Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

11 December 2003

NRF

• Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Dec. 8, examined plans by NATO and the EU for rapid reaction forces. Regarding NATO, the newspaper said: “The (NRF) will have available a team of soldiers permanently on standby that has been trained for joint operations. A rotation system has been created specifically for this. The units detailed to the NRF will first hold joint exercises for six months, and then spend six months either on standby or assigned to an operation; after that, they will be available for another six months as reserves. That way, NATO is supposed to have permanent access to a brigade of ground forces. For air combat, a capacity of 200 flights a day is planned.” Noting, however, that under European Headline goals, the EU is also planning a rapid reaction force, the newspaper claimed that an idea repeatedly discussed in Brussels would amount to a division of labor between the NRF and the EU force: NATO would be responsible for robust combat operations, while the EU would take on the less demanding but often arduous Blue Helmet missions. The article, which quotes European NATO diplomats arguing that ESDP should cover the entire spectrum of military operations, commented: “It is to the Europeans’ benefit that in the end NATO and the EU will fall back on the same troops. Through the NRF rotation process, the European NATO forces will gradually be trained in intervention warfare. Whether they will then be used in the framework of an EU or a NATO mission will in practice likely be primarily a political decision.”

NATO

• According to the Washington Post, the United States has launched a discreet effort to broaden and deepen serious consultations with its European allies on war and peace. The talks include discussion of NATO taking on a dominant command role in Afghanistan and of the Alliance eventually becoming much more involved in Iraq and perhaps elsewhere in the Middle East. According to diplomatic sources, two unpublicized meetings with an expanded core group of senior officials from NATO nations this autumn produced no disagreements on the principle of expanding the Alliance’s involvement outside Europe. The article suggests that the meetings may lead to a new allied security architecture that reflects global changes since the Cold War ended. Noting that President Bush and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice appear to be searching for new ground for cooperation in NATO with France and Germany while giving new prominence to allied countries that joined or supported the coalition of the willing that toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime, the article says: Rice followed tradition by hosting national security advisers from Britain, France and Germany at a private dinner in New York in September. But she added officials from Denmark, Italy, Spain, Poland and Portugal and encouraged a free-flowing conversation. The same group, with the addition of the Netherlands, gathered in London during Bush’s visit last month. The most concrete proposal put forward was to consider merging the U.S. expeditionary force now in Afghanistan into a unified NATO-commanded operation over the next year.

UNITED STATES-TROOP BASING

• Assistant Defense Secretary Feith has started negotiations with the European NATO allies over a redeployment and possibly a reduction of U.S. forces in Europe. Gen. Jones has established a reorganization plan which will be presented to President Bush at the beginning of 2004, writes Le Monde. After the restructuring of major NATO commands in Europe, the United States now plans to have lighter, more mobile forces and a simplified base network. The goal is to create land, air and naval bases which would be more flexible than in the past, stresses the newspaper, adding: Beyond these territorial and operational aspects, the Pentagon project—in a more discrete way—promotes the possibility of deploying equipment developed by the United States which countries susceptible to host forces could accept and stockpile. U.S. units would therefore have at their disposal the means needed in case of intervention…. For the time being, nothing has been decided. Gen. Jones has only indicated that the Ramstein air base … would remain at the heart of the U.S. deployment in Europe.”

BALKANS

• Skopje’s Radio Makedonija, Dec. 10, carried a NATO spokesman saying in Skopje that the end of Operation Concordia marks an end to the international military presence in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. “This will also modify NATO’s role in that it will focus on an advisory role in terms of military reform and logistics. As of Jan. 1, 2004, the number of troops will be downsized by 20 percent. The headquarters will have 129 soldiers and 50 civilians,” the spokesman said. The program continued: “The spokesman stressed that efforts toward full implementation of the Ohrid agreement would continue. He issued the message that there will be no tolerance for border changes or for the use of force as a means for achieving political goals.” The program further said that NATO will support the new Proxima police mission by providing logistical support and exchange of information.

Remarks by Adm. Feist in Brussels Wednesday are noted by Brussels’ Le Soir.
DSACEUR, Adm. Feist, who commanded Operation Concordia, said the foreign military presence prevented a civil war in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, says the daily. Noting that following an agreement between NATO and the EU over the use of NATO’s assets, the headquarters for Concordia was based at SHAPE, where the Europeans have a planning cell, the newspaper further quoted Adm. Feist saying: “This worked well. The collaboration between the two (organizations) is the good tool. We must continue.”

IRAQ

• According to Reuters, the Pentagon has delayed the issue of $18.6 billion in U.S. tenders to rebuild Iraq from Thursday until Dec. 19. The dispatch notes that the Pentagon, which drew criticism over excluding firms from war opponents from bidding, initially was to advertise the prime contracts last Friday. A further delay to an unspecified date was announced on Wednesday after earlier promises of release on Monday and Tuesday.

The Pentagon’s decision to bar countries opposed to the war from Iraq reconstruction projects is generating high interest.
President Bush found himself in the awkward position Wednesday of calling the leaders of France, Germany and Russia to ask them to forgive Iraq’s debts, just a day after the Pentagon excluded those countries and others from American-financed Iraqi reconstruction projects, writes the New York Times. The article asserts that White House officials were fuming about the timing and the tone of the Pentagon’s directive, even while conceding that they had approved the Pentagon policy of limiting contracts to 63 countries that have given the United States political or military aid in Iraq. The newspaper quotes White House officials saying Bush and his aides had been surprised by both the timing and the blunt wording of the Pentagon’s declaration. Several aides reportedly said they feared that the memorandum would undercut White House efforts to repair relations with allies who had opposed the invasion of Iraq.

“It was a mistake for the Pentagon to bar some of the world’s most influential countries from bidding for contracts in Iraq,” charges The Times, noting: “In the spring, Washington wants the Security Council to pass a resolution endorsing a multinational force in Iraq. The Pentagon’s decision will help neither stage of this process: winning passage of the resolution, or, even if it does pass, forming a multinational force.”