Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

12 February 2003

NATO

• AP reports NATO Wednesday was seeking a compromise to overcome a veto of military planning for the defense of Turkey against an Iraqi threat. According to the dispatch, the proposal had been presented to the 19 NATO ambassadors. Talks had been suspended and were expected to reconvene Wednesday evening to allow consultations with capitals. The dispatch quotes diplomats saying a new proposal from NATO Secretary General Robertson focuses only on protection of Turkey, deleting two other elements included in an initial U.S. request: filling in for allied troops moved from the Balkans to the Gulf, and stepping up guard duty at U.S. bases in Europe. It notes, however, that Alliance officials said both issues are already being dealt with at a bilateral level. Options still on the table would reportedly answer Turkey’s request for AWACS, Patriot anti-missile batteries and specialized units to counter poison gas or germ warfare attacks. AFP writes that despite the huge pressure for an accord, NATO fears that there can be no accord before a crucial meeting of the UN Security Council Friday, which will hear a second report from chief weapons inspector Hans Blix on Iraq’s disarmament.
  
  
• According to AFP, EU foreign policy chief Solana Wednesday played down a rift in NATO over Iraq, saying there were no “substantive” differences in the Alliance. “There is no difference among the NATO allies about the substance, and the substance is that if a country of the Alliance asks for eventual help, the help has to be given,” Solana reportedly said, noting: “The question now is about the calendar in which this help must be given…. I can guarantee that if Turkey needs help, help will be given by all members of the Alliance.”
  
  
• Greek Foreign Minister Papandreou, whose country currently hold the EU’s rotating presidency, warned Wednesday a “deep crisis” will envelop Europe unless it can speak with one voice on the Iraq crisis and heal the rift between the United States and some key allies, reports AP. According to the dispatch, Greek officials fear that the refusal of three countries to let NATO plan for the defense of Turkey against Iraqi missile attacks would cause a similarly disruptive divisions within the EU. A Foreign Ministry spokesman is quoted warning that if Monday’s EU summit in Brussels fails to forge a common view on how to deal with Iraq “then I think the Greek presidency will have exhausted all possibilities, all its institutional and political abilities as a presidency.”
  
  
  The current debate within NATO over Turkey’s defense remains the subject of intense media scrutiny.
  NATO will survive, although weaker and less united, argues AP. The dispatch bases this assumption on the perception that although the NATO dispute was triggered by opposition from some European nations to a U.S. attack on Iraq, it has as much to do with questions about Europe’s future, its relations with the United States and what NATO is for. The current dispute is as much to do with the future of Europe as with the Iraq crisis, stresses the dispatch, adding: “France and Germany are fearful of losing their traditional dominance in Europe as pro-U.S. eastern European nations join NATO and the EU.”
  The New York Times writes meanwhile that faced by a sharp trans-Atlantic rift that has split NATO, many U.S. officials are wondering why the Bush administration has not tried harder to preserve what Sen. John McCain last week described as “the greatest political military alliance in the history of mankind.” Some analysts said the crisis in the Alliance has arisen because President Bush and the neo-conservative aides who have become the most prominent influence on his foreign policy have convinced him that Europe simply does not count anymore, or at least a Europe conceived as having its power centers in Berlin and Paris, the newspaper writes.

Reports in U.S. media alleging that Gen. Jones is considering plans to scale back the US. troops’ presence in Germany continue to be noted.
Against the background of the current NATO debate on Iraq, the Wall Street Journal charges, under the title, “Yanks going home?”: “The timing, albeit coincidental, could not be better. Gen. Jones … last week privately briefed visiting American Congressmen about a possibly radical reorganization of U.S. military forces in Europe. The Congressmen promptly briefed select journalists. In a changing Europe, the United States and NATO can do more to keep order by bringing troops closer to the zones of instability in the Balkans and the Middle East. The United States has facilities in Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as southern Hungary. Poland already offers ideal training grounds for exercises more cheaply than Germany.”
Another Wall Street Journal article says: “We want to lend our support to the idea—recently raised by the new Supreme Allied Commander for Europe—of moving most or all of the 100,000 U.S. troops based in Germany to other parts of the Continent. General … Jones … wants to phase out the current system of large garrisons by creating lighter, mobile units that can serve shorter rotations at smaller installations throughout Europe. Putting U.S. troops in, say, Turkey or Poland or Hungary would allow the U.S. and NATO to do more to keep order close to the zones of instability in the Balkans and Middle East and would also save the U.S. taxpayers money. The U.S. bases in Germany don’t come cheap…. The Pentagon pays for schools and homes of about 75,000 military dependents. By going to a more flexible, expeditionary-type force, and leaving the spouses and kids at home, the savings would be considerable.”
Senior Bush administration officials said Tuesday the Pentagon is considering a major redeployment of U.S. troops out of South Korea and Germany as it tries to realign the American military structure around the world. Officials insisted that any shift would not be carried out to punish Germany for its opposition to a U.S.-led attack on Iraq, writes the Los Angeles Times. Noting that “Gen. Jones is pushing a restructuring,” the article stresses: “As Marine Corps commandant, he favored spreading bare-bones bases around the world rather than limiting forces to a few sprawling ones.”