Michael Chertoff, the U.S. homeland security head, warned recently that the potential harm of a cyber-warfare attack was “on a par” with what the United States sustained in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. He issued the warning this month at a public meeting of information-technology specialists in California.

This threat is treated in depth in the current issue of European Affairs, due out this week in the article entitled “Cyber War I” about the massive attack last year on Estonia’s civilian infrastructure of communications, finance and public service. Western defenses are still in their infancy, and Chertoff’s comments were partly aimed at getting the tech community to overcome their inhibitions about helping national security in this realm. As described in this reconstruction of the episode in Estonia, the tide was turned in Cyber War I partly thanks to a helping hand from some top global geeks. Written by Kertu Ruus, U.S. bureau chief of the leading Estonian business daily Aripaev, the article talks about the status of Western readiness against computer warfare, including the creation in Estonia of a NATO center to work on this specialized form of war.

At last week’s IT conference in Silicon Valley, Chertoff’s overtures to technology’s private sector were clear: “Please send some of your brightest and best to do service in the government,” he asked the audience. He acknowledged that the Federal government is unable to compete with private industry in terms of money, but hoped that some of the U.S.’s top IT professionals would be drawn to DHS out of a desire to serve their country.

Read Kertu Ruus’s account of Cyber War I in the upcoming issue of European Affairs.

See Also: Cyber risk ‘equals 9/11 impact’, BBC News, 8 April 2008

President Bush’s plan to build a missile-defense shield in Europe won approval from NATO at yesterday’s Bucharest summit meetings, marking an important victory for the U.S. agenda and for American hopes of getting Moscow to ease its opposition. But the summit balked at U.S. pressure to start an admission process for Ukraine and Georgia as premature and liable to raise tensions with Russia.

The planned ballistic missile-defense system involves 10 interceptor missiles based in Poland and a tracking radar site in the Czech Republic. Poland and the Czech Republic are pleased to announce the completion of negotiations on a missile defense agreement,” says a joint statement by the two countries, issued on the fringes of the NATO summit in Bucharest (3 April).

In endorsing the project, a statement by the 26 nations alliance said that the system “will be linked to other US missile defense facilities in Europe and the US.” In addition according to NATO’s Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the alliance will “develop options for a comprehensive missile defense architecture to extend coverage to all ally territory and population not otherwise covered by the US system.” These areas – including Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania – would not be protected by the missile shield as currently planned. In addition, plans are under discussion about how a NATO-focused network of defenses against short-and-medium-range missiles could be “bolted onto” the planned U.S. shield supposed to operate against long-range attacks.

The U.S. was less successful in its bid to gain NATO admission for the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine. The alliance moved to admit Croatia and Albania, but Germany and France led opposition to Bush’s push to expand the alliance into Georgia and Ukraine with a “membership action plan (MAP),” arguing that such a move would unduly provoke Russia, which has vehemently opposed the idea. Most NATO governments also take the view that both these countries have internal troubles – separatism in Georgia, a deep split about Russia in Ukraine – that could become problematical if they were put officially on track to NATO membership. (more…)

Airbus has followed up its whopping U.S. deal of in-flight refueling tankers with a second, slightly smaller sale of similar aircraft to Britain. The British deal, confirmed by EADS chief Louis Gallois in an interview with a French newspaper, will be worth approximately $26 billion (£13 billion) over 27 years. The RAF will take 14 of the tankers from AirTanker, a European consortium led by EADS, the defense subsidiary of Airbus, using the airframe of the A330 civilian airliner. Their date for entering service is 2011. The contract reportedly will create 600 new jobs and safeguard another 3,000 in Britain, where the wings are built for the Airbus airframe.

The UK sale marks the second big defeat for a major military sale in less than a month for EADS’s chief rival in the United States, Boeing. The U.S. contract, initially worth $35 billion, is being formally challenged by Boeing, which is confident of being able to mobilize strong support in Congress to make the Air Force re-examine the decision to award the contract to a European consortium. If there is an all-out showdown with the Pentagon, Congress could refuse to fund the program, making the Air Force modernize its existing fleet of Boeing-made tankers.

Boeing has filed an official complaint about flaws in the procurement process that it lost last month, and “it is a list of specifics that look too serious to just be brushed aside,” according to John Pike, who heads GlobalSecurity.org, an on-line service of strategic analysis based in Washington..

The complaint must be reviewed by the Government Accounting Office (GAO), so, Pike said, “it is too soon for EADS to start counting any chickens” in this deal.

Related Post:

Pentagon Contract a “Massive Breakthrough” for European Companies, 6 March 2008

See Also:
KC-X Boeing Protest, GlobalSecurity.org

EADS wins £13bn RAF tanker deal, BBC News, 27 March 2008

EADS: Unveiling $26 Billion Deal With United Kingdom, Stratfor Strategic Forecasting, 27 March 2008

Airbus parent EADS wins British tanker refueling deal, International Herald Tribune, 27 March 2008

Air tanker deal set to be sealed, Financial Times, 27 March 2008

Canadian policymakers are confident that other allied nations will come up with reinforcements and greater operational mobility in Afghanistan, thus meeting the terms set by Canada for keeping its crucial combat role in embattled Kandahar province, the main front with Taliban insurgents.

Most of the additional forces – around 1,000 men – are expected to come from France, where President Nicolas Sarkozy has made it clear that he intends to follow through on his pledges to bring France closer to NATO. The French troops may be deployed in Kandahar or in eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan, another key front. The arrival of French forces will enable the United States, if necessary, to redeploy American units there to fight directly alongside the Canadians in Kandahar.

Canada has also insisted on more operational mobility that would come from more helicopters and drones, and Washington is expected to provide some of what is needed in both categories.

“I am very comfortable that the conditions we stipulated are going to be met,” David Wright told European Affairs. A former Canadian ambassador to NATO, he is currently a professor at Victoria College, University of Toronto.  Ambassador Wright has written for European Affairs on Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan.

Details about exact numbers and timetables are expected to emerge at the NATO summit meeting in Bucharest next week.

“This outcome means that the alliance will have solved the immediate short-run challenge in Afghanistan, so now we need to turn to a longer-term discussion about exactly how we plan to enable the Afghans to move ahead in taking over their own security,” Wright said.

That debate is likely to start in earnest at the NATO summit meeting, which will also be attended by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

The Canadian parliament voted early this year to keep Canada’s current force of 2,500 troops in Afghanistan until 2011 – on condition that allied nations provided the reinforcements in manpower and mobility in the nation’s most dangerous regions.

Related Posts:
France Will Add Combat Troops in Afghanistan to Bolster NATO Mission, 29 February 2008
Faraway Afghanistan Brings Home Up-Close NATO Tensions, 29 February 2008
In Afghanistan, NATO Caveats Can Be Made to Work Better, 8 February 2008

The Bush administration pushed ahead this week in its face-off with Russia over independence for Kosovo - and Russia pushed back in the Caucasus.

Since warning that recognition of Kosovars’ demands could trigger similar separatist ambitions in Abkhasia and elsewhere in Georgia, Moscow has announced plans to move more Russian “peacekeepers” into the breakaway province of Georgia - a step that alarmed Georgian leaders as a possible step toward full recognition threatening to partially dismember Georgia.

President Mikhail Saakashvili of the Republic of Georgia was on an official visit to Washington, where he obtained President George W. Bush’s backing for NATO, at its forthcoming summit, to offer to open a negotiating process that could ultimately bring Georgia into the Western alliance. Bush also announced that he was approving Kosovo as a candidate to receive U.S. military assistance.

This escalation between Washington and Moscow marks the outbreak of a new Cold War, according to Stratfor, an on-line geopolitical think-tank. Of course, the United States outweighs Russia and it is geographically remote from the theater of conflict. That leaves the Europeans in the front line. For the moment, they are trying to keep out of the way, but they will end up having to play major roles as independent actors in this new Cold War, Stratfor’s analyst said.

The current diplomatic inertness in the European Union can be seen in the three main governments: Germany, France and the United Kingdom are not interested in confronting Russia.

“Berlin made this very clear when it expressed a lack of interest in NATO expansion, the independence of Kosovo and the Ukraine gas issue. This is not surprising, given that the Germans are dependent upon Moscow for energy. Beyond energy, Germany’s wider economic relationship with and its proximity to Russia inform its lack of appetite for confrontation with the Kremlin,” Stratfor said.

France has its international ambitions targeted elsewhere, mainly in re-asserting its stature in Europe and emerging as a more credible player in the Middle East. “It wants no part of this new West-versus-Russia competition,” Stratfor says. Britain is preoccupied domestically.

But this will change, Stratfor predicts. Germany is re-emerging on its own again as an international power player; Britain ultimately cannot detach itself from any major U.S. geopolitical commitment; and France will ultimately find it untenable to ignore this clash. “Europe’s geography - and the fact that, unlike during the original Cold War, there isn’t an iron curtain in place - will force the Europeans to jump in or at least choose sides.”

Related Article: “The Start of Cold War II?” Stratfor’s Political Diary, 21 March 2008

As we noted here last week, the surprise selection of an EADS-Northrop Grumman joint bid for a $35 billion Defense contract last week has been the source of much consternation on Capitol Hill. Some lawmakers, outraged that the European conglomerate which owns Airbus was picked over U.S. aerospace giant Boeing, seem determined to keep the deal from going forward. Officials from the U.S. Air Force and Northrop Grumman scrambled to defend the contract this week amid allegations in Congress of “a European economic stimulus plan” and threats to withhold funding for the project.

From yesterday’s Politico:

Other critics argue that hiring the European-based EADS to provide military equipment raises national security questions.

Northrop Grumman, though, dismissed the national security concerns as a red herring, stressing the fact that the Los Angeles-based company is the prime contractor on the program.

“What we are doing is exactly what Boeing would do,” said Northrop Grumman spokesman Randy Belote. “There are no issues relative to any U.S. secrets, any transfer of technology out of the United States to Europe. It just doesn’t happen under our process.”

See the full story at Politico.com.

Today’s Politico has an extensive report on the Northrop/EADS team’s lobbying strategy as it fights Boeing’s formal protest of the award, filed Tuesday with the GAO.

Related Posts:
Pentagon Contract a “Massive Breakthrough” for European Companies, 6 March 2008

See Also:
Air Force slammed in Congress for Boeing contract, Politico, 12 March 2008
Defence contract was won fair and square, Op-ed, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), Financial Times, 10 March 2008
Northrop rallies lobbying troops to save contract, Politico, 12 March 2008

The surprise selection of a European corporation for a major U.S. military contract - to build $35 billion worth of in-flight refueling tankers - has sent shock waves through the world of defense contractors. There were strong reactions both in the U.S. and Europe as officials and executives grappled with the political implications of the choice of the EADS/Northrop Grumman consortium over Boeing, which had been heavily favored to replace the existing fleet of Boeing-built tankers with a new model. But Pentagon officials said the tanker model proposed by EADS with its junior U.S. partner clearly came out ahead in four of the five categories that were the basis for the contract. The common-sense assumption in Washington is that the Northrop/EADS offer must have been far superior for the Bush administration to risk alienating domestic interests in an election year by choosing an airplane perceived by many in Congress as being largely built by a “French” company. (more…)

France has decided more ground troops to Afghanistan for combat missions against Taliban insurgents in the mountainous battle zone close to the border with Pakistan, according to press reports in Paris.

The French commitment, which includes elite special forces, comes at a critical moment for NATO, which it direly needs reinforcements to ratchet up its campaign against guerilla fighters infiltrating eastern Afghanistan from their sanctuaries in the tribal areas of neighboring Pakistan.

By sending in fresh combat units, expected to number up to 500 men, President Nicolas Sarkozy seems to be acting on his pledge that France wants to work more closely with NATO. With the Bush administration asking European nations for more military help in Afghanistan, a Sarkozy adviser was quoted in Le Monde newspaper saying that “France is the only country that can — if it decides to – make the crucial difference.”

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