NEWPORT, Wales (AP) — NATO’s creation of a rapid-reaction “spearhead” force to protect Eastern Europe from Russian bullying reflects a cool-eyed calculation that Vladimir Putin and his generals won’t risk head-to-head confrontation with the U.S. and its nuclear-capable Western European allies.
The force was ordered into life Friday by President Barack Obama and other NATO leaders at a summit meeting in Wales to deter Putin and make NATO’s most vulnerable members, such as Poland, Romania and the Baltic republics, feel safer from Russia’s million-strong armed forces in light of Moscow’s military involvement in Ukraine.
Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine earlier …read more
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
