14.º Seminário da Associação da Juventude Portuguesa do Atlântico - Press Release

14.º Seminário da Associação da
Juventude Portuguesa do Atlântico

1-8 Agosto - Escola Naval - Alfeite

Press release - 31-07-2009

A Comissão Portuguesa do Atlântico e a Associação da Juventude Portuguesa do Atlântico organizam pelo 14.º ano consecutivo o Seminário Internacional da Juventude, este ano subordinado ao tema do Novo Conceito Estratégico da Organização do Tratado do Atlântico Norte (OTAN), contando para isso com 50 participantes representativos de 16 nacionalidades de Estados Membros e Parceiros para a Paz desta organização. O seminário decorre de 1 a 8 de Agosto na Escola Naval do Alfeite. 

A sessão inaugural, que terá lugar na Escola Naval, às 17.45 do dia 1 de Agosto, contará com a presença do Dr. António Vitorino como key-note speaker, estando a imprensa convidada a assistir. 

Agradece-se confirmação com a finalidade de se tratar da credenciação para aceder às instalações da Escola Naval (através do email samuelppires@gmail.com ou por telefone para Sofia Moniz Galvão – 915816611).

(o programa do Seminário encontra-se disponível aqui)

Portuguese Atlantic Youth Association News Clipping Nr. 3

(Boing C-17 Globemaster III at PAPA Airbase)

Dear and Esteemed Friends and Colleagues,
The third news clipping is as follows:

Summary

Title: Russia Proposes Anti-piracy cooperation with NATO
Source: English People's Daily Online

NATO and Russia have suspended their military-to-military cooperation after Russia-Georgia’s war, but the recent events of piracy in the seas of Africa are changing this issue. Dimitry Rogozin, Russian ambassador to NATO, has proposed military cooperation with NATO to control piracy. Rogozin said that one of Russia’s plans is the creation of an international court to decide on those matters.

Title: Russia Warns Against Arms Sales to Georgia
Source: The New York Times

Georgia is expecting a weapon supply from the USA, but President Medvedev has recently announced that Russia will impose sanctions to those who dare to sell weapons to Georgia. President Medvedev has said that it’s more dangerous rearming Georgian people than Georgia’s entrance to NATO. After Russia-Georgia’s war, U.S.A. only supports Georgia’s army with training and organization. Despite these new events President Medvedev has said that Russia needs good and friendly relations with USA.


Title: EU's Solana in Afghanistan visits
Source: BBC News

The presidential election in Afghanistan is near and in order to assure the good electoral process, Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief, will travel to Afghanistan. The EU will send an election observer mission for the presidential and provincial council elections. Mr. Solana will meet the Afghanistan foreign minister and the head of the EU mission in order to emphasize the EU support in Afghanistan.

Title: Biden in Ukraine to assure leaders of U.S. backing
Source: Reuters

The American vice-president Joe Biden arrived in Ukraine aiming to establish diplomatic talks and to assure the American presence in Eastern Europe. Biden has found internal problems in the country, due to manifestations against the government. The Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko wants to guarantee the American support in case of a Russian threat. The vice-president Joe Biden has declared that Ukraine needs some changes, mainly in energetic policies so that the country can reduce the energetic dependence on Russia.


Title: Obama’s Inheritance: Al-Qaeda in Retreat
Source: World Affairs Journal

One of President Obama’s speeches had some critics to George W. Bush’s national security policies, but president Obama might be wrong. George. W. Bush left USA presidency with a feeling of safety guaranteed by its 2688 days passed without a terrorist attack on its soil.
Analyzing the inheritance of George W. Bush, we can see that when Mr. Bush went to the White House, there were too many terrorist problems in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. Then, in 7 years, the great efforts of the Bush administration have made important changes in the leadership of those states and nowadays America can easily avoid the terrorism. Now it’s time to President Obama keep the safety left by George W. Bush.


Tiago Alfarroba
Portuguese Atlantic Youth Association

Portuguese Atlantic Youth Association News Clipping Nr. 2

(NATO Joint Command Lisbon)

Dear and Esteemed Friends and Colleagues,
The second PAYA news clipping is as follows:

Summary

Title: A Shared Security Strategy for a Euro-Atlantic Partnership of Equals
Source: Center For Strategic And International Studies

It's imperative, now that we are discussing the new strategic concept, that Europe and USA pursue the development of a shared Euro-Atlantic strategy. Combining the efforts, both USA and European Union, should create a new strategy that will combine soft and hard power to produce good answers for tomorrow’s problems. You can download a paper that explains the needs and the capabilities of this alliance. This paper shows why we should cooperate and what both USA and EU need to do to take benefits of the partnership, and why should we do it as fast as we can.

Title: World financial crisis: what it means for security
Source: NATO

Today we are facing a financial crisis that is changing the world. We fear that this financial crisis can be the heart of a more extended crisis since we can easily see the effects of the great depression in today’s crisis, the hardship and the formation of some political extremism.
In this edition of NATO Review, we will analyze this crisis, the need to choose between reduce the defense budget or keep it as it was, we will examine China’s economic growth and its subsequent political one, protectionism as one “twist of the knife” concerning the economical and political aspects, and the need of a bigger investment in the development of renewable energies.

Title: General Stoltz -- First French general to lead Joint Command Lisbon
Source: Allied Joint Command Lisbon

General Phillipe Stoltz is the first French to command a NATO headquarter since the announcement of the French return to NATO's military command structure. The general will be in charge of the NATO’s military base in Oeiras, Lisbon. The Joint Command Lisbon is the headquarter responsible for commanding NATO’s counter piracy operation in the African seas.

Title: The Future of the Atlantic Alliance
Source: NATO

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer made a speech in London explaining the Future of the Alliance. The speech started with a presentation of what he has done the position of America and Europe, the increasing number of members like Albania and Croatia, and the increase of NATO’s operations. Secretary General Jaap de Hoop has also made a list of important issues which NATO should take care of, in order to assure that the Alliance keeps going in a good track, such as political dialogue, a comprehensive approach to nowadays’ security challenges, the development of better troops, the improvement of the NATO-Russia relationship and the persistent development a global partnership. Jaap de Hoop finished his speech emphasizing the importance of the new Strategic Concept.


Title: Members of the NATO PA Science and Technology Committee visited the United States last week
Source: NATO Parliamentary Assembly

Seventeen members of the Science and Technology Committee had discussions with some American experts in nuclear and energy issues. The main themes on debate were the nuclear disarmament, energy security and security implications. During this discussion it was emphasized the non proliferation of the nuclear weapons, which was strongly supported by some experts. The technological innovations have represented another part of the main topics of the discussions.

Title: Flipping the Taliban
Source: Foreign Affairs (registration needed)

The Afghan war is far from the end, mainly because of some President Bush Administration’s mistakes. The mismanagement under Bush presidency had a very strong effect in the Taliban power. Now with president Obama everything is changing. With the deployment of more 21.000 U.S. troops, President Obama shows his strong will in ending this war as soon as he can. But this fact alone will not end the war, it’s also necessary a political intervention in the field, in order to create the conditions needed to weaken the Taliban power and persuade large groups of fighters to lay down their guns.

Tiago Alfarroba
Portuguese Atlantic Youth Association

Portuguese Atlantic Youth Association News Clipping Nr. 1

(USS Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived in Lisbon the 14th July after a 3 months mission in the Arabic Sea supporting NATO troops in Afghanistan)

Dear and Esteemed Friends and Colleagues,

The Portuguese Atlantic Youth Association will be sending out news clipping to all participants in the 14th PAYS.

The first is as follows:

Summary

Title: NATO launches public debate on the Strategic Concept

Source: NATO

NATO started in the past 7th July a session of dialogues with some experts from the strategic community in order to get a new strategic concept to the organization. The objective was to examine the relations with the rest of the world and analyze NATO's role in the new threats and challenges. This debate will create the new strategic concept that will be used as the guidance lines to the military and political issues. This will substitute the old strategic concept signed at the Washington summit in 1999.

Title: Central Europe's Leaders Ask Obama to Take Strong Line with Russia

Source: Daily Telegraph

A group of Central and Eastern Europe's most important political figures have written a letter to President Obama in order to explain the strong pressure and intimidation that Russia makes in those countries. The Antimissile system is the key issue. Now that the U.S.A are spreading their net to the Eastern Europe this countries demand diplomatic negotiations with Russia and European Union in order to weaken the energetic dependence and Russia's influence.

Title: Russia Open Airspace to U.S. for Afghan War

Source: New York Times

In the last few years the relationship between USA and Russia suffered some problematic issues mainly because of G.W. Bush presidency. Now with some change of tone showed by President Obama they have reached new grounds. The opening of Russia's airspace for the Afghan War is a very important step in the diplomatic ground. Some issues continue to concern the two countries, the antimissile defense system and the nuclear arms cut.

Title: Hold your Nerve

Source: The Economist

In the last few days the Afghan war has been very destructive to the British troops. Besides the recent efforts done by President Obama, some of the allies want to withdraw from Afghanistan. Gordon Brown has recently said that they should promote an emerging democracy, but the price of this strategy can be much more expensive. Now that Iraq is almost over control it's imperative to keep the troops in Afghanistan and this supplementary effort should be done not only by Americans but also by all their allies.

Title: An Interview to Severiano Teixeira

Source: i (article in Portuguese)

Severiano Teixeira, Portuguese minister of Defense, in an interview reminded that Portugal and other America's allies said no when President Bush asked for more troops to Afghanistan, he said " Our conception was different: we thought that the solution to the Afghan problem couldn't be exclusively military". But when President Obama was elected to the White House everything changed: "The President Obama's strategy is focused in a political dimension (…) the military safety should be followed by economic development and stabilization of the political institutions". Now Portugal will send more special troops to Afghanistan and this not only gives an important role to Portugal in the Atlantic alliance but also upgrades the relationship between Portugal and America.

Title: Pirates Then and Now

Source: Foreign Affairs (registration needed)

In April 2009 a group of Somali Pirates tried to seize a U.S. cargo ship named Maersk Alabama. The crew fought back trying to protect themselves and the ship but Richard Phillips was caught. This episode finished with the marines killing the pirates and saving Richard. Piracy is becoming a real problem and now NATO is contributing to assure the safety of the African sea. In this essay we can understand how we defeated the pirates in the past and how we can do it now.

Reunião do NATO-Russia Council em Corfu

No dia 27 de Junho de 2009, ocorreu a primeira reunião a nível ministerial do NATO-Russia Council (NRC), na ilha grega de Corfu, por iniciativa do Primeiro-ministro grego Konstantínos Karamanlís e pelo Primeiro-Ministro Italiano Silvio Berlusconi.

Os Ministros dos Negócios Estrangeiros presentes tiveram assim a oportunidade de rever o actual estado das relações entre a Aliança e a Federação Russa e discutiram também qual o caminho a seguir pelo NRC. Consensualizou-se, que esta reunião marca o início das reuniões de alto nível entre estes actores, suspensas desde os dramáticos eventos de Agosto de 2008.

Como o Secretário Geral, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, afirmou ”The NRC which has been in the neutral stand for almost a year, is now back in gear...No one tried to paper over our differences in the meeting, on Georgia, for example. But we agreed […] not to let those disagreements bring the whole NRC train to a halt.” No que diz respeito ao Secretário Geral e sta reunião tem ainda um significado simbólico, uma vez que foi a última reunião do NRC conduzida por Hoop Scheffer antes de deixar o seu cargo no final do mês de Julho. Como tal, enfatizou a necessidade de um maior comprometimento por parte dos ministros dos negócios estrangeiros para um melhor funcionamento do NRC.

Neste seguimento, identificaram-se os interesses “securitários” comuns, tais como a estabilização do Afeganistão, controlo de armamento, a não proliferação de armas de destruição massiva, gestão de crises, luta contra o terrorismo, luta contra os narcóticos e o combate à pirataria.

Os membros do NRC encontram-se assim num processo de progressiva examinação da estrutura institucional do Conselho com o objectivo de o tornar num instrumento mais eficiente e válido para o diálogo político e cooperação.

Esta reunião reveste ainda especial importância no decurso da necessidade de uma maior aproximação entre a Aliança Atlântica e a Federação Russa, assente sobretudo numa maior transparência e compreensão relativamente aos objectivos da Aliança numa área cada vez mais próxima da tradicional e cada vez mais efectiva esfera de influência russa. Não é portanto de estranhar que tal reunião do Conselho tenha ocorrido alguns dias antes da visita oficial do Presidente Barack Obama à Federação Russa, onde o principal objectivo do debate circulou em torno dos avanços da Aliança e do polémico sistema de defesa anti-míssil norte-americano.

Assim, com o NRC, existe uma útil plataforma para discutir, clarificar e consequentemente coordenar os objectivos estratégicos da Aliança com os objectivos estratégicos russos, assegurando aquilo que está na essência da presença da Aliança nestas regiões: a estabilidade e segurança das populações.

NATO: Novo conceito estratégico: lançando o processo - 7 de Julho 2009 - Transmissão em directo

A NATO irá lançar formalmente o processo que levará à elaboração do novo Conceito Estratégico da Aliança, numa conferência em Bruxelas.

A Conferência contará com a participação do Secretário Geral da NATO, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer e com o Secretário Geral designado, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, juntando ainda um leque diversificado de representantes de países Aliados e Parceiros, da NATO, de organizações internacionais, sociedade civil, parlamentos, empresas, ONG's, think tanks, académicos e jornalistas.

Podem encontrar um programa detalhado aqui e visualizar a transmissão em directo aqui.