Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

12 June 2003

NATO

• According to Reuters, NATO agreed Thursday to a 40 percent reduction of its military bases as part of a drive to revamp the Alliance for new security threats worldwide. The dispatch quotes officials saying NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels rallied behind the command structure overhaul. A related AP dispatch reports that building on the decision to overhaul NATO commands, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld was expected to push his NATO colleagues to honor pledges to beef up forces and press ahead with plans for an elite NATO Response Force. Regarding the NRF, Sueddeutsche Zeitung expects that the ministers will approve a military concept according to which an initial unit comprising up to 8,000 troops is to be ready for operations as early as autumn this year. “These modern, highly trained land, sea and air forces should in principle be able to deploy to any crisis region in the world within five days. They would be employed for operations such as fighting international terrorism or evacuating civilians from situations of danger. This NATO Response Force is to reach a strength of 21,000 by 2006,” says the newspaper. Stressing that members of the new force will especially be drawn from special units of the European armies, the article continues: “NATO plans call for a separate six-month training of the elite troops, after which time NATO experts would then examine and certify their qualification based on uniform standards. These national units would then be on stand-by for six months each on a rotational basis.” The German daily highlights that Alliance member nations would first have to unanimously approve an operation before the units would be placed under the command of a NATO supreme commander. “Military experts point out that this would increase the pressure on Germany to pass general guidelines for international missions of the Bundeswehr in a so-called Deployment of Forces Act. In a contingency situation, NATO could not wait each time for the German Parliament to approve the mission in question,” stresses the newspaper. Earlier, the Financial Times wrote that the radical shakeup of NATO’s command structure will make the Alliance more flexible as it prepares to take on new missions in Afghanistan and Iraq.
  
  
• AP quotes Polish Defense Minister Szmajdzinski saying Thursday that Spain will help Poland run a peacekeeping zone in central Iraq, contributing some 1,100 troops to a multinational force. The dispatch adds that speaking on the sidelines of the NATO meeting, Szmajdzinski said soldiers from three Latin American nations will also join the force, as well as troops from Ukraine and other European nations.
  
  
• According to AFP, Sen. John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, said Wednesday that NATO may be needed to stop violence between Israel and the Palestinians. “The situation is beyond the control of both the Palestinians and the Israelis,” Warner reportedly told CNN in response to Wednesday’s attack in Jerusalem in which at least 16 died, adding: “We could see a lessening of the combat situation if both sides would agree to have the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and U.S. troops serve as peacekeepers. I know people of NATO have considered this.”

An editorial in the Washington Times implies that a NATO success in bringing stability to Afghanistan may open the way for a NATO role in the Middle East peace process.
“If the Alliance is successful, it could embark on similar missions in the future. Already, NATO defense ministers are discussing the possibility of playing some role in the Middle East peace process,” the article says.

• The House of Representatives has asked Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to conduct a study into whether a relocation of NATO headquarters from Brussels to another NATO country could be possible, reports Belgium’s De Standaard. The proposal under study, which must still be discussed by the Senate, is part of a dozen suggestions made by the U.S. Congress each year in the framework of the “defense bills.” Amendment 7 clearly requests a study into “the costs and benefits of relocating NATO headquarters to another member country,” says the newspaper, which connects the issue with resentment in the United States over Belgium’s universal competence law. In a similar vein, VRT radio reported: “The Americans want to study whether a relocation of NATO headquarters is possible. They fear that the law on universal competence could make it impossible for U.S. military to continue to come to our country. Rumsfeld Wednesday reiterated his displeasure with the law.”
  

AFGHANISTAN

• AP reports Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali told a news conference in Kabul Thursday that suicide bombers are being trained to carry out attacks against foreign soldiers deployed in Afghanistan. He reportedly gave no details as to where they were being trained or by whom, but said security forces in Kabul had recently foiled two other terrorist plots against foreign troops.