Military

DATE=2/11/03

TYPE=INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

TITLE=TED GALEN CARPENTER, CATO INST.

NUMBER=3-531

BYLINE=TOM CROSBY

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

/// EDITORS: THIS INTERVIEW IS AVAILABLE IN DALET UNDER SOD/ENGLISH NEWS NOW INTERVIEWS IN THE FOLDER FOR TODAY OR YESTERDAY ///

HOST: NATO ambassadors have been holding informal talks in Brussels as they seek to resolve a deadlock over military support to Turkey in the event of a war in Iraq. Alliance officials Tuesday repeatedly postponed a scheduled formal meeting of NATO's decision-making North Atlantic Council, as the ambassadors continued their informal discussions.

Ted Galen Carpenter is the vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the CATO Institute. In an interview with VOA's Tom Crosby...he said this dispute tends to signal there are deeper and more fundamental problems within the North Atlantic alliance:

MR. CARPENTER: I think the history of protecting Turkey is not a critical issue, but it's symptomatic of a larger problem. And that is that the core European nations, the countries that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld derisively dismisses as old Europe, and the United States have fundamentally different interests and perspectives on a lot of issues. And the issue of protecting Turkey shows that the Europeans want to keep NATO as a Euro-centric organization, concerned about security in the European theater; the U.S., on the other hand, wants NATO to be an instrument for the projection of power much outside the European region.

MR. CROSBY: Does this suggest, though, that NATO might be somewhat fractured by all of this, that its effectiveness might be weakened?

MR. CARPENTER: I think this is the latest in a series of crises. And this is likely to be a much more serious one than the previous instances. But, let's remember, NATO had a lot of tensions over policies in the Balkans, both with regard to the Bosnia intervention and the war over Kosovo. And NATO members were able to paper over those disagreements, but they were never really resolved.

With regard to Iraq policy, I think we now see a fundamental disagreement between old Europe and the United States. The core European countries believe that U.S. policy toward Iraq is misguided and potentially very dangerous not just for destabilizing the Middle East/Persian Gulf region but also for perhaps making the European countries a more attractive target for terrorism because of their alliance with the United States.

MR. CROSBY: From a military standpoint, though, how critical is NATO to any military operation in Iraq?

MR. CARPENTER: NATO is marginal to any military operation by the United States in Iraq or anywhere else. The one exception is Turkey. That NATO member is fairly important to the United States. It would be difficult for the U.S. to conduct operations against Iraq if Turkey were not on board. But as far as the rest of the NATO members are concerned, their assistance would be a convenience, nothing more, to the United States. NATO's major value to the U.S. with regard to Iraq or any other operation is to give Washington's policy political cover, so that it looks like a multilateral policy, not a unilateral one.

MR. CROSBY: Turkey, of course, is critical in a military sense, though, because there would be operations launched from Turkish soil. But I guess the fear is that there might be reprisals taken against Turkey by Iraq, is that correct?

MR. CARPENTER: That is the apprehension that Turkey has, although how serious that concern is is difficult to tell. Clearly the Turks would like a NATO reassurance, but they know that any effective protection would be provided by the United States, not really the other NATO members.

HOST: Ted Galen Carpenter of the CATO Institute here in Washington. Turkey, the only NATO country directly bordering on Iraq, called for a special meeting in Brussels after France, Belgium and Germany blocked U-S efforts for an agreement on military support to Turkey. The three countries have insisted the planning measures are premature, while diplomatic efforts continue to force Iraq to get rid of its weapons of mass destruction.

NEB/TC/MAR