By Vestnik Kavkaza
The Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, First Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, Army General Valery Gerasimov, says that “we are constantly trying to convince that the development of the North Atlantic Alliance is carried out solely for defensive purposes and is not directed against Russia. However, the well-known facts suggest otherwise. Since 1999, the number of members of the unit increased by 12 countries. While for the entire period of the Cold War, its number was increased by only 4. Characteristically, the new members of the Alliance, almost all former members of the Warsaw Pact and former Soviet republics. In other words, starting from the 1990s enlargement occurs towards the east, towards the Russian borders. The most likely candidates for NATO membership in the near future are Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition, the Alliance continues to insist on the prospects of Euro-Atlantic integration of Georgia and Ukraine.”
According to Gerasimov, in the course of making a decision on accession to the Alliance, the dominance of political arguments is openly demonstrated over the requirements to countries as members of the unit: “Although economic and military capabilities of the young NATO members and candidates for membership in the Alliance do not meet the criteria for membership in the organization, their accession to the block is considered as a mean of creating a unified and sharing common values Europe.”
The Chief of the General Staff notices the negative impact of the prevailing situation on Russia's military security: “The number of NATO forces is one million, seven hundred thousand people, and the total number of regular armed forces of NATO countries exceeded three million seven hundred thousand people. It should be added that, along with the expansion of the members of the bloc, the leadership of the Alliance attaches great importance to the involvement of the organization's activities in non-aligned countries. Currently Development Initiative of interoperability with partners was implemented, which provides the establishment of a privileged format of cooperation with the most important for the bloc states. These states are 24 countries. Including some post-Soviet republics: Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine. The initiative is expected to assist the strengthening of the security forces, joint activities, operational preparations, the use of industrial capacity of partners for the production of certain models of military products.”
Another project to attract non-aligned states to cooperate with the Alliance is a privileged partnership, Gerasimiv says: “Among these partners are considered neighboring Georgia and Russia, Finland and Sweden. In this project, an agreement was reached on the use of Finnish and Swedish infrastructure for rendition of NATO troops in the north of Europe.”
The Alliance become apparent with an attempt to extend its influence in the Central Asia and the Caucasus. On the pretext of the crisis in Ukraine, NATO greatly expanded its activities, not hiding explicit of anti-Russian orientation of the measure. “Blaming Russia in an aggressive policy in the post-Soviet space and the nomination of the thesis of the need for its containment, becomes the main driving force for the development of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. This is confirmed by the decision, which was taken in September last year in the UK session of the NATO Council at the level of Heads of State and Government of the members of the block. In addition to the agreement to increase the number of members of the Alliance defense spending, and regulation of the situation in Afghanistan, a list of measures to improve the military capabilities of the unit was adopted, the expansion of the organization and strengthening of sanctions pressure on the Russian Federation. The sharp change in NATO's relations with Russia is manifested by the increase in military activities of block near our borders,” Gerasimov believes.
