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Could new Russian threat in Eastern Europe divert NATO's attention away from Afghanistan?
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- With Russia pushing new hostilities to Europe's doorstep, U.S. and NATO officials are trying to gauge whether already dwindling resources and attention will be diverted from what, until now, has been a top security priority: Afghanistan.
• NATO, the international military alliance, is intent on continuing its 12-year mission in Afghanistan and has urged the government in Kabul to sign a security agreement allowing foreign troops to stay and train local forces beyond a Dec. 31 withdrawal deadline.
• But with NATO states in Eastern Europe openly worried over Russian aggression, especially after Moscow this week annexed the strategic Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine, the alliance may have little choice but to bolster its own borders at some cost of keeping a robust and diverse military presence a continent away.
• NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen insisted Wednesday that Russia's aggressions would not distract the military alliance from Afghanistan.
• "We have the capacity to deal with several missions and operations at one and the same time," Rasmussen said under questioning at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington. "And ongoing events will not have any impact on our engagement in Afghanistan."
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Analysis: Ukraine crisis has roots in end of Cold War, disregard of Russian sensitivities
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- The crisis over Crimea is more than a dispute over whether the strategic Black Sea peninsula should be considered Russian or Ukrainian. At its root is a deeper issue: Russia's simmering anger over its treatment by the West since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.
• Russia's biggest grievance has been the absorption into the NATO alliance not only of former Soviet allies, such as Poland and Romania, but also three republics that were part of the Soviet Union: Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. The last straw was a European Union move to draw Ukraine closer to the West through a political association agreement. That set off a chain of events that led to the ouster of Ukraine's pro-Russian president and, ultimately, to Russia's annexation of Crimea.
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