Missile bases bolster NATO in new stance with Russia

LONDON — NATO’s European missile defense system will go live on Thursday when a base in Romania becomes operational. The next day, Poland is scheduled to break ground on its NATO missile-defense base.
The decision by the United States and its allies in Eastern Europe to proceed with ballistic missile defense in the face of increasingly loud Russian criticism is an important stage in the alliance’s new stance toward Moscow.

Those deployments will be coupled this spring with major military exercises in Poland and the Baltics, with significant US participation and a beefed-up rapid reaction force of up to 5,000 troops.

“There will be a quite robust display of military power in Europe and allied resolve, and hopefully Moscow will see it for what it is, an alliance improving its capabilities, said Derek Chollet, a former US assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs,

At the biannual NATO summit meeting in Warsaw in early July, the main issues are expected to be Russia) and how to deal with threats to members like Turkey and Greece from the chaos of Syria, Iraq, Libya, and the Islamic State. The phrase “arc of instability” has reemerged in NATO-speak.

There is confusion about what useful purpose NATO can serve in the south. But there is more clarity on Russia, after its annexation of Crimea and its armed involvement in eastern Ukraine, its threats to the Baltic region, and its intervention in Syria.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2016/05/05/missile-bases-bolster-nato-new-stance-with-russia/U7SboCUQ5tAyhhbT5BGKNK/story.html