Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

18 February 2004

AFGHANISTAN

• AP reports EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten urged NATO Wednesday to provide more security in Afghanistan’s provinces before June elections and called for tough action against the country’s booming drug trade. “Fewer than a million (voters) have been registered and we need to register 10 to 11 million, so of course security matters,” Patten reportedly told a news conference in Kabul, adding: “I very much hope that will be taken into account by NATO planners and the rest of the international community.” According to the dispatch, Patten also expressed concern about Afghanistan’s booming drug trade and said NATO forces should support Afghan security forces and army in cracking down on traffickers. He added that the wisdom of massive EU financial support for rebuilding Afghanistan—including alternative crops for opium poppy farmers and in law enforcement—would be called into question if it failed to address the drug issue. A related Reuters dispatch quotes Patten saying: “I think ISAF are doing a terrific job. It would obviously help if they were able to establish more (PRTs), but that is a question for NATO.”
  
  
• According to the New York Times, at a news conference Tuesday, Lt. Gen. Barno, commander of U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, said the military had adopted new tactics to combat Taliban and Al Qaeda militants in Afghanistan. In the past three months, he said, U.S. units down to the level of 40-soldier platoons had been dispatched to live in villages where they can forge ties with tribal elders and glean better information about the location and activities of guerrillas. He reportedly stressed that the new strategy also seeks to complement a renewed effort by the United States, NATO and other allies to expand the number of PRTs which will fan out beyond Kabul and assist local authorities with security and rebuilding. He added that by the end of this week, 12 of those PRTs would be operating. The daily recalls that Britain, Italy, Turkey and Norway agreed earlier this month to lead four additional NATO teams by this summer. It quotes Gen. Barno saying the allies, in concert with the Karzai government, are forming regional development zones, essentially areas that encompass more than one of the provincial teams.

NATO

• The Baltic states are insisting NATO provide them with air cover that is considered an automatic part of the collective defense umbrella for all members, reports the Financial Times. The request has become a matter of principle for Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, the article notes, quoting a senior NATO official saying: “This is about timing, resources and doctrines.” The newspaper notes the Baltic states have no air defenses to deal with threats such as hijackings. It adds that to make up this shortfall, several months ago they asked NATO to provide them with cover as part of its collective defense system. “They are simply asking for the same rights other member states have. They have not yet received an answer,” the newspaper quotes an East European diplomat saying. The newspaper asserts that the request has opened up a sensitive issue for the Alliance, which is being stretched by its mission in Afghanistan. An official from a NATO member state is quoted saying: “We have to ask if collective defense in the traditional sense is really necessary now. The old threats of the Cold War are over so these countries are not really threatened in the conventional sense. With the new threats of terrorism, such as hijacking of civilian aircraft, maybe we have to look at other options such as they jointly developing their own defenses.” The newspaper quotes another diplomat noting, however, that other countries, particularly Turkey, say that if NATO fails to provide the Baltics with a security umbrella, it would “signal the slow crumbling of NATO’s ability to provide collective defense.” Diplomats are also quoted saying the issue has wider implications for NATO and its relations with Russia. The article stresses that NATO officials insisted Monday that if the Alliance agreed to send aircraft to the Baltic states, “it would not be an offensive” action.