#nato-article-5-type-defence

#nato-article-5-type-defence

Austria's Defense Ministry stated, 'There have indeed been requests and they were refused from the outset.' The refusal is based on the country's neutrality policy, which has been in effect since 1955.

If there was a moment when the absence of a US strategy on Iran was exposed, then this was it. Donald Trump demanded on Saturday that the UK, China, France, Japan and others participate in a naval escort for oil tankers through the strait of Hormuz. Despite launching the attack on Iran, with Israel, the White House does not seem to have fully anticipated what was likely to follow.

NATO countries' restrained response to hybrid attacks is at odds with public opinion, new polling shows: Broad swaths of the public in key allied countries say actions such as cyberattacks on hospitals should be considered acts of war. The POLITICO Poll, conducted in the United States, Canada, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, showed a majority of people agreed that a cyberattack that shuts down hospitals or power grids constitutes an act of war. Canadians felt the strongest about the issue, with 73 percent agreeing.

France has offered to 'extend' its nuclear umbrella to other European countries without actually 'sharing' it. How can that work, asks John Lichfield. This will be the subject of a speech by President Emmanuel Macron in the next two weeks which could be one of the most important speeches in European history. Or a damp squib. Macron has promised to update France's nuclear doctrine. In other words, he will revisit the rules which have governed use of France's force de frappe or nuclear deterrent

Ben Hodges said the proposed multinational force, discussed this week by the British and French leaders with Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Paris, had to be robust enough to deal with likely Kremlin-orchestrated provocations. The coalition of the willing has to have real force and rules of engagement that allow it to immediately react and respond to any violations, he said. Captains can't be having to call back to Paris or London to find out how to deal with a Russian drone.

At the beginning of the year, German men aged 18 began to receive a compulsory questionnaire registering their fitness for army service under a law passed last month. Joining the army is voluntary for now, but the law allows the government to introduce mandatory service to meet its goal of building what it says will be the strongest army in Europe for the first time since World War II.

Donald Trump just carried out an external coup in Venezuela and kidnapped the president of that country-and he's only getting started. In the wake of this violent assertion of American dominance over the Western Hemisphere, Trump has started threatening other neighboring countries, promising interventions in Mexico, Cuba, and Colombia. And, most pertinently for Europe, he's renewing his vows to annex Greenland.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Friday that he was in talks with French President Emmanuel Macron about nuclear deterrence, as worries grow about US security commitments to Europe. "I have held confidential talks with the French president about European nuclear deterrence," Merz said at the opening of the Munich Security Conference. He previously said he was open to France extending its nuclear deterrent in Europe.