NATO chief 'surprised' by Russian threat assessment

Space War ^ | 2/06/2010 | AFP via Space War

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen expressed surprise Saturday that Russia still considers the military alliance a major security threat just as their ties are improving. "I was surprised to read that Russia considers NATO a main threat in its new doctrine. This does not reflect the real world," he said, according to his spokesman James Appathurai.

"NATO is not an enemy of Russia. We want a strategic partnership with Russia because we share common threats," he said, a day after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a new military strategy document, naming NATO as a threat.

The document, published on the Kremlin web site, listed first among "chief outside military threats" the fact that NATO is attempting to "globalise its functions in contravention of international law."

It also cited attempts to bring "military infrastructure of NATO members closer to Russian borders, including by expanding the bloc."

Russia has bristled at moves by former Soviet republics such as Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO and relations between NATO and Moscow plunged to a post-Cold War low after the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia.

Other threats are named as creation and deployment of missile-defence systems and "high-precision conventional weapon systems".

Russia fiercely opposes US and NATO missile defence plans, which would include facilities deployed in central Europe.

Relations between NATO and Russia were frozen over the Georgia war and have only just begun to thaw, amid efforts to focus on common concerns like the conflict in Afghanistan and the fight against "terrorism

[Thunder90]

Is NATO filled with a bunch of idiots? Russia is still a threat and always has been a threat.

Oh wait a second, 0 is now president.....

[iopscusa]

General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, is this guy just another EU Socialist, wth is he doing runnig NATO. Get the US out of this crappy org!

[Eyes Unclouded]

Russia isn’t a threat to NATO. Except for the enlargement of their Arctic sea claims, devolpment of new generation ballistic missles and generation of fighters, expansion into cyberspace (cyber attacks on many members, acute attacks on estonia), actual invasion of georgia, threatened invasion of ukraine, cutting off European energy supplies (in winter no less), continued support for iran, meddling in American deployments in central asia, joining with China and the SCO, and the stationing of russian naval elements in venezuela.

Other than that no threat to see here, besides didn’t hillary reset things with them?

[justa-hairyape]

They simply do not get it yet, even after all these years. Russia needs an enemy, and they will make you one whether you want to be one or not. You either see Russia as the enemy or you are the enemy.