Two-Day Conference of National Armaments Directors

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg opened a two-day Conference of National Armaments Directors (CNAD) session at NATO Headquarters on April 26-27 to orchestrate the ramp up weapons and ammunition production, to rapidly replenish stockpiles of NATO members and sustain the U.S./NATO proxy war waged in Ukraine. U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks remarked to Bloomberg press that lessons learned by the US and NATO in the Ukrainian military conflict are preparing for conflict directed against China, the DPRK and others in East Asia. "There are many advantages we've gained for a potential Pacific challenge from the Ukraine conflict," Hicks told Bloomberg in an interview published on April 26. "We're learning now to grow our industrial base and to study that industrial base, which has been for the last 60 years in a bit of a feast and famine cycle," she said. Specifically, Hicks said the U.S. repeatedly used the Presidential Drawdown Authority to speed up the transfer of stockpiles to Ukraine and plans to do the same with Taiwan. "We're thinking about how we use those authorities right now to generate faster and higher-capacity delivery of munitions to provide to our forces in the Pacific," Hicks said, adding that the Pentagon has "a clear strategy that's focused on China."

In related news, the U.S. Air Force is moving its refueling mission from Germany to Poland for the foreseeable future. It is a move aimed at reinforcing NATO's eastern flank, the Air Force said. Nineteen tanker units "based stateside" are slated to go to the west-central Polish town of Powidz, with several planned operations supporting NATO activities. Since the start of the war, the Pentagon has increased the number of U.S. troops in Europe from about 80,000 to more than 100,000. Over 10,000 of those forces are on Polish bases, U.S. ambassador to Poland Mark Brzezinski said in the Air Force statement.

This article was published in
Logo
Volume 53 Number 4 - April 2023

Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2023/Articles/M5300413.HTM


    

Website:  www.cpcml.ca   Email:  editor@cpcml.ca