NATO Veterans Initiative - NAVI

Final Weekly of 2024 with heartfelt wishes for safety and security with good health, happiness, and fortune in 2025... Key topics include: 👉 Donald Trump's anticipated foreign policy changes, including increased NATO defense spending demands and continued aid to Ukraine; 💥 Tensions in the Middle East, specifically Germany's cautioning of Turkey regarding potential conflict with Kurdish forces in Syria; 👉 Shifts in the dynamics of peacekeeping and French military presence in Africa; 💥 Russia's strategic priorities, revealed by its actions in Syria and Ukraine; and 👉 The impact of misinformation and foreign interference on global elections. The articles highlight significant geopolitical events and their implications for international relations. #NATO #UkraineWar #SyriaConflict #AfricanSecurity #Misinformation #CyberSecurity #TransatlanticSecurity #Geopolitics

Via NATO: NATO to enhance military presence in the Baltic Sea By NATO I 30.12.2024 Allies met today (30 December 2024) at NATO Headquarters to consult on the security of critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea, following damage to undersea cables connecting Estonia and Finland on 25 December. The damage to the cables, which is being investigated by Finnish authorities, is one of a number of recent incidents in the Baltic Sea under scrutiny as possible sabotage. Allies expressed full solidarity with Estonia and Finland in the wake of the recent incident. In order to maintain vigilance, increase situational awareness, and deter future incidents, NATO is enhancing its military presence in the Baltic Sea. Allies are also considering other measures to address potential threats to critical undersea infrastructure, including with the support of NATO’s Maritime Centre for Security of Critical Undersea Infrastructure that was established in May of this year. https://lnkd.in/eeeFYZKw

Wishing you and your loved ones a year filled with happiness, health, and success. May 2025 bring new opportunities and continued unity as we honor and support our veteran community. Here’s to a bright and prosperous year ahead! 🕊️ #HappyNewYear #NATOVeteransInitiative #NAVI #StrongerTogether

Via Time: The 39 Most Anticipated Books of 2025 https://lnkd.in/ef4mwQsa

Come join us as we lead the United States Department of Defense towards a reimagined future for Total Force Talent Management. The nearly 3.5 million uniformed and civilian members of this great organization are looking for your leadership and dedication to this important mission.

Via WSJ: Finland Seizes Tanker Linked to Russia After More Undersea Baltic Cables Cut By Bojan Pancevski | 26.12.2024 | Subscription needed Finnish leaders urge further NATO protection against alleged sabotage of critical infrastructure by Moscow. https://lnkd.in/eXT8qkGG

Via FP: Putin Chose Ukraine Over Syria By Alexander Baunov | 26.12.2024 | Subscription needed Rulers who hope for Russia’s help may be unpleasantly surprised by how quickly it seeks to establish contacts with Syria’s new leaders. Even before Assad’s departure, Russian television stopped calling Hayat Tahrir al-Sham a terrorist organization. More recently, the head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, clearly with Kremlin approval, has proposed removing the “terrorist” label from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and the government has allowed the Syrian embassy in Moscow to raise the rebel flag. Now, Moscow is establishing direct contact with the new Syrian government, trying to win its favor by emphasizing that, despite previous attempts to prop up a secular leader against religious fundamentalists, it sees itself as a global bastion of religious conservatism. Putin has tried to present Russia’s failure in Syria as a victory, claiming that Russia had prevented the creation of a “terrorist enclave” in the country. But Assad’s fall (and Russia’s indifference to the collapse of his regime) suggests that concern for Syria or any other client state has been subjugated by Putin to his overriding focus on dealing Ukraine a decisive defeat. At the same time, Putin’s decision to prioritize Ukraine should not be taken for a complete abandonment of Russian ambitions outside its immediate neighborhood. Rather, the loss of Syria has simply raised the stakes of the war in Ukraine. In Putin’s schema, Ukraine has become a tipping point in a global struggle between the Western elite and a new, Russian-led order: once Ukraine falls, Russia hopes to take Georgia and whatever other territory it desires, and to once again sell itself as a strong patron to countries around the world. In the meantime, however, Moscow’s promises will ring hollow. https://lnkd.in/e5Pn6v2c

Via Euronews: How did misinformation and foreign interference shape the ‘super year’ of elections? Mated Cwyn Jones | 27.12.2024 An estimated 3.7 billion people in more than 70 countries across the world were eligible to vote in 2024 according to the UN, in what has been described as a landmark "super year" of elections. High-stakes votes took place in populous nations such as the US, India and Indonesia, and authoritarian and autocratic states including Belarus, Iran and Russia. The European election in June saw some 182 million people cast their ballots across 27 countries in one of the world’s biggest cross-border votes. But many of those ballots shone a harsh light on the increasingly disruptive impact of misinformation, generative AI and foreign interference on electoral processes. Meta, which owns social platforms Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, said earlier this month that despite warnings about the risk of generative AI to elections, “it seems these risks did not materialise in a significant way and that any such impact was modest and limited in scope.” Recent studies by the UK-based Centre for Emerging Technology and Security conclude that the European, French and UK elections were not “meaningfully impacted” by foreign-backed or AI-enabled misinformation and find no "conclusive evidence" such campaigns swayed the result of the US presidential ballot in November. But the notion that no 2024 election had been severely impacted by information manipulation was dispelled in December, when the Romanian Constitutional Court decided to annul the first-round results of the presidential election and cancel the run-off. The decision was made based on declassified Romanian intelligence suggesting a "state actor" had orchestrated the social media campaign of the first-round winner, Calin Georgescu. Euronews breaks down five moments where we saw the potentially disruptive impact of AI-enabled misinformation and foreign interference in elections across the world this year. https://lnkd.in/enkP6AVb

Via FT: Trump wants 5% Nato defence spending target, Europe told By Lucy Fisher, Henry Foy and Felicia Schwartz I 20.12. 2024 I Subscription needed US president-elect’s closest foreign policy aides indicate he will continue arming Ukraine while pursuing end to war Donald Trump’s team has told European officials that the incoming US president will demand NATO member states increase defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP, but plans to continue supplying military aid to Ukraine. The US president-elect’s closest foreign policy aides shared his intentions in discussions with senior European officials this month, according to people familiar with the talks, as he firms up his policies towards Europe and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. During his White House campaign, Trump vowed to cut off aid to Ukraine, force Kyiv into immediate peace talks, and leave Nato allies undefended if they failed to spend enough on defence — spooking European capitals. But in a boost for allies deeply concerned over their ability to support and protect Ukraine without Washington’s backing, Trump now intends to maintain US military supplies to Kyiv after his inauguration, according to three other people briefed on the discussions with western officials. At the same time Trump is to demand NATO more than double its 2 per cent spending target — which only 23 of the alliance’s 32 members currently meet — to 5 per cent, two people briefed on the conversations said. https://lnkd.in/e6sucTam

Via Defense News: France’s military is being ousted from more African countries By Monika Pronczuk and Sylvie Corbet I The Associated Press | 25.12.2024 The government of Chad, considered France’s most stable and loyal partner in Africa, announced on its Independence Day it was ending defense cooperation to redefine its sovereignty. And in an interview published hours later by Le Monde, Senegal’s new president said it was “obvious” that soon French soldiers wouldn’t be on Senegalese soil. “Just because the French have been here since the slavery period doesn’t mean it’s impossible to do otherwise,” President Bassirou Diomaye Faye said. https://lnkd.in/eWgK_xBx