NATO Chief arrives in Washington

 NATO chief arrives in Washington looking ahead toward Russia and China, away from Afghanistan

Jamie McIntyre  3 hrs ago /Washington Examiner

AFGHANISTAN IN REARVIEW MIRROR: NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is in Washington today to meet with President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ahead of next week’s summit of alliance leaders in Brussels.

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With the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan expected to pass the halfway mark this week (the U.S. Central Command will release a new, updated percentage tomorrow), the pace the troop exit is ahead of schedule and on track to be completed well before the Sept. 11 deadline set by Biden.

But the focus of next Monday’s summit is not the worsening level of violence in Afghanistan or the inability of the Afghan government forces to blunt an intensifying Taliban offensive, but rather reflects a clear desire by the alliance to put the mission in Afghanistan behind it and look ahead toward countering Russia and China.

In a speech in Brussels Friday, Stoltenberg mentioned Afghanistan only once in passing and wasn’t asked a single question about the withdrawal in the Q&A session that followed. Stoltenberg meets with Austin at 11 a.m. at the Pentagon and Biden at the White House at 4:30 p.m. The White House said the two would discuss “many issues on the NATO agenda, including reinforcing transatlantic security in the face of challenges from Russia and China.”

In an op-ed outlining his goals for his European trip and meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Biden talked about rallying democracies, but like Stoltenberg, made no mention of Afghanistan.

DIRE PREDICTIONS COMING TRUE: Meanwhile, the Taliban has taken control of seven district centers in four different regions of Afghanistan over the past week, according to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’s Long War Journal, whose tracking map shows the Afghan government in control of only a small part of the country in the center, surrounded by districts either contested on controlled by the Taliban.

“The Afghan security forces have been under heavy pressure since the Taliban renewed its efforts to retake districts after the U.S. began its withdraw from Afghanistan in May. U.S. airpower is no longer assisting Afghan forces in repelling major Taliban attacks,” writes Bill Roggio, an FDD senior fellow. “The Taliban has stepped up pressure in all regions of the country.”

A United Nations report released last week laid out the situation in blunt terms. “The Taliban’s messaging remains uncompromising, and it shows no sign of reducing the level of violence in Afghanistan to facilitate peace negotiations with the Government of Afghanistan and other Afghan stakeholders,” the June 1 report concludes. “The Taliban’s intent appears to be to continue to strengthen its military position as leverage. It believes that it can achieve almost all of its objectives by negotiation or, if necessary, by force.”

US SAYS IT’S NOT ABANDONING AFGHANS: The State Department dispatched a delegation headed by U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad to Doha and Kabul over the weekend to meet with the key players to both try to re-energize the stalled peace process and reassure Afghan leaders of the continued U.S. financial support.

In a tweet following his meeting with Khalilzad, Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of the Afghan High Council for Reconciliation, offered perfunctory thanks to the U.S. and the allies, but in an interview with the Washington Post last month, he was more candid about his disappointment with the speed of the U.S. withdrawal.

“That the U.S. would withdraw sooner or later, we had no doubt,” he told the Washington Post’s Lally Weymouth, noting that with the U.S. packing up to leave, the Taliban have only been emboldened. “So far the Taliban has not been serious in their negotiations,” he said. “Perhaps there are groups among the Taliban that think a military takeover may be possible. They haven’t said it explicitly, but that’s their attitude. They have not fulfilled their commitment about reducing violence nor de-linking with al Qaeda.”

“A Taliban takeover will not happen,” he predicted. “Our priority is to make peace. If the Taliban insists on a violent takeover, they will face not just the Afghan security and defense forces, but also the Afghan people. People don’t want the Taliban. Ask people who have experienced their rule.”

So far, the U.S. has offered no plan to replace the departing U.S. contractors vital to keeping the Afghan military going or to evacuate Afghan translators and others who worked for the U.S. and could face retaliation from the Taliban.

“As Afghans look for visible signs that Biden’s promised support will continue, what they see is a rush to the door — and silence about the details that would make the promises real,” writes Ronald Neumann, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, in an op-ed this morning

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HAPPENING TODAY: On Capitol Hill, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has back-to-back hearings on the State Department’s 2022 budget, as well as a third hearing tomorrow morning. Blinken’s testimony had to be rescheduled because of his travel schedule in late May.

This morning, he appears before the House Foreign Affairs Committee at 10 a.m. and then before the House Appropriations State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Subcommittee at 2:30 p.m. Tomorrow, he’s scheduled to testify before the Senate Appropriations Committee at 10 a.m.

ALSO TODAY: U.S. Central Commander Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie will discuss “the safe and deliberate withdrawal from Afghanistan, deterring Iran’s destabilizing activities, China and Russia’s influence in the region, and the defeat-ISIS campaign in Iraq and Syria,” a conference call briefing for reporters run out of the State Department’s Dubai Regional Media Hub.

The Dubai Regional Media Hub is a State Department effort to build relations with media outlets throughout the Arab world through interviews and social media, so McKenzie’s remarks will include a separate simultaneous Arabic translation.

OUR MAN IN UKRAINE: The Washington Examiner’s intrepid defense reporter Abraham Mahshie has been reporting from Ukraine the past few days.

Among his dispatches is an account of how Ukraine, with U.S. help, is rebuilding its navy after losing ships and port facilities to Russia when Vladimir Putin seized Crimea in 2014.

“Ukraine is reconstituting its navy in order to patrol its coastlines and help counter Russia’s increased military presence in the Black Sea and the tiny Sea of Azov closed in by Crimea, Ukraine, and Russia,” Mahshie reports. “The 1936 Montreux Convention limits the presence of foreign navies in the Black Sea, meaning U.S. vessels must rotate out every two weeks to maintain a presence. But Black Sea nations can patrol as they wish.”

“We lost Crimea temporarily, but we lost it,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told Mahshie in an exclusive interview in Kyiv. “We are heavily investing in basically the creation of a new Ukrainian navy.”

The U.S. is donating five P-190 Sloviansk island-class patrol vessels and eight Mark VI patrol boats to a fledgling Ukrainian navy of no more than 30 ships.

READ MORE: US HELPS UKRAINE FEND OFF RUSSIA IN BLACK SEA AFTER MOST OF FLEET WAS CAPTURED WITH CRIMEA

ON THE FRONT LINES: From the capital Kyiv, Mahshie traveled to the Shyrokyne Village, which is along the front line separating Ukraine forces and Russian-backed rebels.

Mahshie interviewed the soldiers manning muddy trenches and subject to shelling as soon as night falls.

“Mud pools below the wooden pallet walkways in the narrow, dark network of tunnels. This is where the soldiers live. And this is where they hunker down when the shelling starts after dark — and European peace monitors are out of sight,” Mahshie reports. “These positions are shelled two to three times a week. Soldiers die, casualties continue.”

“Anybody would be scared. Only a stupid person wouldn’t,” a Ukrainian army officer tells Mahshie. “Nothing is hard for me to get used to. I have known since childhood what military service is,” he said of life in the trenches. “I like to serve.”

READ MORE: TRENCH WARFARE: ON THE EASTERN UKRAINE FRONT LINE AS CONFLICT WITH RUSSIA RAGES

CONFRONTING PUTIN: In his op-ed published this morning in the Washington Post, President Joe Biden said he will seek a “stable and predictable relationship” with Russia when he meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva, but that he will also “not hesitate to respond” to future harmful activities from Moscow.

“We are standing united to address Russia’s challenges to European security, starting with its aggression in Ukraine, and there will be no doubt about the resolve of the United States to defend our democratic values, which we cannot separate from our interests,” Biden writes.

“In my phone calls with President Putin, I have been clear and direct. The United States does not seek conflict,” he said. “At the same time, I have also imposed meaningful consequences for behaviors that violate U.S. sovereignty, including interference in our democratic elections … When we meet, I will again underscore the commitment of the United States, Europe and like-minded democracies to stand up for human rights and dignity.”