Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

12 March 2003

Electronic media report Serbian Prime Minister Djindjic, a key leader of the revolt that toppled former President Milosevic, was shot dead in Belgrade while entering the government building. It is widely noted that Djindjic saw Serbia's fate as linked to the West and favored greater cooperation with the ICTY.

NATO

• According to AFP, the daily Delo reported Wednesday that support for NATO membership has increased significantly in recent weeks and if a referendum were held this week 50.9 percent of Slovenes would vote for joining the Alliance. A telephone poll carried out by Delo Monday reportedly indicated that Some 17.6 percent of Slovenes are still undecided while 31.5 percent would oppose the move. The dispatch recalls that Slovenia is to hold two simultaneous binding referendums on NATO and EU membership on March 23 and the government has launched a wide campaign hoping to increase public support for joining both organizations.
  
  
• With their launchers turned up toward neighboring Iraq, NATO Patriot missile batteries scanned Turkey’s skies nonstop Tuesday, writes AP. The dispatch quotes Lt. Col. Erik Abma, the commander of three Patriot missile batteries that have been stationed in southeastern Turkey, saying his systems were fully operational and capable of destroying incoming missiles in mid-air by firing rockets. Information gathered from U.S. forces would also strengthen the Dutch Patriot shield by providing additional electronic data to help the Patriot batteries intercept and destroy their targets, Abma reportedly stressed, adding: “We already have our own early warning systems…. The U.S. troops would provide additional information.” The dispatch notes two NATO AWACS that have arrived in Turkey are expected to provide data to Patriot batteries too.

Divisions within the UN regarding Iraq continue to prompt media to focus on the future of transatlantic relations and internal organizations such as the UN, NATO and the EU.
Paris’ La Tribune, March 11, wrote that the United States is preparing to assume a terrible responsibility by imposing a conflict when the combined international pressure under the UN aegis still had a chance of achieving the aim of disarming Saddam Hussein. But, stressed the daily, France should not pretend that it does not also have responsibilities if, as President Chirac has stated, it uses its right of veto to block a Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force. The article continued: “What benefits can Chirac expect from the veto? Truth obliges us to say it: None, not in the long term and the short term…. Among other things, a French veto would be contributing to striking a terrible blow to a body whose role, paradoxically, it wants to render sacrosanct. For a simple reason: if the United States ignores a veto from one of its major democratic allies, a Security Council member since it was set up, this body of ultimate recourse will have lost its status of arbiter. More fundamentally, can France hope to build anything lasting at all on a veto? Will the EU find itself strengthened when, having to choose between one or other camp, its division on the subject is evident?…. France’s desire to build a European defense system, one seeking to parallel NATO, will seem even more fanciful in the circumstances. Finally, a veto would fundamentally degrade Franco-U.S. relations. Whether we want it or not, it would label the United States as the principal adversary, rather than Iraq…. While brandishing the veto may seem logical, courageous, and flattering in terms of national if not world opinion, to abstain would be more courageous still. That would not in any way mean Washington’s accomplice, but simply seeking to preserve the future. There will be a post-Bush. A veto would certainly not help France to prepare for that time.”
In a contribution to Paris’ Liberation, March 11, Barthelemy Courmont, research fellow at the Institute for International and Strategic Relations, opined that divisions over Iraq policy are undermining NATO. “The setbacks that the Security Council is experiencing on the Iraqi question are understandably attracting the attention of the international community…. More serious is the crisis that the Atlantic Alliance is undergoing. Even more than in its operations, as has happened on a number of occasions, NATO is experiencing an existential crisis, with the allies proving to be divided over what objectives to pursue,” Courmont wrote and warned: “In its military structure, the Alliance that emerged for the Cold War may not recover, with the United States preferring in the future to form ad hoc coalitions without consulting ‘disruptive’ members…. In Washington, three points are at the center of criticisms. 1. NATO forces the United States to assume responsibilities even when its national interests are not directly threatened. 2. NATO curbs U.S. initiatives. 3. NATO is expensive for the U.S. taxpayer, while the Europeans do not contribute enough. Unlike the UN, NATO has always operated on the premise that the United States is, in the worlds of Bill Clinton, ‘the indispensable ally.’ If Washington decides no longer to place it at the center of it priorities in matter of defense and to prefer less constraining ad hoc coalitions, then it is indeed the future of the Alliance that is threatened.”
A commentary in the Wall Street Journal remarks meanwhile that members of Germany’s foreign-policy elite insist that whatever German differences with the United States over Iraq, most Germans do not want any part of tearing up NATO. Karsten Voigt, the diplomat in charge of German-American relations in the Foreign Ministry, is quoted saying: “We do not want an enlarged EU to define itself against the United States. This is not in our interests—this is not what the Germans want…. If anyone has such a strategy it will not be realized because it will not find a majority within the EU. And they will not find Germany as a partner.” The newspaper insists that this sentiment is not universal in Germany, but it is one that can be found not only among old-time Atlanticists in the Christian Democratic Party. “Voigt hails from Chancellor Schroeder’s Social Democratic Party and the same language can be found at the headquarters of the Green Party,” it notes.
Under the title, “Germany hoping for return of strong American bond,” the New York Times writes: “To all appearances the Iraqi crisis has transformed German-American relations, long viewed on both sides of the Atlantic as the central element of peace and stability in Europe, into a morass of distrust and annoyance. But how bad are things, really? It seems that German officials are saying, Let’s not exaggerate the importance of this one issue…. People like Foreign Minister Fischer have been spelling out the ways in which the German-American alliance continues to function. Fischer and other German officials argue, not without a hint of bitterness, that their country does more in the practical sense than almost all of the countries—Britain being the exception—that signed letters of support for American policy several weeks ago. … German officials are aware that they are viewed in some American circles as a group that has brought leftover anti-American radical ideas into the center of power, and it is precisely that impression that Fischer, the Greens’ leading figure, has been trying to dispel.”

ISAF

• Financial Times Deutschland, March 11, quoted Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah saying in an interview that he favors NATO taking over the leadership of ISAF. “As long as we need ISAF, this would be very helpful and would guarantee continuity,” Abdullah reportedly stressed. The newspaper noted that the statement strengthened the position of the German government, which is in favor of transferring the leadership to NATO. The article noted, however, that France has so far opposed NATO operating outside Alliance borders.