Some German troops from the NATO defence alliance's peacekeeping force in Afghanistan were also being sent.
ECONOMIST: Tragedy on one of the world’s main fault lines | The
In this situation, Japan must above all cling to and strengthen its defence alliance with the United States.
The party is divided between those who argue that Scotland sans Trident could be a conventionally armed partner in the defence alliance, apparently in line with public thinking, and those who say that it is hypocrisy to banish Trident while sheltering under the Nato nuclear umbrella.
Mr Allawi, if he is brought in, may be given defence, though the main Shia alliance is warier of him than the Kurds are.
Where after the war Attlee established the case for the NHS, state education and a welfare state, Thatcher, after the industrial wars of the 70s and the Cold War, won the arguments for a market-based economy, the private ownership of key industries and services, limits on trade union power and a strong defence policy based on the Atlantic Alliance.
The defence white paper also reaffirms Australia's alliance with the United States, describing it as the country's "most important relationship".
The exclusion of a breakaway Hutu opposition alliance called the National Council for the Defence of Democracy and the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (CNDD-FDD) has been considered a reason for the failure of talks so far.
Last year, these groups formed a major part of the movement launched by an alliance of Jihadist religious forces, the Defence of Pakistan Council, to put pressure on the Pakistani civilian rulers not to reopen the Nato supply routes through Pakistan.
The first transatlantic coupling could be an alliance of Thomson, a partly privatised French defence-electronics group, and Raytheon, America's fourth-biggest defence firm, with which it already collaborates on air-traffic-control and other systems.
That is no less damning a criticism, reflecting the toll on the alliance's fighting capability of inadequate or poorly conceived defence spending by too many of its members (see table).
ECONOMIST: The future of NATO: Fewer dragons, more snakes | The
Two of the newest members of the alliance, Poland and the Czech Republic, strongly supported missile defence.
The Ministry of Defence has signed a contract which will see 149 workers transfer to an alliance of companies, looking after Trident and Polaris weapons systems.
The consortium, known as ABL Alliance, is made up of companies that already work on defence contracts, led by AWE, along with Babcock and Lockheed Martin.
After intense haggling over posts, the Northern Alliance controls more than half of the ministries, including the powerful defence, foreign and interior portfolios.
"The forces will augment Turkey's air defence capabilities and contribute to the de-escalation of the crisis along the Alliance's border, " Eucom said in a statement.
The centre-right Alliance government first presented proposals in early 2007 aimed at allowing the National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA), a state intelligence agency, to monitor a wider range of Internet and telecoms traffic into and out of Sweden.
One of the benefits of Article 5, the collective defence pledge that underpins NATO, is that it leaves unspoken the potential sources of danger for alliance members.
After the parting shots by Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, predicting a "dim and dismal" future for Nato if the other members of the alliance do not do more to defend their interests, it is apparent that extending the "Libyan model" of intervention elsewhere in the troubled region would be extremely hard.
But critics of the bill, including three opposition parties under the umbrella of the Democratic Alliance claim the law targets law-abiding citizens and will deprive them of their right to self-defence.
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