European countries feel safer under NATO protective umbrella

NATO's presence has brought a sense of security to the region. [AFP]

European countries feel safer under NATO protective umbrella

Officials and regional security experts view the Alliance as crucial to the region's prosperity.

NATO's presence has brought a sense of security to the region. [AFP]

The Crimea crisis and increased tension between Russia and the West has brought many reminders of the Cold War, and reinforces NATO's key role as a security platform that ensures sovereignty and stability while providing a check against authoritarian tendencies, experts said.

The Alliance offers a crucial security umbrella at a time when Russian actions have raised concerns that it is attempting to restore the influence of the former Soviet Union, said Ilir Ibrahimi, vice president and chief operating officer of the American University of Kosovo in Pristina.

"States that in one way or another see a risk of such an expansion by Russia have to make NATO membership their main priority," Ibrahimi told SETimes.

Ukraine is not a NATO member, but has been at a centre of an international crisis after its Crimea peninsula voted to leave Ukraine and be annexed by Russia. Russian troops have taken over the peninsula and Ukraine's military bases in the region, although the annexation is seen as illegitimate by the West.

NATO Supreme Allied Military commander in Europe General Philip Breedlove said on March 23rd (Sunday) that Russia has built a large force on Ukraine's eastern border that threatens Moldova's Trans-Dniester region.

"The [Russian] force that is at the Ukrainian border now to the east is very, very sizable and very, very ready," said Breedlove, who spoke at a German Marshall Fund think tank event in Brussels. "There is absolutely sufficient force postured on the eastern...

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