Leavenworth Strategist

Russia offers to help NATO, but not for free

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
The Associated Press
Friday, January 29, 2010; 12:00 PM

MOSCOW -- Russia is willing to help NATO in Afghanistan, but not for free, the Russian envoy to the alliance said Friday.

Dmitry Rogozin also slammed NATO for failing to do more to fight the drug trade in Afghanistan, saying Russia has suffered because of that failure. And he expressed skepticism about a plan to pay Taliban fighters to abandon violence and join the mainstream of Afghan society.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen urged Russia last month to provide helicopters and training for the Afghan air force and to train more local police...

NATO struggling to fulfill commitments for more troops in Afghanistan

By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 27, 2010; A10

NATO is struggling to make good on commitments to deploy extra forces to Afghanistan, one month after the Obama administration said it was counting on the alliance to send as many as 10,000 more troops to serve alongside U.S. soldiers.

On Tuesday, Germany said it would send 500 reinforcements to Afghanistan, disappointing U.S. officials, who had been pressing Berlin for at least three times that number. German officials, facing stiff domestic opposition to the war, said they would instead double their development aid to Afghanistan and begin withdrawing soldiers in 2011...

INTERVIEW-UK Navy Chief Says Navies Won't Eradicate Piracy

By Jonathan Saul

LONDON, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Efforts by foreign navies to combat Somali piracy off the Horn of Africa country's coast have made a difference but they will not be able to eradicate attacks by seaborne gangs, Britain's navy chief said on Friday. Somali pirates have stepped up attacks in recent months, making millions of dollars in ransom by hijacking ships in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden, which links Europe to Asia.

Admiral Mark Stanhope said navies were dealing with 1.1 million square miles of water to monitor.

"We are not going to eradicate piracy -- it's still a very very large area," he told Reuters in an interview...

Cobra Gold set to begin on Feb 1

(Bangkok Post) The 2010 Thai-US Cobra Gold military exercises has been rescheduled to take place next month, military officers said yesterday.

Joint exercises with China will go on as originally planned, and will include disaster mitigation training, they added.

Cobra Gold, which is usually held in May, will take place between Feb 1 and 11 this year so that soldiers from participating countries can train in cooler and more comfortable weather, according to defence spokesman Thanathip Sawangsaeng.

The annual drill, in which Thai, US, Singaporean, Japanese, Indonesian, and Korean soldiers will participate, will be held in the navy compound in the coastal province of Rayong.

US representatives will be invited to observe a separate drill between the Thai and Chinese navies, which is also scheduled for early 2010...

UN Extends Mandate of DRCongo Peacekeepers

(AFP) – Dec 23, 2009

UNITED NATIONS — The Security Council extended Wednesday the mandate of the UN peacekeeping force in the strife-torn Democratic Republic of Congo by five months and tasked it with better protecting civilians.

The 15-member body voted unanimously on Resolution 1906, which keeps MONUC's strength at its current level, 21,000 troops and police, and envisages a further year-long extension of the UN mandate from May 31.

The French-drafted text postponed any decision on when to begin withdrawing the force, which has been deployed in Congo for the past 10 years, and asked UN chief Ban Ki-moon to conduct a strategic review of the situation by April 1.

It set MONUC three main tasks: ensuring the effective protection of civilians, as well as humanitarian and UN personnel; disarming, demobilizing and reintegrating foreign and Congolese armed groups; and supporting government efforts to improve security.