Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

04 November 2003

NATO

• NATO Secretary-General George Robertson urged European members of NATO on Monday to speed up decision-making and to transform their armies into fully professional forces. “This points to the real challenge before us: to reconcile the need for faster decision-making with the imperative of democratic control,” Lord Robertson told an audience of international military chiefs and security experts in Berlin. (Reuters 031746 GMT Nov 03)
  
  
• Armenia and Greece signed a cooperation agreement on Friday that envisions sending Armenian soldiers to serve with a Greek battalion in peacekeeping operations in Kosovo. About 30 soldiers from this ex-Soviet republic are expected to serve alongside their Greek counterparts starting next January, said Artur Agabekian, Armenia’s deputy defense minister. Agabekian also said that Greece agreed to allow more Armenian officers to participate in training at an Athens military academy and at a military-medical academy. Lazaros Lotidis, Greek’s deputy minister for national defense, said in the Armenian capital that his country “supports the gradual integration of the South Caucasus region into Europe-Atlantic structures.” (AP 311920 Oct 03)

BALKANS

• The UN war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia is investigating cases against three more former Serb officials, Serbia and Montenegro’s Foreign Minister Svilanovic said in comments broadcast on Sunday. But Goran Svilanovic told radio B92 they were expected to be the last investigations against Serb officials, regardless of whether they resulted in indictments. He was quoted by the radio as identifying the three as Blagoje Adzic, former Yugoslav army chief of staff, Milan Babic, former president of the self-styled republic of Serb Krajina in Croatia, and Goran Hadzic, former head of eastern Slavonia region in Croatia. (Reuters 021156 GMT Nov 03)

IRAQ

• German Defence Minister Struck on Monday revived trans-Atlantic differences over Iraq by questioning the legality of the war and the quality of U.S. intelligence on the alleged threat from Saddam Hussein. “Preventive (military) action requires unambiguous intelligence,” Struck said in a speech to an international security conference in Berlin. Peter Struck made clear that concerns remained over the new U.S. pre-emptive military doctrine of tackling potential security threats before they fully materialise. “Military power also has limits. It alone does not enable successful ‘nation building’ or lasting stability of the kind that is needed in the Balkans, in Afghanistan or in Iraq,” the minister said. He said NATO would suffer if Washington kept opting to tackle new security challenges by bypassing the alliance and forming ad hoc “coalitions of the willing,” as it did in Iraq. Such coalitions meant “the destruction of the NATO principle of consensus,” Struck said, adding that the alliance must not be reduced to a U.S. help-mate or a “toolbox.” In more conciliatory vein, he repeated the government’s recent line that Germany and the United States should now put their differences behind them. He said it was essential for Europe and the United States to work together to bring stability to the “Greater Middle East,” including Iraq. (Reuters 031933 GMT Nov 03)

ICC

• Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton on Monday accused the European Union of using pressure to make it difficult for countries to exempt American personnel from prosecution by the International Criminal Court. Bolton said the European group is imposing an unfair choice upon U.S. friends and allies that want to join the 15-nation political and economic Union but are urged to reconsider cooperating with the United States. In a move to boost aspirations for closer ties to Western Europe, Undersecretary Marc Grossman plans to travel this week to Serbia, Macedonia (sic), Albania and Bosnia to underscore the U.S. commitment to integration of the Balkans into the Euro-Atlantic community. First, Grossman will consult with NATO allies in Brussels on Balkans issues, the announcement said. (AP 032250 Nov 03)

RUSSIA

• On the heels of NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson’s farewell visit to Moscow, a top Russian general was quoted as saying that war with a NATO member was not out of the question and that such a conflict would be disastrous for Russia. “It is impossible to completely exclude the possibility of a war with some NATO state, but for Russia, a war with NATO would be deadly,” Col. Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, the deputy head of the Russian General Staff, was quoted as saying in the Friday issue of the Rossiiskaya Gazeta government daily. In an interview published this week in the Kommersant daily, Lord Robertson said that calling NATO a potential threat - as the Defense Ministry did in a recent, widely publicized policy paper - ran contrary to the spirit of partnership between Russia and the alliance. Col. Gen. Baluyevsky said that there was “no comparison” between Russia and NATO in regards to weapons or troop strength, and that the western alliance was only expanding, with the future accession of the three former Soviet republics in the Baltic region. “We, the military men of Russia, have many questions about the level and point of improving NATO as a military mechanism,” he was quoted as saying. “Why do NATO and the United States need to develop high-precision weapons? Why do they need to improve ... the system of defense and use of weapons of mass destruction?” (AP 311002 Oct 03)