NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Friday told Germany's DPA news agency that he expects increased dialogue between Russia and the transatlantic alliance in 2018.

Relations between NATO and Russia deteriorated in the wake of Moscow's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

Read more: Is NATO doing enough to pressure Russia over Ukraine?

Towards normalization?

Germany's NATO missions Germany's role in NATO West Germany officially joined the trans-Atlantic alliance in 1955. However, it wasn't until after reunification in 1990 that the German government considered "out of area" missions led by NATO. From peacekeeping to deterrence, Germany's Bundeswehr has since been deployed in several countries across the globe in defense of its allies.

Germany's NATO missions Bosnia: Germany's first NATO mission In 1995, Germany participated in its first "out of area" NATO mission as part of a UN-mandated peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the deployment, German soldiers joined other NATO member forces to provide security in the wake of the Bosnian War. The peacekeeping mission included more than 60,000 troops from NATO's member states and partners.

Germany's NATO missions Keeping the peace in Kosovo Since the beginning of the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, some 8,500 German soldiers have been deployed in the young country. In 1999, NATO launched an air assault against Serbian forces accused of carrying out a brutal crackdown against ethnic Albanian separatists and their civilian supporters. Approximately 550 Bundeswehr troops are still stationed in Kosovo.

Germany's NATO missions Patrolling the Aegean Sea In 2016, Germany deployed its combat support ship "Bonn" to lead a NATO mission backed by the EU in the Aegean Sea. The mission included conducting "reconnaissance, monitoring and surveillance of illegal crossings" in Greek and Turkish territorial waters at the height of the migration crisis. Germany, Greece and Turkey had requested assistance from the trans-Atlantic alliance.

Germany's NATO missions More than a decade in Afghanistan In 2003, Germany's parliament voted to send Bundeswehr troops to Afghanistan in support of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Germany became the third-largest contributor of troops and led the Regional Command North. More than 50 German troops were killed during the mission. Nearly a thousand soldiers are still deployed in Afghanistan as part of Resolute Support.

Germany's NATO missions German tanks in Lithuania Forming part of NATO's "enhanced forward presence" in the Baltic states, 450 Bundeswehr soldiers have been deployed to Lithuania so far in 2017. The battalion-size battlegroups there are led by Germany, Canada, the UK and US to reinforce collective defense on the alliance's eastern flank. It forms the "biggest reinforcement of Alliance collective defence in a generation," according to NATO.

Germany's NATO missions Taking over the leadership The Bundeswehr is due to take over leadership of NATO's multinational Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) at the start of 2019. The rapid reaction force has been set up to counter potential Russian aggression on the alliance's eastern flank. Author: Lewis Sanders IV



Not Cold War 2.0

In the interview, Stoltenberg told DPA news agency:

"We are moving forward both on the political dialogue and the military lines of communication, and the whole alliance is behind that."

"We need to address the fact that we see a more assertive Russia to the east. At the same time NATO's message is that we don't want a new Cold War. We don't want a new arms race and we want political dialogue with Russia."

However, amid a push from Germany to foster communication with Russia, the US' top diplomat Tillerson told NATO ministers in December: "I think there is broad consensus among all the NATO members that there is no normalization of dialogue with Russia today."

Read more: Russia is hacking and harassing NATO soldiers, says report

Does NATO view Russia as a threat: This is a tricky question: While the military alliance does not believe a traditional offensive is imminent, it sees Russia's annexation of Ukraine and military build up on its eastern flank as aggressive posturing and a possible threat to neighboring member states, such as Estonia and Lithuania.

What happens next: With 2018 around the corner, both sides are likely to continue using various channels of communication for practical military coordination and political dialogue, mostly to avoid an escalation of tensions.