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NATO-RUSSIA

• According to AFP, senior political figures in Moscow Tuesday welcomed the signature of a new partnership accord between NATO and Russia, with one senator even saying that the Russians had no "major objection" to further NATO expansion. "The NATO-Russia Council represents a new level in our relations with our western partners," the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Federation Council Upper House, Mikhail Margelov reportedly said. Ties were so warm that Russia "will not have any major objection" to NATO’s enlargement eastward taking in the former Soviet Baltic states, he told Moscow’s Echo radio, adding: "Of course, traditionally we would feel better if NATO did not enlarge to the East. But today we have more issues that unite us than divide us."

The signing of a new partnership agreement between Russia and NATO is renewing the media’s interest in NATO’s future missions, now that the Cold War appears as definitely over.

A commentary in The Guardian calls the war on terrorism "a dangerous nonsense," and questions NATO’s possible role in it. "’There is a common enemy out there,’ NATO Secretary General Robertson intoned Tuesday at the Rome summit, as though relieved the Alliance has found a new reason for being," the article notes. It charges, however: "NATO would do better to check if ‘global terrorism’ really exists and whether there are not other more intelligent and effective ways to handle desperate groups of desperate men than modernizing an arsenal of high-tech weaponry left over from a long-gone confrontation on the plains of Central Europe."

Claiming that since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the question of the Alliance’s meaning and purpose has been constantly posed, but never really answered, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung opines: "If NATO is to extend one day al the way to the Black Sea, and if the heartland of the former Soviet Union is to be Washington’s favored ally, then no matter what anyone wants, NATO is fated to become a pan-European security organization with military muscle—sort of like the (OSCE) with armed forces." The ongoing transformation has therefore prompted a growing insecurity among the United States’ European allies. Even sworn Atlanticists are no longer sure what kind of status they will enjoy in the United States, and they suspect that Washignton views NATO as a toll of security coordination and a set of military building blocks for operations at best, rather than as an organization of collective defense with the idea of mutual assistance at its heart, the article adds and continues: "This insecurity is, of course, related to Europe’s military deficiencies, which cannot be concealed. These weaknesses are so serious that they threaten to break NATO’s unity and military interoperability into a society of two or even three classes. But Europeans see other reasons to worry about the U.S. view of NATO’s future. They sense that the administration and Congress in Washington intend to knock down altogether the old geographic limits to military and security operations, which had only been marginally extended in the Kosovo conflict. NATO must be willing and able to act wherever new threats to the safety of its members may lurk, (President) Bush says. In times of cross-border terrorism, and with political gangsters reaching for weapons of mass destruction, that means: everywhere in the world. The United States will only invest serious political capital in NATO when no doubts are left that NATO represents an effective instrument with the potential for global deployment.

The Independent observes meanwhile in Rome Tuesday, NATO signaled its willingness to extend its interests beyond the Euro-Atlantic area by which it has been bound. On behalf of Russia and the Alliance, NATO Secretary General Robertson called on India and Pakistan to back down from the brink of armed confrontation, stresses the newspaper.

"Even as NATO sealed a new accord with Russia, the Alliance was being declared dead by politicians and commentators who fault Europeans for failing to contribute sufficiently to its military means, and fault Americans for failing to enthusiastically include Europe in the Afghanistan campaign," writes the Washington Post. While acknowledging that there is reason to worry, the newspaper comments: "But it is worth noting also some cheerier signs that Europe and the United States are not necessarily doomed to estrangement. Foremost is that, while analysts fret about NATO imploding, NATO is meanwhile expanding. In addition to the new agreement with Russia, NATO is headed toward what President Bush called a ‘decisive’ move to invite in ‘all of Europe’s democracies that are ready to share in the responsibilities NATO brings.’ Pessimists worry that these changes will further politicize NATO at the expense of military effectiveness. But expansion will help preserve the U.S.-European relations: by modernizing the Alliance so that, like Europe itself, it transcends the former Cold War divide between East and West; and by ensuring that the United States will retain a formal and institutionalized place in guaranteeing the security of that more integrated continent."

Also in the Washington Post, Ivo Daalder and Philip Gordon, senior fellows at the Brookings Institution, remark that for many in Washington today, NATO’s days are numbered, and the reason is European fecklessness, parochialism and unwillingness to spend more money on defense. But, they add: "To argue that Europeans alone are to blame for the uncertain state of the Atlantic Alliance, or that such an Alliance is no longer needed, is both wrong and dangerous. As much as we may like to disparage their efforts, the Europeans are actually doing more to contribute to global security, even on the military side, than most Americans choose to acknowledge. In Afghanistan today, there are about as many European and Canadian troops as American. Europeans are not only keeping the peace in Kabul but also fighting alongside U.S. forces to eliminate Al Qaeda and Taliban resistance. As in so many other regions, Europe has taken the lead in financing and directing the necessary reconstruction and humanitarian assistance effort. The talk of the transatlantic capabilities gap and disparagement of European armed forces wrongly assumes that Europeans have little to contribute militarily, and therefore there is no point to the Alliance. Europe does lag well behind the United States in key technologies and it needs to address that gap. But it would be absurd to believe Europeans have nothing to contribute so long as they are spending ‘only’ $150 billion per year on defense. The Pentagon’s rejection of NATO allies’ offers of military support in the early stages of the Afghan campaign was based in large part on the supposed ‘lesson’ of Kosovo that ‘war by committee’ it too difficult. But as Gen. Wesley Clark, who led NATO to victory, has recounted, if Kosovo was a war by committee, the committee was the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, not European military and political leaders in Brussels. Nor should Americans blithely assume that their war-fighting strategies are superior to European ones. In Kosovo, the United States insisted on fighting an air war from 15,000 feet against the Serb command and control infrastructure in Belgrade. The Europeans were more interested in going after the Serb forces actually doing the killing in Kosovo by targeting their tanks, artillery, and other combat capabilities directly. In contrast to Washington, many in Europe were willing to get mud on their boots." The authors conclude: "Changes in world politics inevitably cause turbulence in alliances built on a different foundation. NATO must continue to adapt to these new realities. But if it is to succeed, adaptation must come not just in Europe but also in Washington."

Looking at how the new NATO-Russia Council fits into the current economic picture, The Independent writes: "The EU’s economic prosperity depends on a friendly Russia. Welcome to the NATO Council."

BALKANS

• AP quotes an SFOR spokesman saying Wednesday that NATO-led peacekeepers raided the headquarters of the Bosnian Serb air force, seizing computers and documents amid an investigation of espionage against the Alliance. About 50 troops participated in Tuesday’s raid of the headquarters, located near Banja Luka, the spokesman reportedly said, adding: "The evidence that was removed will be analyzed to determine whether or not the headquarters was directing the electronic monitoring of SFOR and NATO aircraft." The dispatch notes that Tuesday’s raid followed an investigation last week of two Bosnian Serb radar sites in northern Bosnia accused of observing NATO communications. It also recalls that COMSFOR, Lt. Gen. Sylvester, has suspended the head of the Bosnian Serb air force from duty while NATO investigates whether he was responsible for the espionage.

• Berlin’s DDP quotes a government spokesman saying Wednesday that the German Cabinet has decided to prolong the Bundeswehr’s mission in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Amber Fox’s mandate would be extended from June 27 to Oct. 26, the spokesman reportedly said, adding that to the government’s knowledge, the Netherlands would take over the lead of the peace mission, which German has had since last December. The dispatch notes that the cabinet’s resolution still needs the approval of the Bundestag.

 FINAL ITEM