nordic cooperation in the Baltic Sea." [21]

This came shortly after "Former Norwegian foreign minister Thorvald Stoltenberg...concluded in a report on Nordic defence cooperation that the five Nordic countries should strengthen security cooperation in the Arctic...." [22]

Less than a week later US Air Force pilots were in Finland to train their counterparts in air refueling procedures of the sort used for long-distance missions and warfare.

According to the operations officer of the Finnish Air Force's 21st Fighter Squadron, "a captain who asked to remain anonymous due to government policy," the week-long exercises with Navy F-18 Hornets and an Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker, "help[ed] the squadron, and the service as a whole, meet a government requirement to be able to deploy outside Finland to support NATO forces. Although Finland is not a member of NATO, it is a part of the organization's Partnership of Peace program, which USAFE [U.S. Air Forces in Europe] also supports.

"This opens our eyes to a much wider operating area."
 
The report from which the above comes informed readers that "It's the first time U.S. Air Forces in Europe has deployed a tanker team to Finland for an air-to-air refueling operation." [23]

On May 25 of this year the Finnish foreign trade and development minister, Paavo Vayrynen of the Centre Party, said his party's partner in the ruling coalition, the conservative National Coalition Party, "had mounted a sustained campaign to mould public opinion behind NATO membership." [24]

Similar initiatives, concerted and surreptitious, to drag nations into NATO against the will of a clear majority of their populations are underway in Sweden and Cyrpus, inter alia.

From June 1-4 NATO's Allied Command Transformation (ACT), based in Norfolk, Virginia, and the Finnish Defence Forces conducted a NPETN [NATO & Partners' Education and Training Portal] in Helsinki.

A Turkish air force colonel assigned to NPETN described the program as "basically a human network that provides a venue to the members
including the NATO Defense College, Joint Warfare Centre, Joint Force Training Centre, NATO School, NATO Communications and Information Systems School, NATO Maritime Interdiction Operational Training Centre, NATO Centres of Excellence, and NATO and Partner Nation's military education and training centres." [25]

The three-day conference wasn't a bilateral affair between NATO's headquarters in the United States and Finland, however, as it took in nations from no fewer than five continents.

"For the first time in conference history, a representative from Australia, a NATO Contact Country, will attend the discussions."

The same Turkish NATO representative quoted earlier said, "The conference gives us the opportunity to reach our goals because we will have more input from our Partner Nations, representatives from NATO, Partnership for Peace (PfP), Mediterranean Dialogue (MD), and Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI), Contact Countries (CC)." [26]

With NATO's 28 full members, 25 Partnership for Peace candidates, seven members of the Mediterranean Dialogue, six of the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative [the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council) and several Contact Countries like Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, etc., the number adds up to nearly a third of the 192 nations in the world.

On the day after the NATO conference in Finland's capital ended, the nation's police arrested six peace activists for painting NATO symbols in - blood - red on the walls of the Finnish Defence Command headquarters in Helsinki.

The group, Muurinmurtajat, released a statement saying "it wanted to draw attention to how the practical work of bringing Finland militarily closer to NATO is being done at the Defence Command." [27]

Five days later the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Finland on defense technology.

"Finland is a long-standing participant in the NATO Partnership for Peace programme with a strong track record of contributing to NATO missions and exercises.

"Sweden was the first partner country to sign a similar agreement with NC3A in 2007." [28] On the same day the Finnish armed forces began "their largest military exercise in decades."

Maanvyory 2009 (Landslide 2009) includes "18,000 service men, including 7,000 reservists from all three branches of the service." [29]

Norway: NATO Moves Its Military Into The Arctic

On June 2nd it was announced that Norway will move its Operational Command Headquarters from the south of the nation at Stavanger north to Reitan outside Bodo, "thus making Norway the first country to move its military command leadership to the Arctic."

"The move is in line with the Government's increased focus on the northern regions. With the new location above the Arctic Circle, Norway's supreme operational command will gain first hand contact with all questions concerning the High North." [30]

During a meeting of NATO parliamentarians in Oslo from May 22-26 NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer held meetings with Prime Minister Stoltenberg, Foreign Minister Store and Defence Minister Strom-Erichsen and had an audience with King Harald V. "Discussions focused on NATO's post-summit agenda, including the upcoming update of the Alliance Strategic Concept, relations with Russia and new security challenges facing Allies." [31]

At the same meeting of NATO parliamentarians Norwegian cabinet members told the participants that "NATO should increase its role in the High North," with State Secretary for Defence Espen Barth Eide insisting "that the High North should be addressed by the next reorganisation of the NATO command structure...." [32]

Norwegian Ambassador to NATO, Kim Traavik, escorted the ambassadors of five fellow NATO countries on a "study trip" to the north of the country after the parliamentarian meeting ended to inspect the site of the intended future conflict.

A week before, Norwegian Minister of Defence Anne-Grete Strom- Erichsen "outlined the importance of shaping a common position in defence and security matters concerning the High North. The Minister particularly called for 'strengthening the relevance of NATO.' Considering Russia's recent push in its military and economic spheres in the Arctic Sea, Strom-Erichsen sees a worrying potential for a possible destabilisation in the region." [33]

The defense chief in her own words:

"The Alliance is at the core of the security and defence strategies of all but one Arctic Ocean state. It therefore cannot avoid defining its role in the area. The challenge will be to devise policies that address fundamental Western security interests...." [34]

At the current time NATO's Allied Command Transformation is conducting a CWID [Coalition Warrior Interoperability Demonstration] in Lillehammer, Norway from June 1-26 "with particular emphasis on those that would be deployed with NATO-led operations such as Article 5 Response, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Active Endeavour, Kosovo Force or within a NATO Response Force (NRF)...." [35]

An Article 5 response means activating NATO's collective military assistance provision as has been done with the nearly eight-year-old Afghan war.

On June 6th it was reported that Norway had established an historical record in arms exports and that "Most of the export of Norwegian defence material goes to NATO member nations and to Sweden and Finland." [36]

Further Encroachment On Russia: NATO In The Baltic Sea

It was reported late last month that NATO would continue its rotational air patrols over Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania until at least 2020. [37] As has been mentioned by Russian officials, the NATO warplanes involved are a five-minute flight from Russia's second largest city of St. Petersburg.

The Baltic Eagle NATO Response Force (NRF-14) multinational exercise is being conducted from June 2-18 in the Adazi Military Area in Latvia to prepare the Baltic Battalion of Latvian, Estonian and Lithuanian armed forces "to test the combat readiness level of the unit."

"According to the exercise scenario, the troops will deploy into the region of a military conflict and will conduct a wide scale of operations....A significant number of modern weaponry and equipment, including third generation Spike anti-tank guided missiles, modern heavy SISU 8x8 multi purpose transporters, SISU armored personnel carriers, personal assault rifles G36, and others, will be used in the exercise...."

The Baltic Battalion is a component of the NATO Response Force which in turn "is a highly ready and technologically advanced force of the Alliance made up of land, air, sea and special forces components that can deploy quickly wherever needed. It is self-sustainable and capable of performing missions worldwide across the whole spectrum of operations." [38]

During the same period the US Navy is has been leading the annual Baltic Operations (BALTOPS) exercises in the region.

"Maritime forces from 12 countries will participate in the largest multinational naval exercise this year in the Baltic Sea June 8-19.

"The Baltic Operations (BALTOPS) exercise is an annual event aimed at improving interoperability and cooperation among regional allies" and this years includes naval forces from the US, Britain, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland and Sweden." [39]

Present are US Rear Adm. John N. Christenson, commander of the Carrier Strike Group 12, and Swedish Rear Adm. Anders Grenstad, commander of the Maritime Component Command and "the Swedish equivalent of the U.S. Navy's chief of naval operations." [40]

Five days before BALTOPS 2009 began, the USS Mount Whitney - the flagship of the US Navy's Sixth Fleet and the command and control ship for the Commander Joint Command Lisbon and the Commander Striking Force NATO, deployed against Russia in the Black Sea after last August's Caucasus war - arrived off the coast of Lithuania and hosted American expatriate and current Lithuanian president Valdas Adamkus.

The latter used the occasion to affirm that "On behalf of the entire nation, the Mount Whitney's presence is significant to the entire country. It shows respect, provides additional strength and belief to fight for their commitment, but most importantly, the solidarity of the NATO community."

The US commander responded with, "I would like to publicly thank Lithuania for their [sic] support in Kosovo, Iraq, and especially Afghanistan." [41]

German Navy, Air Force Return To Neighborhood Of Leningrad

German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung toured the Baltics last week and met with his Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian counterparts to "discuss...pressing issues within NATO and the European Union" and to "strengthen the well-functioning security relations with the three Baltic states." [42]

German warplanes are to take over the NATO Baltic patrol later this year, which is sure to conjure up memories among those in St. Petersburg old enough to have survived the 900-day siege of the city when it was Leningrad.

As is the arrival of the German navy recently. "A German auxiliary repair ship, one of 10 German units, provides support to more than 40 allied ships participating in [the] Baltic Operations exercise 2009 here...." [43]

NATO's Main Base On The Baltic: Poland

In mid-May a senior Polish defense official stated that "Poland expects a U.S. Patriot battery to be deployed on its soil in 2009 regardless of whether President Barack Obama opts to press ahead with missile defence plans in Europe" and urged NATO "not to neglect potential security threats closer to home in Europe and...expressed [the Polish government's] willingness to host alliance infrastructure." [44]

Washington was quick to oblige: "The U.S. Department of State has confirmed that the Patriot missile battery will be deployed in Poland regardless of what happens with plans for the missile shield system." [45]

Three days later the Financial Times reported that in relation to the Pentagon stationing Patriot missiles in Poland "talks were on track for the completion of final agreements in July, followed by a deployment of 100-110 US soldiers and 196 missiles by the year-end."

Polish Deputy Defense Minister Stanislaw Komorowski was quoted as saying, "This will be the first time US soldiers are stationed on Polish soil, other than those who come under NATO control, on exercises for example....This will be symbolic for Poland." [46]

In early June Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk affirmed "that Poland had not changed its mind about the U. S. anti-missile shield," [47] specifically the stationing of 10 American ground-based interceptor missiles in Redzikowo, northern Poland, site of a former Nazi German Luftwaffe airbase, another historical parallel that should make any informed and sensible Russian nervous.

Late last week Polish government spokesman Pawel Gras said that "the bilateral agreement on the deployment of a U.S.-sponsored anti-missile shield in Poland provided for the delivery of a combat-ready battery" and that planned US Patriot missiles would be "armed and stationed permanently." [48]

On the same day Poland's Defense Minister Bogdan Klich "announced that NATO will locate the Joint Battle Command Centre in Bydgoszcz, northern Poland, following a decision by defense ministers at a NATO meeting in Brussels." [49] The Joint Battle Command Centre will be added to the NATO Joint Forces Training Centre already in Bydgoszcz.

The meeting of NATO defense chiefs was held in Brussels on June 11 and included the defense ministers of all 28 NATO and 22 partner states; the heads of fifty national militaries discussed the war in Afghanistan, the occupation of the Serbian province of Kosovo, naval operations off the coast of Somalia and the Georgian-Russian conflict in the South Caucasus.

The defense chiefs of half a hundred nations not only discussed military operations in three continents but in addition "members of the Nuclear Planning Group held consultations on key current issues related to the Alliance’s nuclear policy." [50]

The central component of NATO's 21st Century new Strategic Concept currently being crafted is a continuation and intensification of the bloc's drive east and Poland is marked for a large share of its military deployments and infrastructure.

Poland's Defense Minister Klich "highlight[ed] the fact that NATO has decided to heavily invest in Poland by modernizing military infrastructure including air and sea bases."

The sea bases will be on the Baltic and the air bases within easy striking distance of Russia and its two largest cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Klich offered details on the plans decided upon by NATO last Thursday in revealing that "The Alliance has made the decision to open a new NATO cell, a new joint regiment within NATO. According to the decision, commanders from three regiments will be located in Bydgoszcz."

"In Bydgoszcz, we will have the permanent commanders of the battalion and other components: one of the six joint mobile modules, a security component and logistics and support operators." [51] The unit stationed in Poland will be composed of approximately 200 NATO soldiers.

Several days earlier Klich invited the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and Russia's neighbor Ukraine to join a collective international expeditionary brigade, for alleged peacekeeping operations.

"The Polish defense minister...said that the talks dealt with Ukraine's cooperation with NATO and the European Union, as well as the countries' role in military operations, including Ukrainian servicemen's participation in operations in Afghanistan....The parties also discussed assistance to Ukraine in its efforts to join NATO....

"Ukrainian and Polish defense ministers Yuriy Yekhanurov and Bogdan Klich have invited the Baltic states to join the initiative on the formation of a joint peacekeeping brigade." [52]

The First American War Against Russia In The Arctic: Lessons Learned And Not Learned

From May 11-21 NATO held the twice-annual Joint Warrior war games - Europe's largest military exercise - off the coast of Scotland in the North Sea, which connects with the Norwegian Sea bordering the Arctic Ocean.

"More than 20 warships, 75 aircraft and hundreds of personnel were tested in various scenarios" including one in which "a task group of 33 ships and French marines were sent into the fictitious Northern Dispute Zone to tackle the 'Dragonians' who had been harassing the 'Caledonians and Avalonians.

"Soldiers, sailors and air crews from Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and the US were also involved." [53]

According to the same source the autumn Joint Warrior exercises will be extended from two to three weeks this year.

Regarding American participation in last month's drills, "USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51), USS Porter (DDG 78), USS Philippine Sea (CG 58), USNS Kanawha (T-AO 193), and COMDESRON 24 took part in the scenario-driven engagement, along with vessels from nine other members of the North American Treaty Organization (NATO). [The Joint warrior] exercise [is] expected to increase fleet efficiency and battle readiness for U.S. and allied navies alike." [54]

On the other end of the Arctic, from June 15-26 the US will conduct operation Northern Edge 2009 in Alaska which will include "More than 200 aircraft, including B-52s, F-16s and Blackhawk helicopters....In addition, the USS John C. Stennis and its carrier strike group will be operating out of the Gulf of Alaska during the exercises. The nuclear-powered supercarrier has an air wing of more than 70 aircraft and a crew of 5,000 sailors." [55]

In a feature from a newspaper in the state of Michigan on May 28th, a review of a documentary film included this commentary on a US military unit deployed to Russia's Arctic region in the ending days of World War I:

"[The] Polar Bear Expedition saw some 5,500 soldiers sent to Archangel, Russia, near the Arctic Circle, in September 1918, just two months before the armistice would end the war. The expedition took shape after the 1917 Russian Revolution, when Russia signed a separate peace with Germany and pulled out of the war.

"At the urging of Winston Churchill - then in the British war office - President Woodrow Wilson...agreed to furnish troops to support the anti-Communist White Russian army. The Americans and some Canadians, who thought they were headed to France, were placed under British command."

US Senator Carl Levin was present for the screening of the documentary and told the audience, "There are lessons to be learned in history; there are lessons here....The lesson is we must be clear in our mission." [56]

There are lessons indeed. US troops fought on Russian soil and ended up on the losing side. This is not the lesson that Levin and the political and military leadership of NATO countries as a whole have learned and so risk repeating them on a far grander and more dangerous scale.

Notes:

1) National Security Presidential Directive 66    
   http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-66.htm 
2) NATO's, Pentagon's New Strategic Battleground: The Arctic
   http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/37104
3) Canada: Battle Line In East-West Conflict Over The Arctic
   http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/39795
4) Christian Science Monitor, June 11, 2009
5) Allied Air Component Command HQ Ramstein, April 9, 2009
6) U.S. Air Forces in Europe, June 8, 2009
7) Barents Observer, June 8, 2009
8) "Lapistan" inte bra sager Nato, Norrbottens-Kuriren via Wikipedia
9) Aftonbladet, June 5 by way of Stefan Lindgren
10) Barents Observer, June 8, 2009
11) Christian Science Monitor, June 11, 2009
12) Sveriges Radio via Barents Observer, June 8, 2009
13) The Local, June 10, 2009
14) The Local, June 8, 2009
15) From Agneta Norberg
16) Ibid
17) The Local, May 12, 2009
18) Defense News, May 17, 2009
19) NATO International, May 19, 2009
20) Agence France-Presse, June 3, 2009
21) Defense Professionals, May 13, 2009
22) Barents Observer, May 12, 2009
23) U.S. Air Forces in Europe, May 18, 2009
24) NewsRoom Finland, May 25, 2009
25) NATO International, Allied Command Transformation, May 29, 2009
26) Ibid
27) Helsinki Times, June 4, 2009
28) NATO International, June 9, 2009
29) Finnish Broadcasting Company, June 9, 2009
30) Barents Observer, June 2, 2009
31) NATO International, May 26, 2009
32) Jane's Defence Weekly, June 1, 2009
33) Norwegian Ministry of Defence, May 14, 2009
34) Ibid
35) NATO International, Allied Command Transformation, May 18, 2009
36) Norway Post, June 6, 2009
37) Defense News, May 28, 2009
38) Lithuania Ministry of National Defence, May 28, 2009
39) U.S. Naval Forces Europe, Navy NewsStand, June 6, 2009
40) Ibid
41) United States European Command, June 3, 2009
42) United Press International, June 9, 2009
43) U.S. Naval Forces Europe, June 11, 2009
44) Reuters, May 18, 2009
45) Warsaw Voice, June 3, 2009
46) Financial Times, May 21, 2009
47) Trend News Agency, June 3, 2009
48) Xinhua News Agency, June 12, 2009
49) Polish Radio, June 12, 2009
50) NATO International, June 11, 2009
51) Polish Radio, June 12, 2009
52) Interfax-Ukraine, May 29, 2009
53) BBC News, May 22, 2009
54) United States Navy, Navy Newsstand, May 22, 2009
55) Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, June 12, 2009
56) Hometown Life, May 28, 2009

End of Scandinavian Neutrality: NATO's Militarization Of Europe

by Rick Rozoff

Global Research, April 11, 2009

Stop NATO

There was a noble if naive expectation that with the effective dissolution of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact in 1989 and even more so with its formal dismantling and the breakup of the Soviet Union itself into fifteen new countries two years later that an era of peace in the world and demilitarization of the European continent was dawning.

The peace might not be a just one, leaving the major Western military and economic powers in charge of the planet, but peace of a sort - any sort -  seemed preferable to a continued state of armed, which meant nuclear, confrontation, some thought.

Hopes and talk abounded of a global peace dividend, with hundreds of billions of dollars and pounds, marks and francs and rubles hitherto expended on the production of weapons, the maintenance of armies and the prosecution of wars to be allotted to civilian production and to basic human needs in Europe, North America and throughout the world, especially its most underdeveloped and desperately needy nations.

The past twenty years, even the very first year of that double decade, 1989, proved that perspective wrong, tragically wrong, wrong in every particular.

With a diminished and all-but-dead Warsaw Pact and an internally weakened and infinitely compliant Soviet Union in 1989, the US felt free to invade Panama in late December of that year; the German Democratic Republic was incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany - and NATO - the following year; and in January of 1991 the United States, acting on the so-called Carter Doctrine, launched Operation Desert Storm, a series of devastating and deadly attacks on Iraqi forces in Kuwait and on Iraq itself, with the assistance of local client states and NATO allies Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Turkey, Portugal, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, Greece, the Netherlands and Norway. The only NATO nations not participating were diminutive Iceland and Luxembourg.

In March of 1991, six days after the war ended, then US President Bush H.W. Bush described the results of Operation Desert Storm and of the soon-to-be post-Cold War period: "Now, we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the very real prospect of a new world order."

The new global order had no room for either peace or disarmament. It never intended that either should ever prevail.

Had the unified Germany of 1990 announced its withdrawal from both NATO and the by then largely fictitious Warsaw Pact, disbanded its redundant armed forces and thereby provided a precedent and model for a genuine new international order, matters may have proceeded otherwise.

After all, the Warsaw Pact was formed six years after NATO was and then only in response to West Germany being taken into the bloc earlier in 1955 with most of the military-industrial potential inherited from a Nazi Third Reich defeated only ten years before.

But the Europe Whole And Free (1), the title of a speech delivered by Bush in the West German city of Mainz on May 31, 1989 - the catchphrase still routinely used to this day by major American officials, most recently by current president Obama in first trip to NATO headquarters last week - envisioned in Washington and Western European capitals didn't include a demilitarized Germany and Europe or a peaceful world.

Neither would it brook neutrality or non-alignment.

Over the past twenty years not only the former East Germany but all Warsaw Pact members outside of the Soviet Union have been taken into NATO: the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland in 1999 and Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia five years later. (Albania, which left the Warsaw Pact in 1961, was brought into NATO less than a week ago.) In addition, in 2004 three former Soviet Republics - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - were incorporated and in the same year the beginning of the full integration of ex-Yugoslav republics was marked by Slovenia's accession.

Far from the disappearance of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union leading to either the abolition or shrinking of NATO, the end of both, the alleged opposition to which was for decades NATO's raison d'etre, rather unleashed the Alliance to become an expansionist and now international military power.

One which has expanded from an original twelve members to sixteen at the end of the Cold War to twenty eight as of last Saturday; one which has through collective or individual partnerships formal military arrangements with and commitments from over sixty nations, a third of the those in the world; members and partners in five of the world's seven continents, only uninhabited Antarctica and South American so far not ensnared in the bloc's worldwide nexus; and one which in 2005 conducted "eight simultaneous operations on four continents with the help of 20 partners in Eurasia, seven in the Mediterranean, four in the Persian Gulf, and a handful of capable contributors on our periphery.” (2)

That historically unmatched and until recently unimaginable expansion of the world's only extant military bloc into all parts of the globe is dismissed by most commentators, both NATO supporters and detractors, who either bemoan or ridicule the bloc as a paper organization. Family members of killed and maimed Serbians, Afghans and of late Pakistanis as well as those of young men and women from scores of nations serving under NATO command in war and post-war occupation zones in three continents would disagree.

Sceptics of all stripes may view NATO's star as dimming; Alliance policy planners see it as beginning its ascendancy to an intended zenith.

After its recent sixtieth anniversary summit, NATO is crafting an updated Strategic Concept which will elaborate on and expand a list of self-selected missions - and potential casus belli - mentioned over the past several years by its secretary general and others. The list includes enough issues to allow the bloc to intervene anywhere on the Earth for any number of often unrelated and even mutually exclusive purposes. It includes but is by no means limited to: Protecting national sovereignty if it suits NATO's objectives in a given region and overriding and trampling upon the same at its whim in the name of human rights or other subterfuges; guaranteeing energy security as it chooses to define it, again ad hoc and in service to broader geopolitical designs; cyber security and protecting against computer system sabotage, which as it pertains to the World Wide Web is correspondingly global and even ethereal in nature, sufficiently nebulous and elastic to
be invoked wherever and whenever convenient; natural disasters, crisis management and relief efforts, which can provide valuable reconnaissance opportunities as with Pakistan in 2005-2006; guarding the world's sea and shipping lanes and escorting, intercepting, boarding and seizing vessels and their cargoes at will as has been done throughout the Mediterranean Sea since 2001 and off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden since last autumn, with the west coast of Africa the next likely area of operations; addressing the effects of climate change, especially in the Arctic Circle as an oil and gas bonanza presents itself and Russia must be kept out of the scramble; the eternal war against terrorism, contraband uranium (so-called loose nukes) and nuclear espionage, piracy, poaching, illegal immigration and human trafficking, drug cultivation and running, the smuggling of goods and weapons, resource conflicts and urban unrest occasioned by the world
economic crisis; most anything can and will provide NATO with grist for its expansionist and interventionist mill.
....
During the forty five years of the Cold War few European states were not members of either of Europe's two blocs. The small handful of exceptions were Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland and Yugoslavia on the continent, Malta and Cyprus in the Mediterranean.

On April 4th Croatia followed Slovenia in gaining full NATO membership and the other four former Yugoslav federal republics - Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia - are members of the Partnership for Peace apprenticeship program and the first two have troops serving under NATO in Afghanistan. Kosovo, which ex-Serbian prime minister Vojislav Kostunica last year referred to as "the first NATO state," has since June of 1999 been the Alliance's prototype consummate colony.

Regarding Malta, "NATO is an inescapable military locked vault; a
nation never exits once it's entered. Since NATO was formed 60 years ago no member has ever left. Of the 23 members of NATO's transition Partnership for Peace program (ten former members of the latter have joined NATO and two more have been invited), only Malta left, in 1996, but was brought back in several months ago." [Boris Yeltin's Russia was a member until 1999, when it pulled out in protest against NATO's attack on Yugoslavia.] (3)

Cyprus is the only European nation [smaller states like Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco and San Marino are excluded for present purposes] never to have been in NATO or its Partnership for Peace program and is currently, along with Russia (more in Asia than Europe), not affiliated with either. Last week pro-Western members of the Cypriot parliament secured a majority vote to demand inclusion in the Partnership for Peace (PfP).

Austria and Switzerland are members of the Partnership for Peace, are included in the NATO air surveillance system and have sent small deployments of security personnel to serve with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.

Europe's most-celebrated neutrals, however, are Finland and Sweden, particularly the latter. Over the past fifteen or so months pressure has been exerted both inside and outside the two nations to fully integrate them into NATO, the campaign advancing at a breathtaking pace.

Of the eight European countries that have borders with Russia, both its main body and the Kaliningrad exclave, five are now in NATO - Norway, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, with Poland joining ten years ago and the three Baltic states five years later.

Of the remaining three, Ukraine is on a fast track to full integration, having received a specially crafted Annual National Program substitute for the traditional Membership Action Plan, the penultimate phase of full NATO membership.

Belarus, Russia's closest ally in most every respect - geographically, culturally, historically - is being weaned from the long-standing project of a Union State with Russia through the mechanism of the European Union's Eastern partnership program. The Eastern Partnership was launched by Sweden and Poland. Likely to follow will be an upgrading of its Partnership for Peace status and the threat of abrogating joint air surveillance and defense systems, leaving the entire western flank of Russia vulnerable to the buildup of NATO military infrastructure and with no buffer against air and missile strikes.

The full integration of Finland and Sweden poses an analogous and in some ways even greater threat to a Russia that is being increasing surrounded by a Western military cordon sanitaire, with US and NATO air, naval, surveillance, missile and infantry deployments increasing from the Barents to the Baltic to the Black seas.

Russia and Finland share a 1,200 kilometer border and Finland is located on or near three northern seas - the Baltic, Barents and Norwegian - which currently host permanent NATO air patrols, the European Union (NATO-linked) Nordic Battlegroups and other new and expanding military formations that face Russia to the east and the new global battleground at the top of the world, the Arctic, to the north.

For background information see:

NATO's, Pentagon's New Strategic Battleground: The Arctic (4)
Baltic Sea: Flash Point For NATO-Russia Conflict (5)

In the autumn of 2007 Finnish Defense Minister Jyri Hakamies was in Washington where he stated that Finland's biggest security challenge was threefold, "Russia, Russia, and Russia! And not only for Finland, but for all of us." (6)

A year before, the chief of the Russian armed forces general staff at the time, General Yuri Baluyevsky, was in the Finnish capital and warned his hosts of the perils of NATO membership as regards relations with their eastern neighbor and also in two other respects: That, like Poland, Finland ran the risk of losing several prerogatives of national sovereignty like the determination of its foreign policy and military commitments and like the three Baltic states could be transformed into a "gray area" outside of the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty where Western armaments, conventional and perhaps otherwise, could be deployed without notification provided and inspection rights granted to Russia.

Finland and Sweden, both PfP members with troops in Afghanistan, are being herded into NATO directly and through such mechanisms as the Nordic Council, a proposed Nordic Defence Alliance, European Union Nordic Battlegroups and through the increased merging of NATO and EU military roles.

To illustrate the degree to which European bodies have become - generally surreptitiously - integrated with and effectively subservient to NATO two reports, one from earlier this year and one a year before, provide stark testimony:

In January of this year the European Parliament Foreign Relations
Committee recommended strengthening cooperation with NATO and issued a document the conclusion of which was that "the European Parliament considers that future collective defense of the European Union can be realized within cooperation with NATO" and "Despite the fact that some of the EU countries like Cyprus, Finland, Ireland, Malta and Sweden are not involved in NATO, the European parliament considers that all EU countries should attend the EU-NATO meetings." (7)

In January of the preceding year the general secretary of the Nordic Council - a post-World War II cooperation group comprised of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden - Jan-Erik Enestam, wrote an opinion piece in a Finnish newspaper which included his view that "NATO is the only important international organisation of which Finland is not a member. It would seem as if the time is now ripe for membership. Meanwhile it would be sensible to enter into closer defence co-operation with Sweden and Norway. Norway is after all a NATO country." (8)

From that time, a year ago January, an unbroken succession of statements - and actions to match them - has issued from the mouths and pens of major Finnish and Swedish government and party officials and has been supported by NATO functionaries and American government officials. 

Proceeding chronologically, the following is an examination based on press accounts of how rapidly and inexorably NATO is completing its domination of European military and foreign policy, leaving no former neutral outside its grasp.

The catalogue is lengthy and should prove edifying to persons who can still with a straight face place the acronym NATO and the word defense in the same sentence - in any context past, present or to come.

The end of military neutrality on the Scandinavian peninsula is of major world political and historical significance in its own regard, but is even more important by what it illustrates. The NATO integration of Finland and Sweden is a final detail in a grand landscape whose composite view is of every European nation - large and small, west and east, continental and insular - incorporated into and subordinated to a globally expanding military bloc controlled by a power in another hemisphere. A project exceeding by orders of magnitude the efforts of Napoleon and Hitler to achieve a comparable objective in the last two centuries.

In March of 2008, related to Finland supplying troops for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, the Pentagon's Central Command acknowledged supplying regular military intelligence to its Finnish allies and a weekly "summary on the military situation within the areas of responsibility of the United States Central Command" which included "data regarding the war in Iraq, the Iran crisis, the situation in Sudan, and the piracy off the Somali coast." (9)

The same report added "While Finland has been fine-tuning its degree of
closeness to the NATO Response Force (NRF), cooperation between the Finnish and the United States armed forces has continued closely already for quite some time."

Days later the Finnish parliament voted to contribute troops to the NATO Response Force.

In the same month Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt announced at a European Union meeting in Brussels that he "expected Swedish troops to join the rapid reaction force as another step in increasing cooperation with NATO" after "neighboring Finland definitely decided to participate." (10)

Bildt's colleague, Swedish Defence Minister Sten Tolgfors, the month before claimed that "Membership in NATO is a 'natural' step for Sweden...." (11)

In January of 2008 Finnish Defense Chief Admiral Juhani Kaskeala expressed intent to join NATO’s Early Warning Air Surveillance System (EWASS), reminding his listeners that "non-NATO members Austria and Switzerland are included in the NATO air surveillance system.” (12)

And as "Finland, Sweden and Norway are at present looking at the establishment of joint air surveillance...if these three Nordic countries decide to team up in this field, Sweden and Finland would have to take part in the NATO air surveillance system...." (13)

In February US First Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Kurt Volker, now US ambassador to NATO, was in Scandinavia securing Finnish and Swedish troop commitments for Afghanistan and for NATO's Response Force, an unorthodox task for a representative of the American diplomatic corps.

A local news source reported that "The tense situations in both Afghanistan and Kosovo were on the agenda during the half-hour discussion." (14)

At the same time NATO was conducting an ordnance exercise off the coast of Northern Norway with the participation of forces from personnel from ten countries: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Lithuania, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Estonia and Turkey.

Not to be left out, in the same month Finland hosted a staff officer
course for NATO personnel organized by the international center of the Finnish Defence Forces. "The course involves planning and management of
peacekeeping operations. Taking part will be officers from NATO countries as well as non-members who are part of the Partnership for Peace."

The training was "the first time that a course of the NATO School in the German city of Oberammergau is held in a different location" and "there has also been talk of holding more NATO training courses in Finland." (15)

Public opposition to NATO membership remained high in both Finland and Sweden and a major propaganda blitz was launched in the "free press" of both nations which has intensified in the interim, enough to have some effect in recent polls.

In April Finnish troops joined a NATO CMX08 exercise "designed to practice crisis management procedures, including planning and consultations between NATO and its partner nations as well as cooperation on a national level...." (16)

The following month Finnish Defense Minister Jyri Hakamies, speaking at the Atlantic Council of Finland, said "With Denmark, Norway and Iceland already serving as NATO members...the joining of Finland and Sweden would make the Nordic bloc an influential force within the military alliance" and to make the plan more transparent added "NATO membership would further the Nordics' position in the face of Russia's growing power." (17)

Hakamies was also quoted in a news dispatch called "Finland's defence minister calls for Finland, Sweden to join NATO", as saying that "a group of skilled and active Nordic countries would be seen as a positive thing in NATO. With a combined population of 24 million, the bloc of Nordic countries would not be a complete lightweight in decision making either." (18)

May was a busy month for Hakamies, but not so busy that he couldn't find the time to co-author with Swedish Defense Minister Sten Tolgfors an article for the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter endorsing joining NATO air surveillance operations. "The defence ministers added that the Barents Region [shared by northern Scandinavia and Russia] has become an increasingly influential location, due to the discovery of oil." (19)

In June Finland, which had "recently increased cooperation with the alliance and now also has soldiers in military operations under NATO command in Kosovo and Afghanistan," hosted 1,000 troops from 25 NATO and partnership countries in a disaster exercise that was "largest international exercise held in Finland." (20)

At the beginning of the month the US Carrier Strike Group 12 led the annual BALTOPS (Baltic Operations), the largest international exercise organized in the Baltic region "including ships, submarines, aircraft, and ground force elements from NATO and PFP nations, including Denmark; Estonia; Finland; France; Germany; Latvia; Lithuania; Norway; Poland; Russia; Sweden; the United Kingdom and the United States." (21)

Before June had ended the new Finnish foreign minister, Alexander Stubb, met with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in Brussels on Friday - "the first such meeting in six years" - where the two "discussed NATO's operations in Kosovo and Afghanistan. Finland will take the lead in NATO's combat division of the Kosovo Force, the KFOR, in August. By then the number of Finnish peacekeepers in the force will rise to 500."

Stubb "emerged from [the] meeting...calling for more regular contact with the alliance" and said that "biannual meetings between Finland and NATO would be pencilled in from now on." (22)

In July Swedish defense chief Sten Tolgfors repeated the message in his jointly written article of two months earlier and "suggested sharing airbases with Norway" and argued "that NATO is a natural source of Swedish security."

“The Nordic countries cannot by themselves generate sufficient political and military weight.” (23)

Early in the following month the Pentagon announced that it had established its first-ever defense cooperation office in Finland, "part of a defense equipment cooperation deal between the defense ministries of the two nations." (24)

Weeks later Sweden's Liberal Party called for the country to join NATO and to boost its troop contingent in Afghanistan from 350 to 500 soldiers, its defense policy spokesperson Allan Widman saying "Sweden ought to send more soldiers to Afghanistan, participate in NATO’s rapid reaction force, as well as join the military alliance's air patrols over the Baltic region" and that the recently concluded war in the Caucasus "makes Swedish NATO membership all the more important." (25)

Sweden, of course is nowhere near the Caucasus and has no border with Russia.

In September Ex-President Martti Ahtisaari asseverated, “There aren’t very many of these oddities - countries that say that they belong to the Western democracies, but which are not part of all of the organisations. I think that this also applies to Sweden. I see no reason why we could not join NATO: Norway is already there, and so are Denmark and Iceland”. (26)

He would take up the refrain again in stating "Finland should join NATO
because it is the optimal channel through which to streamline peacekeeping efforts....I don't want Finland to be the odd one out when most
other states are already members." (27)

Ahtisaari had the day before been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which says far more about the Norwegian Nobel Committee than about him, prompting outrage from those who had suffered directly at his hands. "The news sparked intense debate on the website of Serbia’s national broadcaster RTS. Some of the readers wondered why the prize should be given to a man who had 'helped destroy the great state of Yugoslavia.'" (28)

Though no longer a government official, Ahtisaari's assertions reflected more than his personal conviction. The pace of his nation's drive toward full NATO integration was accelerating daily to the extent that it was noticed in Brussels: "Finland [which] has a 1,200 km long border with Russia...inched closer to NATO in March when it announced its intention to join future operations of the alliance's rapid reaction force. It has developed technical capacities alongside NATO for several years and would be ready to join quickly if the decision was made." (29)

With more international NATO and joint NATO-EU missions in mind, in September of 2008 Finland announced that it "would contribute half a million euros this year to a fund established under the auspices of NATO to help train helicopter aircrew and maintain and modernise aircraft in EU countries." (30)

Weeks later an article appeared reporting that Sweden was testing its Gripen jet fighters in NATO exercises where they gathered "valuable experience from training alongside a variety of NATO types, and proving the domestic design's potential as an expeditionary asset" and that "the Swedish air force has...embarked on international training deployments over the past few years, including with Lockheed Martin F-16-equipped neighbour Norway, and two major exercises in the USA." (31)

In late October the Finnish government drew up "a draft security policy
that for the first time presents NATO membership in a positive light. This is a departure from the strictly neutral view usually espoused by official government documents." (32)

In the middle of the same month a German-run NATO multinational naval exercise, Northern Coast, was held off the shores of Denmark with the participation of vessels from Finland, Sweden, Poland, Germany, The
Netherlands and the Baltics.

To demonstrate the purpose of the expansion of NATO naval presence and operations in the arc that takes in the North, Norwegian, Barents and Baltic seas and the Arctic Ocean, an article in The Economist titled "The Arctic contest heats up" reported "Norway is quietly boosting defence co-operation with Sweden and Finland. And it hopes to 'NATO-ise' a big land, sea and air military exercise next spring, named Response. Just what that is responding to is left tactfully unclear." (33)

The pro-NATO Atlantic Community website at the time shared with the Euro-Atlantic initiated that "A Rand Corporation study of 2002 concluded that 'for the United States and its allies, the greatest anti-access in-theater vulnerability is concentrated in the area of the Baltic Sea....'

"In order for any NATO contingency to succeed, the Baltic Sea must be controlled by strong NATO navies and air forces. Otherwise, the collective defense clause may be impossible to implement." (34)

In the same month Finland and Sweden became the only non-NATO states to enter a joint arrangement with ten Alliance members to jointly purchase and operate three Boeing C-17 Globemaster III strategic airlift carriers.

NATO opened a base in Hungary in October of last year, staffed by US military personnel, to support airlift operations for war zone and other deployments outside of Europe under the rubric of the Strategic Airlift Capability Partnership designed to "increase NATO’s ability to transport large numbers of troops and supplies to far-flung places, such as Afghanistan."

The project includes twelve partners: "The U.S., Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and two non-NATO countries — Sweden and Finland." (35)

Last November, Pekka Visuri, a political scientist at the Finnish National Defence College, warned that Finland's joining NATO might unsettle the security of northern Europe and that "an increase in military power through an alliance with a distant superpower might undermine the region's stability." (36)

In a report commissioned by the Finnish foreign ministry itself, Legal Implications of NATO Membership, reservations were voiced that "Finland would commit itself to receiving and sending forces as well as to the advance planning for such situations" and "Accepting such a mechanism of mutual defence cannot be considered irrelevant for sovereignty." (37)

Around the same time 44 prominent Swedish political and cultural figures signed their names to an appeal in the daily Svenska Dagbladet warning against the concerted and essentially covert drive to drag Sweden into NATO with the admonition that "Behind the people’s back, there has been a hidden adaptation to NATO. The process has now gone so far so NATO that supporters can say that Sweden is already a member ninety percent....so we can as well take the last step to full membership." (38)

The above remonstrations were of no avail though, as the foreign and defense ministries of both countries had been so thoroughly infiltrated and subverted by NATO that in the period between the last two reports Swedish "Defence Minister Sten Tolgfors says that Sweden is ready to defend its Nordic neighbours and fellow EU members against any attack.

"Last week the Nordic and Scandinavian countries - Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland signed a treaty on increased defence cooperation.

"Pointing to Russian patrols in the North the minister says that the Arctic region has a new strategic significance." (39)

The news report from which the above is extracted added that "Sweden is now effectively linked to NATO, through military cooperation with Norway, as well as participating in the European Union’s military" and "This is in stark contrast to Sweden’s defence policy during the last 200 years, and especially during the Cold War, which was to avoid committing to any military alliances."

Also in November the annual Viking multinational military exercise was held in Latvia, one described in the local press as "a Swedish-U.S. initiative with the purpose to bring together NATO and Partnership for Peace member countries." (40)

Further consolidating the Scandinavia-Baltic NATO bond, in December it was reported that "The Baltic states are interested in entering into talks with Nordic nations about the basis for a regional defense strategy under the so-called Nordic-Baltic 8 format" and that "Baltic governments are working on a common air-defense solution with NATO. (41)

Last year ended with Sweden abandoning two centuries of military neutrality and both that nation and its neighbor Finland heading toward complete and irrevocable integration into NATO's transcontinental and global military structure.

The new year has only intensified the process.

In early January Finland pledged to double its troop commitment to NATO for the Afghan war. It also announced that it was scrapping Russian air defense missiles, although only purchased a decade earlier, in favor of American counterparts to insure NATO interoperability. According to one report "Russian iron needs to be replaced by NATO iron." (42)

A later account of the same decision said "Finland’s Ministry of Defence is looking at ways to upgrade its existing missile defence system, from the present arsenal of Russian Gadflies (now about halfway into its
expected life cycle) to something more compatible with NATO systems.

"Whether the move is designed to appease NATO allies or to distance Russian hardware from Finland’s defences can only be speculated." (43)

Finnish Under Secretary of State Markus Lyra met with NATO Assistant Secretary General Martin Erdmann in Helsinki in early February and detailed the steady advance of his once non-aligned nation into NATO's ranks: "Finland is developing and deepening its partnership with NATO. "For instance, we have regularly increased our contribution to voluntary trust funds and Finland has five experts in the NATO Secretariat." (44)

Lyra in speaking as he did confirmed the results of Finland's latest annual Security and Defense Policy Report which were summarized by Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen:

"NATO's objectives, tasks and obligations correspond with the foreign and security policy goals of Finland and the European Union. There is and
will continue to be a strong case to consider Finland's membership of NATO in the future. Finland regards NATO as the most important military security
cooperation organization." (45)

Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, who earlier played a role as perfidious as his compatriot Ahtisaari in regards to Serbia and Kosovo, viewed the report as offering "strong arguments" in favor of NATO membership and actually provided a timeline for NATO membership: 2011, two years from now.

As with the Eastern European nations absorbed into NATO over the past ten years and the remaining Partnership for Peace states not yet elevated to full membership status, the testing ground for new subordination to NATO is the battlefield of Afghanistan. On February US State Department Official Patrick Moon was in Helsinki to both applaud Finland for its vow to double its troops in Afghanistan and presumably to pressure it for more. "Finland is making a very significant contribution to our efforts in Afghanistan. We certainly welcome a decision by Finland to deploy additional troops...." (46)

A little earlier Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt paid an unannounced visit to Afghanistan. An Associated Press report on the trip stated: "The Swedish contingent serves under NATO command as part of the International Security Assistance Force. Sweden decided in November to boost its size from 390 to 500 troops...." (47)

Though the US's and NATO's expanding war in South Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, is not the only touchstone for aspirants to NATO membership. In the middle of March NATO conducted a 7,000-troop war game, Cold Response, off northern Norway, one which simulated a military intervention by Alliance forces to confront an invasion by a fictitious Northland against Midland in a scenario whose description suggests that Midland may be either Estonia or Latvia and Northland is of course Russia. The NATO nations participating in the exercises included the US, France, Germany and Spain and two non-NATO members joined them: Finland and Sweden.

In early February Norwegian Foreign Minister Thorvald Stoltenberg advocated that "The Nordic governments should issue a mutual declaration of solidarity in which they commit themselves to clarifying how they would respond if a Nordic country were subject to external attack or undue pressure."

More than the temperature is heating up at the top of the world and NATO is recruiting Scandinavia's former neutrals Finland and Sweden to be at the very center of it.
Notes

(1) Europe Whole And Free
http://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/ga6-890531.htm
(2) Quote from then State Department First Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, now US ambassador to NATO, Kurt Volker
U.S. Department of State, May 4, 2006
(3) Stop NATO, January 8, 2009
(4) Stop NATO, February 2, 2009
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/37104
(5) Stop NATO, February 27, 2009
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/37592
(6) Bits of News, October 9, 2007
(7) As reported by Azeri Press Agency, January 23, 2009
(8) Nordic Council (Denmark), January 9, 2008
(9) Helsingin Sanomat, March 19, 2008
(10) Swedish Radio, March 11, 2008
(11) The Local (Sweden), February 16, 2008
(12) Defense News (US), January 24, 2008
(13) YLE News (Finland), January 21, 2008
(14) YLE News, February 14, 2008
(15) YLE News, February 22, 2008
(16) Xinhua News Agency, April 10, 2008
(17) YLE News, May 6, 2008
(18) NewsRoom Finland, May 6, 2008
(19) YLE News, May 26, 2008
(20) Associated Press, June 1, 2008
(21) United States European Command, June 3, 2008
(22) YLE News, June 27, 2008
(23) The Economist, July 3, 2008
(24) Xinhua News Agency, August 4, 2008
(25) The Local, August 28, 2008
(26) Helsingin Sanomat, September 10, 2008
(27) YLE News, October 11, 2008
(28) Helsingin Sanomat, October 13, 2008
(29) EUobserver, September 18, 2008
(30) NewsRoom Finland, September 19, 2008
(31) Flight Global, October 7, 2008
(32) YLE News, October 22, 2008
(33) The Economist, October 9, 2008
(34) Atlantic Community: Today's Atlantic Agenda is Global, October 23, 2008
(35) Stars and Stripes, October 4, 2008
(36) NewsRoom Finland, November 3, 2008
(37) NewsRoom Finland, November 10, 2008
(38) Stockholm News, December 1, 2008
(39) Radio Sweden, November 20, 2008
(40) Baltic Course (Latvia), November 3, 2008
(41) Defense News, December 3, 2008
(42) Helsingin Sanomat, January 16, 2009
(43) Ice News (Iceland), February 2, 2009
(44) Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, February 5, 2009
(45) Defense News, January 29, 2009
(46) YLE News, February 13, 2009
(47) Associated Press, January 19, 2009