Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

05 August 2003

NATO-GEN. JONES

• De Standaard, August 2, carried a question-and-answer interview with Gen. Jones, conducted by Mia Doornaert on Friday, 1st August. The interview is centered on the emerging NATO Response Force (NRF). Gen. Jones was quoted saying: “By October 15, we will have an initial fighting force of between five and seven thousand men. On July 16 we held our first force generation conference, at which the member states were able to nominate their contributions.” Asked why the NRF is so different and new, he reportedly answered: “NATO has great military capabilities, but land, air and sea have always operated completely separately. For example, Kosovo was an air operation. In contrast, the NRF will assemble land, air, sea and special forces elements under a single, integrated command. That’s the formula for the 21st century.” He also explained how the new force will be structured: “… The NRF is like a big pyramid resting on its base and divided in three. The tip consists of immediately deployable forces, the middle part of ready forces and the base of troops at a lower level of deployability. Whatever fits in that pyramid is what NATO needs. Whatever falls outside of it, depends on what the member nations want.” If the NRF had existed after September 11, Gen. Jones was reported saying, the U.S. would have been glad to have the support of NATO forces without having to ask individual countries for the needed help. In response to the question whether the NRF will be a competitor for the EU Rapid Reaction Force on which the EU is working, he reportedly stated: “No. European security concerns must have their place in NATO. What would worry me is the development of two parallel structures, which would marginalize both. Today, a European flag flies above this headquarters, we have a European planning cell for the Macedonia (sic) operation and we have a command structure that works, of which my deputy is the senior EU officer. There has to be a structure within which European security issues can be dealt with in the EU, and in which, whenever there is a need to act, NATO is robust and flexible enough to give expression to these European concerns.”

ISAF

• In a contribution to the Financial Times, August 4, Judy Dempsey wrote that according to military officials, NATO has the ability to play a greater role throughout Afghanistan after it takes over the Kabul-based ISAF next week. Such a move, the journalist observed, would be welcomed by UN Secretary General Annan and Afghan President Karzai, who have both repeatedly asked that the ISAF mandate be extended beyond Kabul. NATO’s senior commanders including Gen. Jones, she added, are first anxious to consolidate their presence in Kabul and then to look at how they could push NATO out to the provinces. But any extension of ISAF’s role, she commented, would require a UN mandate and several European countries have said they would be reluctant to change the mandate because they did not have enough troops. An expanded ISAF mandate could allow NATO to cooperate much more closely with the Provincial Reconstruction Teams, originally established by the U.S., in which Canada and several European countries participate.

BALKANS

• According to the Independent, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Gen. Jones, said the proposed date of 2004 might be “too early” for the EU to launch its biggest military mission, a peacekeeping operation in Bosnia. The newspaper sees the statement as a sign of new transatlantic tensions, and observes that while the U.S. initially seemed anxious to scale down its force in the Balkans, it has been having second thoughts, because Washington considers the region as highly important for counter-terrorism operations. Gen. Jones reportedly suggested that the EU might be better advised to concentrate on boosting its capability to deploy a robust police force. “If Bosnia keeps going the way it is, sooner rather than later the only thing that is required there is police, tough police,” he was quoted saying. He was also reported saying: “But if you can get the rule of law and the enforcement of law with a foothold in Bosnia, which seems to be moving in that direction right now, we will get to the point where the military equation will be replaced by a police equation. Lord Ashdown has said it is premature for SFOR to be replaced by the EU and I would pay serious attention to what Lord Ashdown says.” He finally allegedly said the eventual EU mission might be a military one, such as it is undertaking in Macedonia (sic), but “it would be essentially a policing action.” Although Lord Ashdown backs the idea of a European mission, he insists changes need to be made on the ground first, concludes the paper.