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NATO

• In The Washington Post Charles Krauthammer opines that NATO, as a military Alliance, has lost his role because of its military irrelevance in the Afghan war, but it can be usefully re-imagined. Its new role should be to serve as incubator for Russia’s integration into Europe and the West, the author writes, and it is precisely because NATO has turned from a military Alliance into a transatlantic club of advanced democracies that it can safely invite Russia in and why Russia has so reconciled itself to NATO.

• Regarding European nations’ defensive deficiencies, an editorial in the Wall Street Journal writes that NATO must be modernized in order to be able to deploy globally, thus being useful in times of crisis. Recalling that solutions have been on the table for years – the 58 headline goals in 1999’s Defense Capabilities Initiative or DCI – the daily stresses that early next month the 19 NATO Defense Ministers will reduce those goals to around eight. They will focus on interoperability, airlift capabilities and special forces, writes the article, adding that former Chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, Klaus Naumann, has reportedly underlined that NATO’s Command structure should be changed in order to make it easier to deploy and lead multinational units.

• "A possible accession of Russia into NATO will create real concern in China and in the Islamic world," Leonid Ivachov – former director of the Russian Defense Ministry’s foreign relations department – told Le Figaro. He charged that NATO is losing its military importance as the "U.S. has the military means to go alone" and stressed: "The fact that the European ( countries ) are within NATO, just allows the U.S. to have an easier process of political support." Mr. Ivachov further stressed that he thinks that "NATO represents an obstacle towards the political and economic integration of Europe" and "the Americans are using the Alliance to undermine the EU integration."

 PRESIDENT BUSH’S EUROPEAN TRIP

• President Putin and Bush signed a landmark treaty today to slash their long-range nuclear warheads by two-thirds, with both men hailing the event as historic, writes Reuters. But their summit was overshadowed by U.S. concerns over a nuclear power plant that Russia is building in Iran which Washington says could put weapons of mass destruction into the hands of a state it accuses of sponsoring terrorism, the dispatch notes. "We are going to cast aside all doubts and suspicions and welcome a new era of relations," President Bush reportedly said in a televised face-to-face meeting with his Russian counterpart shortly before the signing ceremony in the Kremlin. "Today, we may say we are creating qualitatively new relations," the dispatch quotes President Putin as answering. CNN aired the event where President Bush praised Putin’s "vision and leadership" which brought to the Russia-NATO Council and pressed for a wide war on terrorism.

Media welcome President Bush’s speech before the Bundestag. They generally point out his "forceful and accommodating" appeal to Europe to stand firm in the joint campaign against terrorism. Media further note that protest were manly pacific.

President Bush’s emphasis on "NATO’s defining purpose – our collective defense – is as urgent as ever," was particularly welcomed, The Daily Telegraph notes. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes that President Bush impressed upon Germany’s lawmakers that the dangers of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction cannot be ignored, suppressed, appeased or trivialized. However, he did not call for a gung-ho crusade against Iran, instead he tried to rally the support necessary for overcoming common threats together, the daily stresses. If there was a subtext to President Bush’s Berlin visit, then it was definitely the idea that together we are still stronger, the daily concludes.

Ahead of President Bush’s arrival in Russia, Novosti news agency reports positive comments on the news U.S.-Russia treaty. It quotes the Chairman of the Federation Council’s defense committee Ozerov, as stressing the importance of the treaty because "Russia will be able to plan its defense policy, the sphere of the armed forces, including nuclear containment." The Deputy head of the Duma’s Yabloko faction, Lukin remarked that "the new treaty proceeds from the lower ceilings than the START-2, and this fact testifies to progress."

Russian TV aired Foreign Minister Ivanov’s strong statement that the Kremlin denied American charges of permitting the transfer of nuclear technology to Tehran, and promised to do everything in its power to stop an alleged new U.S.-led war against Baghdad.

U.S. – RUSSIA

• The head of the Russian agency responsible for the destruction of the chemical weapons stockpile yesterday warned of the risks posed by a freeze in promised U.S. support for the program. In an interview with The Financial Times, Zinovy Pak, head of the Russian Munitions Agency, called on President Bush to unblock promised funding, without which, he said, there was a growing danger that chemical weapons could end up in the hands of terrorists or hostile countries. The U.S. has most recently blocked support over concerns that Russia has not been forthcoming in providing full information on the extent of its chemical and biological weapons program, the daily writes.

BALKANS

• The outgoing UN High Representative, Wolfgang Petritsch, said that he would leave the post in the coming days with "quite a high degree of frustration" over the unresolved issue of war crimes suspects Karadzic and Mladic’s arrest, AFP reports. Mr. Petritsch also reportedly voiced confidence that the two sought by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia would be arrested "very soon" and called on the Bosnian Serb authorities to actively engage in a "hunt after those accused war criminals" in order to free Bosnian Serbs of "unjustified collective guilt."

Other News

• The Times reports that British military chiefs are drawing up plans for dealing with the consequences of a nuclear war on the Indian sub-continent after British intelligence sources voiced fears that the two countries were locked on a path to the world’s first nuclear exchange. The threat is now believe to be a "real possibility," intelligence sources reportedly said. The daily notes that concern is rising as Pakistan and India are building up their forces along their borders and the process could escalate.

 FINAL ITEM