STUTTGART, Germany \u2014 The United States needs to revive the lines of communication with Moscow that helped both countries avoid nuclear conflict during the Cold War, the top American general in Europe said this week. \u201cWe could read each other\u2019s signals. We knew how to send signals to each other\u2026 almost all of that is gone now,\u201d Gen. Christopher Cavoli, NATO supreme allied commander and head of U.S. European Command, said Monday. Cavoli, speaking during an event at Georgetown University timed to NATO\u2019s 75th anniversary, rattled off numerous upgrades to the alliance as it adapts to counter Russia. The number of NATO troops available to Cavoli in a crisis has surged by some 700% over the past year, he said. But the transformation in combat readiness doesn\u2019t appear to have been matched at the strategic level when it comes to ensuring that the nuclear powers don\u2019t misread each other\u2019s intentions. Since Russia\u2019s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, nuclear saber-rattling rhetoric from the Kremlin has become almost routine and arguably more provocative than during the Cold War. Cavoli, a fluent Russian speaker and foreign area officer by training, said efforts are underway at his NATO headquarters to update some of the old practices for modern times. But there are complications. \u201cFirst of all, we\u2019re trying to reestablish it during a hot war that\u2019s being waged\u201d by Russia against Ukraine, he said. And unlike the Cold War, China\u2019s greater clout makes it a factor when it comes to managing the escalation of tensions, he said. \u201cThere are no longer just two principal parties to determine this question,\u201d Cavoli said. \u201cThere\u2019s China in the background and how all this is going to interact on a three-way basis will be a very important question.\u201d During the Cold War, Cavoli said there was a \u201cvery fine and mutually understood vocabulary\u201d between the West and the Soviet Union. \u201cWe knew how to communicate verbally and nonverbally about our intentions in a way that gave predictability to the other side, comprehension to the other side,\u201d Cavoli said. \u201cAnd this was one of the principal things that we used to manage escalation and to achieve deterrence without significant risk.\u201d Other factors from the past that were effective included various nuclear treaties, agreements and onsite inspections that helped keep communication lines open, he said. \u201cWe fell out of the habit of using these mechanisms to signal and\u2026 we collectively have walked away from many of the arrangements and the treaties that previously gave us the ability to do this,\u201d he said. Any push to improve how the United States and NATO communicate with Moscow could be challenged by the alliance\u2019s ongoing efforts to bolster its eastern flank with Russia. The Kremlin in recent years has ramped up its criticisms of NATO and the increasing number of alliance forces positioned in places such as the Baltic states and Poland, which it has characterized as a threat. Allies have argued that those moves are defensive and only came in response to Russia\u2019s aggression in Ukraine. \u201cHow do we go ahead doing all of this and reestablishing our collective defense capability without being threatening and accidentally having the effect we don\u2019t want?\u201d Cavoli asked. \u201cI think the first step is to describe ourselves openly as what we are \u2014 a defensive alliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u03a0\u03b7\u03b3\u03ae https:\/\/www.stripes.com\/theaters\/europe\/2024-04-09\/cavoli-nato-russia-nuclear-13516988.html
Source – Stars and Stripes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
STUTTGART, Germany \u2014 The United States needs to revive the lines of communication with Moscow that helped both countries avoid nuclear conflict during the Cold War, the top American general in Europe said this week. \u201cWe could read each other\u2019s signals. We knew how to send signals to each other\u2026 almost all of that is gone now,\u201d Gen. Christopher Cavoli, NATO supreme allied commander and head of U.S. European Command, said Monday. Cavoli, speaking during an event at Georgetown University timed to NATO\u2019s 75th anniversary, rattled off numerous upgrades to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=125"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions\/126"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/geopoliticsamongstates.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}