Månad: juli 2023

Den svenska regeringen ville gärna visa upp en ny lag mot deltagande i terroristorganisationer för Erdogan. Lagen hade från början inget alls med den svenska Natoansökan att göra men blev ett behändigt bytesobjekt när Turkiet började ställa krav på svenska eftergifter.

Men det svenska lagrådet dömde ut regeringens lagförslag. Enligt de höga juristerna är lagen så otydlig och tänjbart skriven att den riskerar att inte bara slå mot terrorism. Den skulle enligt Lagrådet också kunna användas mot frihetsrörelser, befrielseorganisationer och journalister.

Regeringen brydde sig inte om de lagkunnigas begäran att göra lagen mera rättssäker. Natomedlemskapet gick före. Varken Turkiet eller de andra Natoländernas regeringar skulle ha någon fördragsamhet med en svensk regering som när Natoprocessen är som känsligast skjuter upp lagstiftningen med argumentet att den behöver bli mera rättssäker.

Det brukar sägas att det finns ett före och ett efter det ryska anfallet på Ukraina den 24 februari 2022. För Sveriges del finns också ett före och ett efter den svenska Natoansökan.

Läs artikeln här: https://www.dn.se/sverige/tomas-ramberg-sa-forandrade-natoprocessen-sverige/

1. On 10 July, 2023, President Recep Tayyip Erdoǧan of Türkiye, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson of Sweden, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg met at the NATO Summit in Vilnius.
2. Since the last NATO Summit, Sweden and Türkiye have worked closely together to address Türkiye’s legitimate security concerns. As part of that process, Sweden has amended its constitution, changed its laws, significantly expanded its counter- terrorism cooperation against the PKK, and resumed arms exports to Türkiye, all steps set out in the Trilateral Memorandum agreed in 2022.
3. Sweden and Türkiye agree today to continue their cooperation under both the Trilateral Permanent Joint Mechanism established at the Madrid NATO Summit 2022, and under a new bilateral Security Compact that will meet annually at ministerial level and create working groups as appropriate. At the first meeting of this Security Compact, Sweden will present a roadmap as the basis of its continued fight against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations towards the full implementation of all elements of the Trilateral Memorandum, including article 4. Sweden reiterates that it will not provide support to YPG/PYD, and the organisation described as FETÖ in Türkiye.
4. Both Sweden and Türkiye agreed that counter-terrorism cooperation is a long-term effort, which will continue beyond Sweden’s accession to NATO. Secretary General Stoltenberg also reconfirmed that NATO categorically condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. NATO will be significantly stepping up its work in this area, including by the Secretary General establishing, for the first time at NATO, the post of Special Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism.
5. We commit to the principle that there should be no restrictions, barriers or sanctions to defence trade and investment among Allies. We will work towards eliminating such obstacles.

Läs uttalandet i dess helhet här: NATO – News: Press statement following the meeting between Türkiye, Sweden, and the NATO Secretary General, 10-Jul.-2023

In a statement issued on Sunday, Keating said: “President Macron of France is right to warn NATO away from any expansion into Asia, reminding all and sundry of NATO’s Atlantic design and focus.”

Claiming that “the Europeans have been fighting each other for the best part of 300 years”, Keating said: “Exporting that malicious poison to Asia would be akin to Asia welcoming the plague upon itself.”

Macron alarmed some American and European officials earlier this year by saying, following a trip to Beijing, that Europe should not be drawn into a crisis over Taiwan driven by an “American rhythm and a Chinese overreaction”.

“With all of Asia’s recent development amid its long and latent poverty, that promise would be compromised by having anything to do with the militarism of Europe – and militarism egged on by the United States.”

Keating added: “Of all the people on the international stage the supreme fool is Jens Stoltenberg, the current Secretary-General of NATO … Stoltenberg conducts himself as an American agent more than he performs as a leader and spokesperson for European security.”

Läs artikeln: Paul Keating brands NATO boss Jens Stoltenberg a ‘supreme fool’ for deepening Asia ties (smh.com.au)

[…] For Ankara the primary consideration in approving Sweden is tougher enforcement of counter-terror laws against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), an internationally recognized terrorist group, and its offshoots. Washington has dangled possible approval of Turkey’s proposed purchase of F-16 fighter jets and upgrade kits in attempts to influence Ankara’s calculation. Ankara, which is a long-time F-16 producer and user, desires reasonable compensation for its earlier expulsion from the F-35 program, after it went ahead with the purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile defense system which also led to the imposition of US sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). Both the United States and Turkey see Turkish air power as a NATO anchor in the Black Sea region. […]

Turkey has provided support to NATO maritime operations in the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions, and most recently agreed to sell Bayraktar drones to Romania. Yet Turkey’s ability to deter Russia depends in part on the health of its F-16 fleet—the third largest in the world but feeling its age. Ankara’s request for forty new F-16s and upgrade packages for its seventy-nine existing fighters to sustain its air capabilities has made little headway over the past two years, and members of the US Congress have added Swedish accession as a new condition to the frozen sale. At the same time, many members of Congress have indicated that Turkey agreeing to Sweden’s accession will not be enough for them to approve Ankara’s F-16 request.

Ironically, Turkey is not an ordinary F-16 buyer. It has been an important F-16 manufacturer through Turkish Aerospace Industries (TUSAŞ) established in 1984, according to the company, as a “Turkish-U.S. joint investment company to carry out the manufacture of F-16 aircraft, integration of on-board systems and flight tests” following the initial Turkish decision to acquire F-16s. Läs artikel

Chair of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley has been one of the more honest, outspoken members of the Biden administration about the 17 month-long war in Ukraine. Speaking to the National Press Club last week, Milley laid it all out, yet again, this time about the Ukrainian army’s ongoing counteroffensive against the heavily fortified Russian defenses in the eastern and southern parts of the country. Anybody who expected a rapid Ukrainian victory, the general insinuated, was kidding themselves. ”It’s going to be very long, and it’s going to be very, very bloody. And no-one should have any illusions about any of that,” he said.

Milley isn’t wrong. While the Ukrainian forces have made some headway since the counteroffensive began in early June, the progress has been grueling. According to Ukrainian deputy defense minister Hanna Maliar, Kyiv has retaken about 50 square miles of land in the counteroffensive’s first month. Those gains have come at a heavy cost to equipment and personnel, although it’s impossible to confirm how many Ukrainian troop have been killed and how much Western-supplied weapons systems have been destroyed during the course of the fighting. Läs artikel

France is holding up a deal to expand NATO’s reach into Asia, opening a split in the Western security alliance on the eve of a vital summit next week.

For months, NATO officials have been discussing plans to open a liaison office in Japan, which would represent the allies’ first outpost in the region at a time of growing tension between the West and China. […]

For months, NATO officials have been discussing plans to open a liaison office in Japan, which would represent the allies’ first outpost in the region at a time of growing tension between the West and China.

Next week’s annual leaders’ summit in Lithuania —taking place against the backdrop of Russia’s war in Ukraine — was earmarked as a moment for making progress on the plan.

Familiene til åtte afghanere, blant dem tre unge gutter, har gått rettens vei og anklager britiske spesialstyrker for urettmessige drap under to nattlige operasjoner i 2011 og 2012.

– Vi håper at de skyldige en dag vil bli stilt til ansvar, sa et av medlemmene i Noorzai-familien, den en av de to familiene, da de varslet søksmål.

– For over ti år siden mistet jeg to av brødrene mine, den unge svogeren min og en barndomsvenn. Dette var gutter som hadde livet foran seg, sa han.

En uavhengig gransking under ledelse av dommeren Charles Haddon-Cave ble innledet i mars, og det er nå snart klart for en høring, opplyser forsvarsminister Ben Wallace.

– Jeg kan bekrefte at anklagene gjelder oppførselen til britiske spesialstyrker, sier han.

Flere operasjoner der britiske spesialstyrker tok fanger i Afghanistan mellom 2010 og 2013 er nå gjenstand for gransking, og søkelyset rettes særlig mot mulige forsøk på å dekke over hva som skjedde i ettertid. […]

Flere lands soldater anklages for å ha begått urettmessige drap i Afghanistan. I Australia ble det i 2020 slått fast at landets spesialstyrker «på ulovlig vis» hadde drept 39 sivile afghanere og fanger, blant annet ved å gjennomføre summariske henrettelser. Det kom også fram at de australske soldatene hadde torturert fanger og konkurrert seg imellom om å drepe flest. Läs artikel

Läs även inlägg på den här sajten om svenska soldaters deltagande i targeted killings i Afghanistan.

The Finnish rail improvements around Tornio on the Swedish border are one example. Due for completion next year, they will make it easier for allies to send reinforcements and equipment from across the Atlantic to Kemijarvi, an hour’s drive from the Russian border and seven hours from Russia’s nuclear bastion and military bases near Murmansk in the Kola peninsula.

Among forces based there, Russia’s Northern Fleet includes 27 submarines, more than 40 warships, around 80 fighter planes and stocks of nuclear warheads and missiles, data collected by the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) shows.

In a military conflict with NATO, the Fleet’s main task would be to secure control of the Barents Sea and stop ships bringing reinforcements from North America to Europe through the waters between Greenland, Iceland and the UK.

That’s something Finland can help NATO resist.

”It’s all about containing those kinds of capabilities from the north,” retired U.S. Major General Gordon B. Davis Jr. told Reuters. […]

The nearby town of Rovaniemi, known to tourists as the home of Santa Claus, is also the base of Finland’s Arctic air force and would serve as a military hub for the region in case of a conflict. Finland is investing some 150 million euros to renew the base to be able to host half a new fleet of 64 F-35 fighter jets, due to arrive from 2026. Läs artikel

A large area from the eastern Barents Sea to the Ural Mountains is now closed off for civilian aviation as the bombers will launch tactical missiles against on-ground training targets.

The nuclear-capable bombers participating are flying north from the Kola Peninsula and Siberia.

The exercise is simultaneously happening in the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions, the Defense Ministry states.

“Long range aviation crews will work out air patrols in a given area, flight missions along the route in various meteorological conditions, and they will also perform tactical launches of weapons towards established targets at training ranges.”[…]

In its statement on Wednesday, the Defense Ministry does not details which weapons, cruise missiles, are to be tested from the strategic bombers.

In the West, military experts are not jumping to conclusions that Russia’s exercise is anything worthy of concern. For now at least.

“Whether this is a long-planned routine exercise or a symbolic demonstration of force ahead of NATO’s summit in Vilnius, is hard to say. It could well be a combination,” says Kristian Åtland, senior researcher at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment. Läs artikel