Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

22 May 2003

NATO

• Germany unveiled its first new military strategy in 11 years on Wednesday, calling for stronger European defense capabilities while saying that the United States remains “indispensable” for Europe’s security. Defense Minister Peter Struck said Germany would shut nine bases and disband dozens of units over the next few years as the military shifts from a heavily armored bulwark at ground zero of the Cold War to a mobile, modern force for international peacekeeping missions and combating terrorism. “The result is that international conflict prevention and crisis management, including the fight against international terrorism, have moved up to No. 1 of our task spectrum,” Struck said in a statement after Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s Cabinet approved the new guidelines. The new guidelines try to steer a middle course between recognition of U.S. power and Europe’s quest for more military muscle of its own, which Struck said would allow European nations to intervene in trouble spots where the NATO alliance doesn’t want to get involved. But the document emphasized allegiance to Washington, strained in recent months by the German government’s fierce anti-war stand on Iraq. “Also in future, there can be no security in and for Europe without the United States,” the paper said. “Germany will continue to make a substantial contribution to the trans-Atlantic partnership.” Despite a shrinking defense budget, the guidelines foresee Germany keeping a conscript army. (AP 211652 May 03)

IRAQ

• France, Russia and Germany will vote in favour of a UN resolution on Iraq sponsored by the countries that led the war because it “opens the road” for a central UN role, the French foreign minister announced on Wednesday. De Villepin said France, Russia and Germany were convinced the United Nations would be at the center of any international action and would be “closely involved in the political process” in Iraq through a special representative, to be nominated by Kofi Annan, the UN secretary- general. “In other words, the United Nations is back in the game,” the French foreign minister added. (AP 212131 May 03)

BALKANS

• Kosovo’s UN governor said on Wednesday it was too early to launch talks on the province’s final status and stressed instead the need for continued efforts to create a democratic society based on multi-ethnicity. Diplomats said this week that after four years of refusing to address the issue, Western powers were finally considering negotiations that could give Kosovo independence from Serbia. “You have asked me whether it’s now time to start the direct dialogue on the final status issue. I say no,” he told a news conference after a meeting with NATO ambassadors in the North Atlantic Council. Diplomats said that European states, which long opposed any further fragmentation of the Balkans, are coming round to the idea that it may be better to start settling Kosovo’s future than let it limp on as a dysfunctional UN protectorate. However, Steiner said that although the situation on the ground did not always look easy there had been considerable achievements since 1999. (Reuters 211851 GMT May 03)

OTHER NEWS

• Secretary of State Colin Powell will discuss reconstruction in Iraq, peace in the Middle East, Iran’s nuclear program and the war on terrorism with his counterparts from other major nations on a trip to France this week, the State Department said on Wednesday. Powell headed to Paris on Wednesday on a trip likely to include separate talks with his host, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said he was sure Iran would come up when non-proliferation was discussed “because of the information coming out about nuclear development there.” He said there was a basis for other countries to re-evaluate their cooperation with Iran “and we’ll be pushing for that as well.” (AP 212033 May 03)