NATO Not Looking for War With Russia - CSIS

WASHINGTON, August 28 (RIA Novosti) - NATO is not looking for ways to set off a war with Russia, despite the alliance’s commitment to build up rapid response forces close to Russia’s border, a representative of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told RIA Novosti.

“We are not looking for war with Russia. We aim to prevent any kind of unusual, unconventional approaches that might come after NATO territory or NATO stability,” International Security Director at CSIS Katherine Hicks said during a Wednesday press briefing on the upcoming NATO summit.

“It’s about that rapid reaction capability,” Hicks said on the plans for rotational bases and force presence along NATO’s Eastern front.

According to statements, made ahead of the September 4-5 NATO summit in Wales, the members of the alliance will focus their discussion on improving the readiness of NATO forces within the member-states.

Such plans on the improvement and modernization of NATO’s Response Forces (NRF) have raised concerns in Russia, which has watched the alliance gradually approach its western borders since the start of the Ukrainian crisis.

Within the NRF, NATO intends to ensure the readiness of the Immediate Response Forces, comprised of 13,000 troops provided by member nations, and also build non-alliance capabilities in Ukraine.

“The types of capabilities are going to look different than they would have during the Cold War. Sufficiency today looks a lot different than, maybe, one would have thought in the Cold War,” Hicks said.

NATO’s new capabilities are intended to provide assurance for both member-states and non-allies in the region, Hicks added.

"[NATO is] explicitly taking a step down to a building partnership capacity approach to non-NATO members, instead of making an attempt to officially incorporate them into the alliance,” she said, referring to such non-member states as Georgia and Ukraine.

Hicks said she believes NATO does not want to provoke a response that “could be misinterpreted and thus lead to a miscalculation that is not helpful in any way.”