The news: On Tuesday, June 14th, NATO announced that if a NATO member country becomes the victim of a cyber attack by persons in a non-NATO country such as Russia or China, then NATO's Article V "collective defense" provision requires each NATO member country to join that NATO member country if it decides to strike back against the attacking country . The preliminary decision for this was made two years ago after Crimea's annexation to Russia. That NATO decision was made in anticipation of Ukraine's ultimately becoming a NATO member country, which still hasn't happened. However, only now is NATO declaring cyber war itself to be included as real "war" under the NATO Treaty's "collective defense" provision.
Background and possible link: Russia Is Reportedly Set To Release Clinton's Intercepted Emails
There have been rumors that the Russian Government could in the near future release the text of email messages intercepted from U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's private e-mail server from the time she was U.S. Secretary of State. The release would, the messaging indicated, prove that Secretary Clinton had, in fact, laid open U.S. secrets to foreign interception by putting highly-classified Government reports onto a private server in violation of U.S. law, and that, as suspected, the server had been targeted and hacked by foreign intelligence services.
The reports indicated that the decision as to whether to reveal the intercepts would be made by Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, and it was possible that the release would, if made, be through a third party, such as Wikileaks.
The Russian possession of the intercepts, however, was designed also to show that, apart from violating U.S. law in the fundamental handling of classified documents (which Sec. Clinton had alleged was no worse than the mishandling of a few documents by CIA Director David Petraeus or Clinton's National Security Advisor Sandy Berger), the traffic included highly-classified materials which had their classification headers stripped. Russian (and other) sources had indicated frustration with the pace of the Justice Dept. probe, and its avoidance of the national security aspects of intelligence handling. This meant that the topic would be suppressed by the U.S. Barack Obama Administration so that it would not be a factor in the current U.S. Presidential election campaign, in which President Obama had endorsed Mrs Clinton.
Moscow's discreet messaging about a possible leak of the traffic, in time to impact the U.S. elections, was designed to pressure faster U.S. legal action on the matter, but was largely due to Russian concerns about possible U.S. strategic policy in the event of a Hillary Clinton presidency.
Apart from the breach of U.S. Federal law in the handling of classified material, the Clinton private server was, according to GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs analysts, always likely to have been a primary target for foreign cyber warfare interception operations, particularly those of the People's Republic of China (PRC), Russia, and North Korea (DPRK), but probably also by others, including Iran.
Let's not forget that NATO is now alleging that because Russian hackers had copied the emails on Hillary Clinton's home computer. This action of someone in Russia taking advantage of hermight constitute a Russian attack against the United States of America, and would, if the U.S. President declares it to be a Russian invasion of the U.S., trigger NATO's mutual-defense clause and so require all NATO nations to join with the U.S. government in going to war against Russia, if the U.S. government so decides.
It's a hot issue now between Russia and the United States, and so, for example, on the same day, June 14th, Reuters headlined "Moscow denies Russian involvement in U.S. DNC hacking", and reported that:
"Russia on Tuesday denied involvement in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee database that U.S. sources said gained access to all opposition research on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump."
In previous times, espionage was treated as being part of warfare, and, after revelations became public that the U.S. was listening in on the phone conversations of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, espionage has become recognized as being simply a part of routine diplomacy (at least for the United States); but, now, under the new NATO policy, it might be treated as being equivalent to a physical invasion by an enemy nation.
Further context: NATO's Movement on the boarders of Russia
NATO is taking things even further these days by preparing a veritable military buildup in Eastern Europe : German soldiers are operating in Lithuania, the British take over Estonia, and US soldiers move in to protect Latvia. The Canadians will be in Poland. Also in the Mediterranean, combat units are being increased. Russia perceives the activity as a threat, but hasn't yet announced any countermeasures.
At the NATO summit during July 8th-9th in Warsaw, the Alliance will adopt a massive military presence along Russia's border. Russia is classified by NATO as a threat. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg recently said in Washington that the US and the EU have the right in the form of NATO to defend its territories on foreign soil. Critics of this strategy believe that it's possible this upgrade will increase significantly the danger of a conflict between the superpowers . Wednesday in Brussels, the defense ministers want the military alliance to take decisions which will then be sealed by the leaders in Poland. NATO wants to strengthen its military presence on its eastern borders significantly, and to position foreign combat battalions in Poland and the three Baltic states.
Germany is the core of the Association in Lithuania, the British in Estonia, and the United States is expected to be that in Latvia . What remains unclear, however, is who will be sending troops to Poland.
Maybe Canada will take on this task, as it was last reported from Polish diplomatic sources by Reuters.
"'The summit in Warsaw will be President Obama's last (NATO summit) and the U.S. wants it to be a success. It will ensure that the fourth framework country is found, possibly by leaning on Canada,' the source said. 'Washington will bend over backwards here.'"
Germany wants to send at least 600 soldiers to Lithuania, which will constitute the core of the local battalion there with about 1,200 soldiers.
The battalions are to include around 1,000 soldiers each, and are not permanently stationed in the eastern countries, but replaced regularly. By means of this rotation, the military alliance wants to avoid a formal breach of the NATO-Russia Founding Act 1997, which prohibits the permanent stationing of a "substantial" number of combat troops in the east. What specifically "substantial" means, however, is controversial. In other words: Obama wants to be more aggressive than the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997 might allow; he wants to violate the treaty in such a way that he'll be able to say he's not really breaking the treaty.
Poland and the Baltic countries want to push NATO to be even more aggressive. They demand among other things, increased aerial surveillance by fighter jets of the alliance partners on the Baltic. Poland had in the past also repeatedly demanded the permanent stationing of NATO combat troops (which would clearly violate the NATO-Russia Founding Act). The Baltic States and Poland have been feeling threatened since Russia's March 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.
Giving you the right knowledge in the most dangerous times,
Alexander Cain
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