NATO and German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius jointly inaugurated NATO’s new Combined Task Force Baltic headquarters at the German Navy’s Rostock naval base on Oct. 21, though, according to a NATO Maritime Command (MARCOM) news story, it actually began operations on Oct. 1.
Joining German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius was MARCOM’s Deputy Commander Vice Adm. Didier Maleterre. “[Commander Task Force] CTF Baltic has two core missions: to plan maritime exercises and operations and to lead naval forces assigned by NATO in times of peace, crisis and war,” MARCOM explains. “Additionally, it will play a key role in fostering cooperation between the allied navies in the Baltic Sea region.”
Not said, but obvious from looking at a map, is that NATO in the Baltic has two interrelated objectives: to cut off the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad from the rest of Russia, and to bottle up and neutralize the Russian Baltic Sea Fleet.
Commander Task Force (CTF) Baltic is commanded by a German admiral whose deputy is a Polish flag officer, and the command’s chief of staff is a Swedish officer. It currently includes personnel from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom among its 60 staff officers.
Moscow sees the establishment of CTF Baltic on the territory of the former German Democratic Republic as a treaty violation. The Russian Foreign Ministry announced it had summoned German Ambassador Alexander Graf Lambsdorff today: “The ambassador was informed that this step by the German ruling circles represents continuation of a creeping revision of the outcomes of World War II and is part of the efforts to militarize that country. This action constitutes gross violation of the spirit and letter of the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (the Two Plus Four Agreement) which was signed on September 12, 1990. According to Article 5, paragraph 3 of that treaty, Germany is under obligation not to allow the stationing or deployment of foreign troops on the territory of the former G.D.R. Berlin was requested to immediately provide exhaustive clarifications.”
According to the Ministry, its statement continued: “This move brings to mind tragic parallels with Germany remilitarizing Rhineland in 1936 in violation of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. The Russian side pointed out that not only European politicians, but their overseers in Washington, too, seem to be affected by historical amnesia and forgot about the catastrophe that devastated the peoples of Europe, including Germany, and was caused by Paris and London’s tacit consent, which was driven by blind hatred towards the Soviet Union, to the Third Reich’s actions.
“Now, in the modern-day historical context, former Western Allies have not only sanctioned Berlin’s outright violation of a fundamental international legal document, but acted as accomplices in this violation.
“Washington, Brussels, and Berlin must be fully aware of the fact that spreading NATO’s military infrastructure into the territory of the former G.D.R. will have utterly negative consequences and will not go unanswered,” the Ministry warning concluded.
