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BALKANS

• According to Der Spiegel, command of the peacekeeping operation in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia should remain under German leadership. Upon request by the Skopje government, the NATO Council will reportedly ask Germany, probably this week, to continue commanding Operation Amber Fox, which is supposed to last until the end of March, for at least another three months.

The trial at the ICTY of former President Milosevic continues to generate interest in the fate of former Bosnian Serb leaders Karadzic and Mladic.

Yugoslavia has been threatened with the loss of a multi-million-dollar aid package and U.S. support at world economic institutions if Mladic is not handed over to the ICTY by the end of March, wrote The Sunday Telegraph, Feb. 17. The newspaper noted that March 31 is not the first U.S. deadline for Belgrade to cooperate with the ICTY or lose funding. A similar ultimatum last year persuaded Serbian Prime Minister Djindjic to hand over Milosevic.

War crimes investigators believe Karadzic is in a mountainous area straddling in the border between Bosnia and Montenegro, wrote The Sunday Times, Feb. 17. The article claimed that armed with evidence supplied by former Bosnian President Plavsic, a former Karadzic ally, ICTY Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte met government officials in Banja Luka Friday to discuss Karadzic’s extradition. "I need to have him in The Hague in Court by October," del Ponte reportedly said. The article quoted sources close to the prosecution saying del Ponte wants British troops based in Banja Luka to prepare for a snatch operation. The article stressed that her remark came as a Bosnian Serb newspaper claimed Karadzic was considering turning himself in. Karadzic was said to have been "seriously shaken" by a ruling issued by the Republika Srpska government giving war crimes suspects 30 days to surrender.

France’s Le Monde stresses that the shadow of Karadzic and Mladic, who remain at large, continues to haunt Sarajevo.

NATO

• According to The Independent, opposition by Portuguese military leaders to a government attempt to confine naval patrol ships to port to save money has forced Defense Minister Pena to reverse the order Thursday, shortly after he issued it. The newspaper notes, however, that Pena stressed the money would be taken elsewhere from military budgets. Naval officers reportedly insisted that the cost-cutting measure would leave the long Portuguese seaboard—a main European entry point for cocaine and hashish from Latin America—open for drug smugglers.

• According to AFP, Prime Minister Lipponen was quoted saying in a Finnish newspaper Saturday that Finland has no immediate plans to join NATO but it still remains an option. Lipponen reportedly told a meeting of politicians and defense experts Friday that the issue of NATO membership will be discussed in the next long-term planning paper on defense due in 2004.

• In future, NATO’s national headquarters will stand on the sidelines in crisis situations, and there may no longer be forces earmarked for deployment in Norway, writes Oslo’s Aftenposten. Lt. Gen. Moltzau, head of the Norwegian mission to NATO, presented a picture of that organization in the future that he characterized as revolutionary, says the newspaper, adding: "NATO will now concentrate on the ability to mount operations, rather than preparations for a major war. This was the picture Gen. Moltzau presented recently when he briefed a number of voluntary organizations on how the armed forces will eventually look, seen from Brussels’ perspective. National headquarters might be superfluous in the new NATO. These discussions are going on at both the military and civilian levels, and in the course of five years, many of the changes may have been implemented." According to the newspaper, Gen. Moltzau sees two main trends in this process: Command and control functions will be concentrated at the regional level, where commands for each branch of the services will carry out operations. In addition, so-called reaction headquarters will be established for use in crisis operations. "A future allied operation on Norwegian territory would therefore no longer require the use of or input by national headquarters. If NATO becomes involved in a crisis, the Alliance’s own command and forces structure will take over the operation," he reportedly said. The newspaper observes that Gen. Moltzau represents national defense chief Sigurd Frisvolv in day-to-day NATO work at the Alliance’s headquarters and provides advise from his vantage point inside the organization.

In a contribution to the International Herald Tribune, Hans Binnendijk, a professor of national security at the U.S. National Defense University, advocates the establishment of a European spearhead force, which he believes would bridge the current gap between U.S. capabilities and those of its European NATO allies. Under the caveat that his view does not represent that of the U.S. administration, Binnendijk stresses that the war in Afghanistan reaffirms that the growing military gap between the United States and its NATO allies must be closed or the Alliance is at risk. Closing that gap need not be excessively expensive, but it requires Europe to focus on the problem and the United States to share capabilities with its allies, he writes. He suggests that the most affordable approach to avoid having a gap in military capabilities that turns into transatlantic political divisions would be to develop a European spearhead force that can participate with U.S. units in high-intensity conflict. According to Binnendijk, all European military forces do not need to be transformed to match U.S. capabilities. A few brigades and air squadrons would do to get started. To develop such a spearhead force and plug into the U.S. effort, European militaries need to concentrate on a few key capabilities such as sensors, secure data links, all-weather precision strikes and improved logistics. Once a European spearhead force is designated and equipped, it must exercise routinely with U.S. units. In fact, it should be part of the joint experimentation in which the U.S. military is engaged to design its new operational concepts. "Such an effort will require planning and practice. But if NATO cannot fight as an alliance, political differences will pull it apart," Binnendijk warns.

Transatlantic relations remain at the center of media interest. Commentators general see a growing Atlantic divide as a result of diverging views regarding the pursue of the war against terrorism.

U.S. allies in Europe are deeply fearful that the Bush administration is moving inexorably toward a military clash with Iraq; and while they are being blunt in their opposition, they also are beginning to wonder if Washington cares what they think, wrote the Financial Times, Feb. 17. European skepticism about strikes on Iraq had been building for weeks, but blossomed after President Bush’s State of the Union address in which he referred to Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an "axis of evil," noted the newspaper.

"The rift between the United States and its European allies is getting serious," says a commentary in the International Herald Tribune. What is driving a wedge between the United States and Europe is not simply a lack of dialogue but a growing divergence of interests and capabilities. If this imbalance is not addressed quickly, both sides will soon find themselves on very unstable ground, stresses the newspaper and adds: "What Europeans don’t understand is how much America was changed by Sept. 11…. Americans feel that they are at war. They feel vulnerable. They want to destroy the enemy before the enemy destroys them. Europeans may find that kind of thinking simplistic, but they can’t wish it away…. Paradoxically, the struggle against terrorism is one of the few issues that could unite these wayward allies. The challenge now is to identify and destroy Al Qaeda networks of sleeper agents in Europe and the United States. The Europeans won’t have to spend billions on new defense hardware. All that’s required is that America and Europe work together on intelligence operations and police work. It’s certainly a cheaper option that divorce."

In a contribution to the Financial Times, Peter Mandelson, a former British government minister and adviser to Prime Minister Blair, writes that rather than criticize the United States, EU states should improve defense capabilities for the sake of a more equal transatlantic partnership. "If Europe seeks a more equal partnership with the U.S. (as it should) it must be tough on terrorism as well as the causes of terrorism; and it needs to offer more in terms of defense spending and planning," Mandelson insists. He stresses that fighting a modern war against such an asymmetric threat as terrorism requires the best and most efficient means, which is made difficult by the growing technological gap between the two sides of the Atlantic and uncluttered by the political compromises that inevitably arise when marshalling an international force.

While Die Welt sees a growing EU resentment of "high-handed" U.S. foreign policy, Le Monde highlights the current "transatlantic irritation."

ISAF

• According to the International Herald Tribune, the leader of Afghanistan’s interim government, Hamid Karzai, asserted Sunday that the government was "fully united" behind him despite the slaying Thursday of his aviation and tourism minister. He told journalists, however, that if security problems continued to mount, he would ask the international peacekeeping force of 3,500 troops stationed in Afghanistan to "change its mandate" and take "a more direct role" in combating violence.