Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

20 October 2003

NATO

• AP reports NATO nations planned a special meeting Monday on the EU’s plan to set up its own defense arm, parts of which have been denounced by the United States as a serious threat to allied unity. The dispatch quotes diplomats saying they expected no major decisions to come out of Monday’s meeting, or the regular monthly meeting Tuesday between NATO ambassadors and their EU counterparts. A related Reuters dispatch stresses that NATO diplomats were at pains to play down the NAC’s closed-door session. “It’s been pumped up ludicrously in the media,” one diplomat reportedly said, noting that special meetings were often called for a focused discussion on one issue.

Media center on reports of a transatlantic rift over the EU’s defense ambitions.
Warning of a potential transatlantic breakup, the Wall Street Journal quotes Gen. Jones saying at a dinner last week that the issue of a separate EU military headquarters would “have a deleterious effect on the overall transformation of NATO.” The article continues: “Militarily, the separate EU military structure cannot but sap NATO of its strength, as it would borrow scant resources from an already strained common lot…. It is our view that the 21st century would benefit from a U.S. that remained engaged with the world. But Americans will not stay where they are not wanted…. Europeans tempted to go it alone militarily should consider long and hard whether they want to inhabit a world where the U.S. has turned truly isolationist after being deserted by its allies. Those who define as ‘unilateralist’ an America that in fact trips over itself to attain UN recognition of facts on the ground in Iraq should ask themselves if they would be happier with a recluse giant freed from the counsel of friends.”

On Sunday, NATO and EU diplomats were trying to defuse the latest transatlantic row over Europe’s defense ambitions ahead of Monday’s NAC meeting, wrote the Financial Times, Oct. 19. According to the newspaper, the meeting reflects growing Pentagon concern that the EU’s new treaty will create a stronger and more integrated defense structure that could weaken Europe’s links with NATO. The daily quoted unidentified NATO officials saying, however that the U.S. only wanted to be kept informed of the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) negotiations on defense. “The U.S. thinks the EU is not being transparent on IGC defense issues,” one NATO official reportedly said.

The BBC World Service reported that Monday’s NAC meeting was called in an attempt to clarify the confusing fog of words at last week’s EU summit about the organization’s plans for an independent military role. A solution is urgently needed as defense is one of several contentious areas of EU policy that are supposed to be defined in the forthcoming EU constitution. Time is fast running out for European leaders to meet their goal of agreeing on a text by December, stressed the program.

In a related development, AFP reports the EU’s most senior military figure, Finnish Gen. Hagglund, chairman of the EU’s military committee, told a news conference in Budapest Friday the EU needs to have its own force to complement NATO. “After May 1, (there will) be 450 million people (in the EU). It would be awkward if these 450 million people did not have any military tools at their disposal,” Gen. Hagglund reportedly said. According to the dispatch, he insisted that the EU force would be designed to complement NATO and not rival the Alliance, adding that the force would be designed to be deployed within 60 days, for a minimum of one year. Reportedly pointing to the EU’s military participation in missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, he continued: “For the past three years we’ve been trying to build such a capability and today we have that capability.”

• AFP reports Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, Adm. Giambastiani, told a news conference in Warsaw Monday that NATO plans to open a training center in Poland as part of its efforts to face up to the new challenges of the 21st century. According to the dispatch, Adm. Giambastiani said the plans for the center in Bydgoszcz, northern Poland, would be finalized by the end of the year. He said training would start within a year and that it would be fully operational “probably in about two to three years.” He reportedly added that the center responded to a new situation in which NATO forces might be involved “in high intensity, high tempo warfare, peace support and security operations and the distribution of humanitarian aid, all the same time, all in the same area.”

ISAF

• Reuters reports Canadian Prime Minister Chrétien urged other countries Saturday to send troops to expand ISAF, but said Canada would not itself be able to send more soldiers. Chrétien, on a one-day visit to Kabul to meet Canadian troops and hold talks with President Karzai, reportedly told a news conference: “We are supporting the expansion of ISAF, and we will work to include and convince other nations to send troops here, but we are not planning to send more troops at this stage.” The dispatch observes that with around 1,900 soldiers, Canada already has the single largest contingent in ISAF.