Nawaf Salameh’s Post

NZ PM to attend NATO Summit in Washington DC The Beehive today announced that NZ Prime Minister Christopher Luxon will visit the United States from 9-12 July. While in Washington DC, he will participate in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Summit 2024. The Alliance is marking 75 years of the signing the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington, D.C. by twelve countries which ensured their collective defence in an unpredictable world. Today, the Alliance of 32 North Atlantic countries share a commitment to democratic values and to peace through collective security. New Zealand was invited as one of NATO’s “global partners” alongside South Korea, Japan and Australia. PM Luxon will also meet bilaterally with a range of NATO Leaders. With counterparts from Australia, Japan and Korea, he will hold a meeting of the Indo-Pacific Four.  This is the third Summit in a row to which NATO has invited its four Indo-Pacific partners to discuss shared challenge. Australian PM Anthony Albanese won’t attend. Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles will represent Australia.   Key topics on the agenda are ·       Deterrence and Defence – reinforcement of the collective defence across all domains, ·       Assistance to Ukraine – helping them defend against Russian aggression. ·       Partnerships – improving relations with the EU and the IndoPac4. If you want to understand New Zealand's relationship with NATO better, contact Tim Hurdle or Ross Browne at Museum Street Strategies. #nato #collectivesecurity #indopac4   https://lnkd.in/eyKBY-K6

The historic #NATOSummit begins tomorrow, gathering heads of state and government from #NATO member countries to mark the Alliance's journey since its founding in 1949. Starting from the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on April 4, 1949, famously known as the Washington Treaty, NATO has grown from 12 founding members to 32 nations dedicated to safeguarding peace and security. At the Treaty’s signature, Belgian PM Paul-Henri Spaak delivered a speech in which he stressed the importance of NATO in ensuring world peace. It was the first time in history that a military alliance was formed to preserve peace and not to wage war. Finland and Sweden became NATO's newest members in 2023 and 2024. The Alliance's solidarity has never been more evident, especially in the face of challenges like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which underscores the importance of transatlantic cooperation. Belgium, a proud founding member along the US, continues to play a crucial role as a host nation to two NATO Headquarters, reaffirming its commitment to NATO's mission of collective defense and international stability. The civil-military headquarters have been located in Brussels since 1966 and the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) military headquarters in Mons since 1967. At this week’s summit, NATO will reaffirm its unwavering commitment to #Ukraine and discuss the future of the Alliance. NATO's enduring legacy of peace, security, and freedom for over one billion people in Europe and North America stands strong, guided by its core principles of deterrence and defense, crisis prevention and management, and cooperative security. The primary aim of the North Atlantic Treaty was to create a pact of mutual assistance. Every participating country agreed that solidarity and collective defense were at the heart of the Treaty. Article 5 provides that if a NATO Ally is the victim of an armed attack, each and every other member of the Alliance will consider this act of violence as an armed attack against all members and will take the actions it deems necessary to assist the Ally attacked. Ministry of Foreign Affairs Belgium, U.S. Embassy in Belgium, NATO, Belgian Defence, Consulate General of Belgium in New York, Consulate General of Belgium in Los Angeles, Consulate General of Belgium in Atlanta, Alexander De Croo, Hadja Lahbib, Ariadne Petridis, Jean-Arthur Régibeau, Mattias Van Hecke, #1NATO75years #WeAreNATO #NATO75 #StrongerTogether

Welcome back to our series leading up to the 2024 NATO Summit: ✨ 75 Years of NATO: Road to The DC Summit! ✨ In this series you will get to learn more about NATO's objectives, history, fun facts, and what's at stake for the #WashingtonSummit through our postings and original articles. Among the top priorities on the agenda for the 2024 Washington Summit will be the ongoing war in Ukraine, Russian advancements and their implications, and the complexities and strategic considerations surrounding Ukraine's potential NATO membership. These discussions are pivotal for shaping the future of our collective security and ensuring a robust response to the current geopolitical challenges. This week, we are featuring Justin Michael James Dell's "Special Report: Did NATO “Promise” Russia Not To Enlarge?" Russia often claims that NATO promised not to expand eastwards during the 1990 German reunification negotiations, a promise they assert was broken. This article delves into these claims, revealing that discussions primarily focused on East Germany and that no formal agreement preventing NATO's enlargement exists. Despite assertions from Russian officials, there is no documented evidence of such a promise. The narrative of betrayal is largely a retrospective construction unsupported by historical facts, highlighting the complexities and misconceptions surrounding NATO's expansion. Read the full article on our website: https://lnkd.in/g9Pc_AHd ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more information about the NATO Association of Canada, visit our website: https://lnkd.in/gaAyp3PK Follow us on social media: YouTube: @NATOCanada/ LinkedIn: NATO Association of Canada / Instagram: @NATO_Canada / Facebook: @NATO Association of Canada/ Platform X: @NATOCanada #WeAreNATO #NATOSummit2024 #DCSummit ##WashingtonSummit2024 #NATO #Russia #Ukraine #NATO75 #natoassociationofcanada #NAOC

And well done on shaping global cybersecurity: https://lnkd.in/eVfGRvHE

Excellent article on the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s ambitions in Asia. […] What would Japan or South Korea gain from a relationship with – if not membership in –NATO? It is hard to see how NATO could be of any real help to either and it could complicate the US-Japanese and US-South Korean relationships by adding another command complex standing between them and their American sponsor. Likewise, it is worth asking what NATO would gain from a relationship with major US clients in Asia. NATO does not have any power projection capability with respect to Asia. There is not much that NATO can put on the table of any real interest to either Japan or Korea, other than politics. […] #nato #asia #southkorea #japan #china

The Illusion of Security. The Ukraine War was incited by NATO, so what can the EU expect once it fortifies NATO irresponsibility? The United States should step back from NATO and defuse exploding membership in BRICs at this point - for economic reasons if not for security reasons. NATO are dividing the World into two polarized and imaginary "sides" - learning nothing at all from the disasters of WWI and WWII.

🇨🇦 “When Canada signs on to these [NATO defence spending] pledges on behalf of Canadians, there is a political and symbolic cost to reneging on those pledges.” Are you ready for the NATO Washington summit? In this #ExpertSeries episode, we meet with Gordon Venner, Vincent Rigby, Kerry Buck, and Stefanie von Hlatky to discuss the present geostrategic climate and its implications for Canada at the upcoming NATO Summit in Washington. “You've got a united NATO northern group of countries. How is that going to play out for Canada? We saw that [multipolar great power competition] articulated in Canada's defence policy update.” Listen now for expert insights on the upcoming NATO Summit in Washington:  ➡️ YouTube – https://lnkd.in/eSxwZa2r   ➡️ Spotify – https://lnkd.in/eKAzGeGG #canada #nato #ukraine #russia #china #taiwan #security #defencepolicy #geopolitics 

I write with Mahima Duggal for The Diplomat: #Sweden’s new status as a full-fledged #NATO member has certainly bolstered the alliance in the face of the #Russian challenge; as Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary general lauded, it will make “NATO stronger, Sweden safer, and the whole alliance more secure.” However, as NATO looks eastward with an eye on #China and partnering with Indo-Pacific countries to uphold global norms, Sweden’s accession also has notable implications for the #IndoPacific. Could NATO membership facilitate Sweden’s greater embrace of the Indo-Pacific construct, perhaps by issuing its very own strategy for the region in the future? Does the event foreshadow a strengthening of bipolarity? How will it impact India, if at all? https://lnkd.in/gPwQSS7E

Do you know the "page 99 test"? It's when you publish a book and are asked to consider how representative page 99 is of the entire work. It is good fun and a real challenge. You can read about page 99 of my #NATO history here. Page 99 is a bit of a plunge into the depths of history, but it magically includes Pierre Harmel's report--the Harmel report--that for so many years have admonished NATO to do both (collective) defense and (continental) dialogue. However, and this was Pierre Harmel's critical point, NATO must start with defense, then do dialogue. Lesson: you cannot gain continental stability if you're weak and incoherent. Worth pondering today. Yale University Press London Danish Institute for Advanced Study (DIAS) https://lnkd.in/dtUzrYkQ

More on the #DoubleTrouble we are facing (i.e. #Russia and #China) in #geopolitics 👇 Our new commentary with Alexander Lanoszka and Jonathan Berkshire Miller on #NATO and/in the #IndoPacific for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (link in the first comment). Many thanks to Alexander for his leadership in pushing this through. Here is the gist: "Informed by our conversations and workshops conducted in Brussels, Tokyo, and Ottawa in 2023 and 2024, our report focuses on how NATO relates to the Indo-Pacific. The central argument we make is that the Alliance faces hard constraints on what it can do there on both the supply and demand sides. On the supply side, NATO will never give the Indo-Pacific significant attention because it is not its Area of Responsibility. Enough of its own members will be reluctant to deepen NATO’s involvement in the Indo-Pacific if it means risking tensions with China or stretching those resources that could otherwise go to Europe. NATO’s need for consensus to make strategic decisions will thus restrict what the Alliance collectively can offer. On the demand side, NATO’s partners in the Indo-Pacific may not be keen to receive too much from the Alliance either. Members of the AP4 themselves vary in how much they see China as a threat. Some perceive risks associated with NATO – a formal military alliance – being too involved in their region because of the militarization it might imply."