Can NATO and Russia Cooperate on Afghanistan?
By Andre de Nesnera Washington DC 23 March 2009 Foreign Ministers from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have recently agreed to resume ties with Russia that were suspended last August as a result of Moscow’s five-day war with Georgia. This has led to the possibility of NATO-Russia cooperation on Afghanistan. NATO has been operating in Afghanistan since 2003. The alliance has more than 60,000 troops as part of a U.N. mandated contingent known as the “International Security Assistance Force”. It is the military alliance’s first mission outside the Euro-Atlantic region. The United States has 38,000 troops in Afghanistan, some of which serve under the NATO banner. Analysts say the U.S. and NATO war effort in Afghanistan was dealt a blow when the government in Kyrgyzstan [last month] decided to evict U.S. forces from the Manas air base the United States has leased since 2001. The U.S. ambassador to NATO during the Clinton administration, Robert Hunter, says Russia was not helpful in t
