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SHAPE
News Summary & Analysis
28
October 2003
NRF
- Under
the title, “Last chance for NATO,” Welt am Sonntag,
Oct. 26, claimed that “with a NATO strategically
and technically divided, the NRF is supposed to modernize
and save the Alliance.” The article said: “With
the launching of the NRF, NATO proved itself capable of acting.
The Europeans committed themselves to improving their military
capabilities and to participate in the NRF suggested by Defense
Secretary Rumsfeld. For this purpose, Rumsfeld sent
one of his best men, four-star General James Jones. When he
assumed his office as NATO Supreme Allied Commander in January,
he surprised the sleepy Europe: a genuine Marine, a leatherneck,
a former platoon leader and company commander in the Vietnam
War was not only to lead the service members of the Alliance,
but also to set up the NRF. Like in the U.S., where …
he reformed the Marine Corps and re-equipped it as a modern,
high-tech force, Gen. Jones began to set up the NRF as some
kind of NATO Marine Corps. In Brunssum 10 days ago,
he presented the NRF’s flag: Instead of 6,000, there
were 9,000 service members from 14 nations who assumed their
service—one year earlier than decided. In 2006, when
Gen. Jones is to announce the force’s full operational
readiness, it should be 21,000-strong.” The
newspaper quoted retired German Gen. Klaus Naumann, a former
Chief of Staff, Bundeswehr and until 1999, Chairman NAMILCOM,
saying: “(The NRF) and the implementation of the other
decisions taken in Prague are NATO’s last chance. If
this force does not work smoothly, Washington’s patience
will wear thin, despite the current recollection of the old
allies.” According to the newspaper, Gen. Naumann
predicted that the United States would then pick its allies
“a la carte.” The newspaper also quoted German
defense expert Johannes Varwick explaining that the NRF has
primarily two tasks: The first one is to be capable of intervening
rapidly anywhere in the world, for example in the
form of preventive attacks against nations that are planning
to use weapons of mass destruction, or in the fight against
terrorism. The other task is to get the European armed
forces shipshape. The NRF will serve as a transmission medium
to get U.S. know-how and strategies to Europe, because a joint
war is hardly possible as far as technology and strategy are
concerned. The newspaper further quoted Gen. Naumann
saying, in a similar vein, that the NRF would be a training
force. “The Bundeswehr will learn how to use this technology
from the support of the U.S. in operations. The United States
possesses the high-tech components and the know-how,”
Gen. Naumann reportedly said. Defending NATO’s pre-eminence
against the background of recent NATO-EU frictions over ESDP,
Geoffrey Van Orden, the British Conservative Party
defense spokesman in the European Parliament, writes
in a contribution to the Wall Street Journal: “Since
1991, NATO’s core tasks have included both collective
defense and crisis management…. NATO rejected the idea
that it should just be kept in the bottom-drawer for the most
unlikely of contingencies, collective defense, while another
organization, such as the EU, should have primary responsibility
for the real, everyday crises which ensure current relevance
and vitality. Only two weeks ago, we saw the initial standup
of the NATO Response Force designed to underline NATO’s
ability to respond very quickly to an emergency…. Gen.
Jones, said this month, ‘it is at least a distraction
and at most diminishing to have a parallel EU structure emerging
at the very time when NATO is transforming itself. The Berlin-Plus
arrangements … ought to be tried and tested before they
are abandoned.’” Le Monde, which also analyses
relations between the EU and NATO, writes meanwhile: “Europe’s
emancipation takes many forms, whether the formulation of
a security doctrine, the proposal to create a European Gendarme
Corps, or the establishment of 60,000-strong rapid response
force. It is no coincidence that this last project has prompted
the establishment of the NRF, one element of which
was officially inaugurated Oct. 15.
FORMER YUGOSLAV
REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA
- Skopje’s
MIA, Oct. 27, quoted a spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief
Solana saying in Skopje Monday that Operation Concordia
will end on December 15, as planned. Hailing the
end of the mission as a sign that the security situation in
the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia had been improved,
the spokeswoman reportedly added that at a meeting with authorities
in Skopje, Solana had confirmed that the first EU
police officers would arrive in the Former Yugoslav Republic
of Macedonia at the beginning of December to start the deployment
of the Proxima police mission.
FRANCE-DEFENSE
- France’s
nuclear deterrent is in the midst of a revolution. President
Chirac is expected to confirm this within the weeks ahead—possibly
during a forthcoming visit to Brest, where the Strategic Oceangoing
Force is based, reported Liberation, Oct. 27. According
to the newspaper, a senior military official has confirmed
that the “reorientation” will be “finally
decided on” at the beginning of 2004. Without
citing any country, the official reportedly added that France’s
strike forces now target what the United States calls “rogue
states,” nations acquiring weapons of mass
destruction. Noting, in a related article, that President
Chirac is rewriting France’s nuclear doctrine to deal
with rogue states armed with chemical and biological weapons,
The Times concludes that Chirac has decided to follow the
United States by widening a nuclear strategy that was originally
designed to deter the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The
newspaper adds that in a televised interview Monday, Gen.
Norlain, a former head of the Higher Institute of National
Defense Studies, acknowledged that a shift in strategy was
inevitable, given the changes in the geopolitical climate.
The Washington Times observes that if the report is true,
the French shift would echo a policy change formulated by
the Bush administration in 2002. The newspaper quotes defense
expert Francois Heisbourg stressing, however, that a shift
in French strategy began last year with little fanfare. The
Daily Telegraph writes that if confirmed, France’s shift
will overturn 40 years of French nuclear strategy founded
on the principle of deterrence against declared nuclear powers.
In unveiling such a new strategy, Chirac would bring France
into line with America, which has said it might one day be
necessary to use nuclear weapons against nations with weapons
of mass destruction, stresses the newspaper. “The change
in French policy would bring France closer to the new U.S.
doctrine expressed in January last year,” observes The
Independent.
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