Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

11 July 2003

DSACEUR-LATVIA

• “DSACEUR, Adm. Feist, said in a news conference in Riga (last Friday) that Latvia’s defense system has accomplished ‘impressive results’ on the path to NATO,” reported Riga’s BNS, July 4. “(Adm. Feist) said this work is of special importance at a time when Latvia is preparing for accession to and integration in NATO. He affirmed that in this work the contacts between NATO and the National Armed Forces …. play a very important role,” said the report. It added that speaking about the potential contribution of Latvia to NATO, Adm. Feist recalled that since the end of the Cold War, the Alliance has been devoting its efforts to peacekeeping. And, the report continued, “he said there is no state which could say, ‘we are a small state, we cannot contribute anything’—you can contribute a lot.” He cited Latvia’s military, medics, sappers, supply units and other army units which, while taking part in international missions for several years, have shown their best.”

IRAQ

AFP reports the U.S. Senate Thursday unanimously approved a measure calling on the White House to consider requesting NATO and UN troops in Iraq. According to the dispatch, in a 97-0 vote, the senators said President Bush “should consider requesting formally and expeditiously that NATO raise a force for deployment in post-war Iraq similar to what it has done in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Kosovo.” The International Herald Tribune notes, however, that despite Congressional pressure for the United States to broaden the coalition of troops occupying Iraq, and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s assurance that he would welcome French and German troops, those two countries said Thursday they had not been contacted for such help. French daily Liberation speculates that a possible resolution on a new UN role in Iraq could be negotiated in the fall, on the occasion of an official conference on reconstruction.

NATO

• In a commentary in Oslo’s Aftenposten, July 9, Norwegian Rear Adm. Berggrav, head of Regional command North and former head of the Planning and Policy Section of the Joint Staff calls on his country’s military to adapt to new threats. While acknowledging that Norway must retain a military capability to maintain “order in our house,” he writes: “It is clearly NATO’s desire that the best way for Norway to (show solidarity) is by making available modern and deployable military capacity…. The armed forces are in the process of changing to a network-based concept. The aim is to combine different units and weapon systems in such a way that they can operate more quickly across the different branches of the armed forces. In this way, quite a bit more can be achieved with fewer resources, so much actually that it can be considered a quantum leap…. We must adapt the armed forces to a realistic resource framework, the times we live in, and the actual threat picture. In this situation, we must persist in choosing quality over quantity. These are core factors in the process that is currently taking place. The future cannot be determined in an increasingly integrated world that is changing quickly. The Norwegian economy and way of life are also closely tied to the globalized word where the distinctions between national and international security challenges are not clearly delineated. Security must therefore be created and looked after through international cooperation.”
  
  
• Prague’s CTK, July 10, quoted Defense Minister Kostelka saying in an interview Thursday that the Czech Defense Ministry and the Army General Staff will be combined into one office by June 1, 1994. By the end of November, three sections of the Ministry will be combined with three identical sections at the General Staff, Kostelka reportedly said. He also confirmed that he plans to combine the originally planned five command centers into two. By November, Kostelka was further quoted saying, the strategic, perspective planning and personnel sections of the Ministry and General Staff will be combined. The number of units subordinated to these sections will also be lowered. The ground forces, air force and special forces joint command will be created in Olomouc, northern Moravia, as part of efforts to cut back costs. The support forces’ command will be based in Stara Boleslav, central Bohemia, although technically it was formed in Tabor, southern Bohemian. According to the dispatch, Kostelka noted that moving to Tabor would be complicated and expensive.

ESDP

• Only weeks after deploying its first peacekeeping mission outside Europe, in Congo, the EU is being asked to send troops to Moldova, in a peacekeeping mission that could test its relations with Russia and the countries of the region, writes the Financial Times. According to the newspaper, the OSCE has asked the EU to consider sending up to 1,000 soldiers to Trans Dnestr by the end of the year. The article recalls that the OSCE has been in Moldova since 1993 to help implement a long-standing pledge by Moscow to withdraw Russian troops from Trans Dnestr, where pro-Russian nationalists have attempted to break away from Moldova. It has also been monitoring a ceasefire following clashes between ethnic Russians and Moldovans that left 2,000 dead during the early 1990s. The newspaper highlights that a military mission in Moldova would pose challenges to ESDP, with Russia’s reactions to a European military presence the main one.

THE FOLLOWING CLIPPINGS ARE FROM THE 11 July 2003, News Summary and Analysis:

THE INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, July 11, 2003

France and Germany unsure on Iraq troops

They would seek precise UN mandates

By Brian Knowlton

Despite Congressional pressure here for the United States to broaden the coalition of troops occupying Iraq, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's assurance that he would welcome French and German troops, those two countries said Thursday they had not been contacted for such help and were unsure if they would give it. France said it would require a "precise mandate" from the United Nations to send troops, and Germany took a similar position and has already turned down a Polish request to join an Iraq peacekeeping unit. The suggestion of seeking greater international military support in pacifying and rebuilding Iraq, particularly from countries like France and Germany that vigorously opposed the war, is an awkward one. But members of the U.S. Congress have shown a growing willingness to raise the issue as the human and financial costs in Iraq have steadily grown. Three more American troops died Wednesday and Thursday in Iraq in the latest in what has become an unremitting series of attacks. A Democratic senator said Wednesday that the U.S. deployment of more than 145,000 troops would be "difficult to sustain" without greater foreign help. Although foreign allies have promised to send 20,000 or more troops by the end of September, 12,000 of them will be replacements for soldiers already in place. France said Thursday that it would consider a U.S. troop request, if received. But in its clearest expression of the conditions it would attach before sending troops, Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said that a "precise mandate" from the United Nations would be required. Whether such a mandate could be found in an existing Security Council resolution remained to be seen, he told Le Figaro. In Berlin, a Defense Ministry spokesman similarly said that any German troop deployment would have to come under a UN mandate, Agence France-Presse reported. But no U.S. request had been lodged, and Berlin therefore was not studying the matter. Germany earlier turned down a request to take part in a Polish-led stabilization force of 9,000 troops for Iraq. Villepin said that any U.S. request could "only be eventually considered in the framework of a United Nations peace force, founded on a precise Security Council mandate and benefiting, by this fact, from the support of the entire international community." He said it was unclear whether such a mandate already existed, perhaps in Security Council Resolution 1483, which ended UN sanctions on Iraq and called for the world organization to "play a vital role in humanitarian relief, the reconstruction of Iraq, and the restoration and establishment of national and local institutions for representative governance." That resolution, however, did not call for a UN peace force, Villepin noted. Further, he said, "there would be some incoherence for France to participate in a coalition force when it did not support this war." Rumsfeld drew pointed questioning Wednesday in a Senate appearance when he would not say clearly whether specific entreaties had been made to France and Germany, both of which angered Bush administration officials by their outspoken opposition to an Iraq war. "Our goal is to get a large number of international forces from a lot of countries, including those two," Rumsfeld told the Armed Services Committee. "We have made requests to something like 70, 80 or 90 countries." Villepin declined to express a sense of vindication that the problems now facing the coalition in Iraq demonstrated that France was right to oppose the war. "The war happened. We rejoiced in the fall of the regime of Saddam Hussein. We have always been very conscious of the fact that to win the war was one thing" while "to win the peace was going to be much more difficult. Day by day, we are seeing just how difficult the situation is." The U.S. Central Command, which has responsibility for military operations in Iraq, does not provide breakdowns of the contributions of coalition members, leaving each country to do so, a spokesman at its headquarters in Tampa said Thursday. Rumsfeld said Wednesday that "we've got 19 countries on the ground, we've got commitment from another 19" and others are in discussion. But after the leading coalition members, the United States and Britain, followed by Poland, Australia and Italy, most countries taking part have offered relatively small contingents. Ukraine has promised to send a mechanized unit of 1,800 soldiers. Macedonian and Albanian troops are in Iraq in small numbers, and Sri Lanka has said it will consider requests. Slovakia has said it will take part. Some countries are sending as few as two dozen soldiers. The Polish-led stabilization force will include troops from Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Lithuania, Spain, Ukraine, the Dominican Republic, Honduras and El Salvador. Britain will lead another international division and Pentagon officials have suggested that a third might be led by India.

THE FINANCIAL TIMES, July 11, 2003

EU troops in Moldova?

Troops may play peacekeeping role in Moldova

By Judy Dempsey

Only weeks after deploying its first peacekeeping mission outside Europe, in Congo, the European Union is being asked to send troops to Moldova, in a peacekeeping mission that could test its relations with Russia and the countries of the region. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the regional security bloc backed by 55 countries from Europe, central Asia and North America, has asked the EU to consider sending up to 1,000 soldiers to Trans Dnestr by the end of the year. The OSCE has been in Moldova since 1993 to help implement a long-standing pledge by Moscow to withdraw Russian troops from Trans Dnestr, where pro-Russian nationalists have attempted to break away from Moldova. It has also been monitoring a ceasefire following clashes between ethnic Russians and Moldovans that left 2,000 dead during the early 1990s. Last March, the EU imposed a travel ban on the leadership of the Trans Dnestr region while strengthening its economic and political ties with Moldova, one of Europe's poorest countries, rife with corruption and human trafficking. Moldova, for its part, is anxious to move closer to the EU, particularly since Romania, the neighbour with which it shares a very close cultural and linguistic identity, could be ready to join the EU by 2007. William Hill, OSCE ambassador to Moldova, said: "With Moldova on the immediate borders of a widened European Union, this could hardly be achieved without the EU playing a substantial role. "We welcome greater engagement in Moldova and are working with EU representatives," he added. "Provided the two sides to the dispute are agreed, such agreement could include a significant role in a peace consolidation force." This mission would pose challenges to the EU's European Security and Defence Policy, with Russia's reactions to a European military presence the main one. President Vladimir Putin agreed to withdraw Russian armed forces by the end of 2002. However, the nationalist leadership in Tiraspol, regional capital of Transdniestria, opposed this.