Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

21 February 2003

NATO

With the implementation of protective measures for Turkey’s defense at the center of attention, electronic media reacted promptly to a SHAPE statement announcing that Gen. Jones had ordered the NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control Force to deploy to Turkey with their AWACS aircraft based in Geilenkirchen, Germany.
The Alliance announced Friday that NATO’s top military commander in Europe, Gen. Jones, has ordered AWACS surveillance planes to Turkey to watch for any potential attack from Iraq, writes AP. The planes will fly from their base in Geilenkirchen, Germany, to the Turkish air force base in the central city of Konya in the next few days and are scheduled to be flying missions in defense of Turkish air space by Thursday, says the dispatch, which also quotes Maj. Gen. Johann Dora, force commander of NATO’s AWACS fleet, saying: “The AWACS and their crews would be a visible and highly effective defense capability in the event that Turkey was threatened.” The dispatch notes that it was not immediately clear how many AWACS would be leaving for Turkey. But, it adds, NATO military officials this week suggested five or six planes from the Alliance fleet of 17 would be enough to do the job. The dispatch continues: “Three batteries of Dutch Patriot-missile defense systems have already left for Turkey by sea and are expected to arrive in the country by end of next week. They will be integrated into NATO’s radar defense system and operated by 370 Dutch Air Force troops from southeastern Turkey. Deployment of the biochemical units will wait until the Turkish military presents a detailed list of what exactly it needs to fill shortfalls in its defenses. NATO’s military headquarters will then ask allies for specific units to move to Turkey.” The dispatch stresses that the Alliance is not expected to play a direct role in any fighting in Iraq.
Military commanders confirmed Friday that NATO will deploy AWACS over Turkey by next week “as a matter of urgency,” says AFP, quoting SHAPE saying in a statement: “The deployment to Turkey will provide surveillance and early warning for defensive purposes, in order to maintain the integrity of Turkish airspace.”
“NATO is transferring AWACS aircraft from Geilenkirchen to Turkey…. Gen. Jones ... has issued a corresponding order. The aircraft are to start their flights on Thursday,” reported Deutschlandfunk.

• The New York Times reports western diplomats and U.S. officials said Thursday that NATO Secretary General Robertson is advocating a new role for the Alliance in Afghanistan as a way to demonstrate that it is prepared to meet new dangers and has not been hobbled by its debate over Iraq. NATO’s involvement, which Lord Robertson suggested when he met with President Bush on Wednesday, would extend the Alliance’s reach far beyond its European domain and significantly broaden its mission, the newspaper notes. According to U.S. officials, it adds, Bush was generally supportive of the idea. The article claims that the question of a NATO role in Afghanistan has been percolating behind the scenes but is coming to the fore now for several reasons: “Some members of ISAF want NATO to take over its tasks. Among those members are the Germans.” The article comments that in a military sense, a NATO role could deal with the problem of rotating commands. Politically, giving NATO a role in Afghanistan could also help demonstrate effectiveness after the divisive debate over whether to send AWACS and antimissile batteries to Turkey. According to the article, U.S. and western diplomats said there were several ways of involving NATO in Afghan security. One would be to have NATO formally take over the mission, modeled on KFOR. Another possibility is that NATO would not control the operations but would provide support to nations involved in security. One U.S. official reportedly said there could be a combination of the two approaches. The Washington Post reports meanwhile that just days after NATO ended a bitter dispute over military aid to Turkey, Secretary of State Powell proposed Thursday that the Alliance play a much more “active role” in the operations of ISAF. The newspaper notes that Ivo Daalder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said he found it “very odd” that Powell would float the NATO peacekeeping idea in the immediate aftermath of a crisis in the Alliance. “To suggest that the U.S. feels there might be other missions for NATO at this time might not sit too well,” Daalder reportedly said. On the other hand, he added, NATO control over the Afghan mission is “not a bad idea,” since NATO has already performed planning duties for Germany and the Netherlands before they assumed command of ISAF.
  
  
• AFP quotes Defense Minister Struck saying in a news conference in Berlin Friday that Germany will cut billions of euros in defense spending and adapt its military to operate better in crisis zones abroad, even outside areas where NATO operates. According to the dispatch, Struck said his Ministry would save a total of some 3.2 billion euros over the next decade by buying fewer aircraft and through naval reform. He said Germany would give up efforts to buy up to 90 Tornado fighter jets from a British-led consortium and 30 Tiger combat helicopters built by a Franco-German joint venture. He reportedly indicated that some of the savings would be used to adapt the armed forces to focus on operations abroad because the German national territory was in no danger “in the foreseeable future.” He also stressed that mandatory conscript service would continue in Germany. Noting that it is not clear if the reforms will enable the Bundeswehr to take part in the kind of operations abroad that Struck outlined, the dispatch recalls: “In October, former NATO military chief Gen. Ralston warned that Germany’s reluctance to spend more on defense could limit its participation in the rapid missions that NATO was aiming to tackle in the coming years. Gen. Ralston said German troops were superior in terms of training and preparations but that the gap in equipment procurement, the buying of arms, posed a major obstacle to effective and rapid deployments.”
  

ESDP

• According to Reuters, current EU president Greece said Friday the EU is on course to launch its first military operation on March 15, a takeover of NATO’s slimmed-down peacekeeping mission in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. “We anticipate all the necessary issues will be solved very quickly and if I am not mistaken we would be prepared to send the contingent to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia by March 15,” a Greek official reportedly told a news conference, adding: “This is the schedule we have in mind and I have no real fears at the present that this will be postponed.” The dispatch adds that an Alliance official said no date had been agreed yet, but NATO preparations for the takeover remained on track. “At this point there is nothing to suggest we could not make the transition in March,” a NATO spokesman is quoted saying. Earlier, Die Welt quoted Gen. Gustav Haegglund, Chairman of the EU Military Committee, saying in an interview that if planning runs smoothly, the EU will take over the mission “in the second half of March.” The newspaper further said: “(Gen. Haegglund) reacts calmly to reports in the media that Washington could block the EU’s taking over of ‘Allied Harmony’ at NATO—in an act of retaliation (for the recent deadlock over military assistance to Turkey). ‘Of course, anything is possible. However it would be a completely wrong political signal,’ he says. At the military level, preparations are going on as planned, he adds, although the rift in NATO, which was healed with a lot of efforts, ‘is reflected in the EU, too.’ However, the mission in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is ‘much too small’ for the United states to make an example of it.” The newspaper recalled that the EU will cooperate with NATO on its mission to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. “DSACEUR, German Adm. Rainer Feist, will command the overall operation,” it noted.