The North Atlantic Treaty Organization last week announced that it is contemplating scaling back its highly publicized NATO Response Force, the Alliance’s rapid reaction military force and its catalyst for military transformation. As is often the case for NATO, the real world intruded on its military ambitions. “There is an examination underway” within NATO to see how to sustain the response force, which requires a steady state of 25,000 troops trained and ready to deploy, said spokesman James Appathurai at a press briefing in Brussels. “We could have an NRF that is not always at 25,000” he postulated, “rather than [...]
For approximately 36 hours last month, the U.S. Air Force lost track of half a dozen nuclear weapons. Although Air Force leaders characterize the event as a unique occurrence, the incident will likely encourage opposition to the Bush administration’s Prompt Global Strike plan, which aims give the United States the option of using nuclear and non-nuclear weapons on the same delivery systems. On Aug. 30, the crew of an Air Force B-52H Stratofortress unknowingly carried six nuclear-tipped AGM-129 cruise missiles while flying from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. Throughout the three-and-a-half-hour [...]
MADRID, Spain — Let justice takes its course: A fine phrase to cap an argument, but not one you’re likely to hear from Europeans in a state of high moral dudgeon over terrorists being confined in cages at Guantanamo. From the objectionists, expect no more than a glare in reply to the question, “Well, then, what would you do to keep terrorists from killing more innocent people?” A minority, however, will sometimes make a profession of faith in civilized Europe’s instruments and institutions for administering justice, based on due process and humane and corrective sanctions for the guilty. That is [...]
