Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

2 March 2004

NATO

• According to AFP, NATO Secretary General de Hoop Scheffer said in Luxembourg Monday NATO was set to invite President Putin to attend the Istanbul summit in June. “President Putin will be invited at the end of March to attend the NATO summit,” he reportedly said, stressing that he wants “very good and very constructive relations with Moscow.” The dispatch observes that the NATO invitation will come as NATO prepares to welcome seven new members into its ranks.

BALKANS

• Skopje’s A1 television, March 1, reported that officials at NATO headquarters assured Skopje Monday that they will give full support for the investigation into President Trajkovski’s death. The network carried a NATO spokesman saying: “The secretary general just received the letter from the prime minister of (the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) today. It goes without saying that the Alliance will render its full support for the investigation of what happened to the president’s plane. As the prime minister pointed out in his letter, the investigation of the crash is under the competencies of the federal authorities of Bosnia-Herzegovina, but NATO will certainly render its full support to provide all the relevant information that it can to find out what happened.” The program also carried a correspondent saying that according to sources in Brussels, NATO Secretary General de Hoop Scheffer will ask for an urgent investigation.

IRAQ

• In a contribution to the International Herald Tribune, Frederick Bonnart, editorial director of the independent military journal NATO’s Nations, writes that “NATO should take the lead role in Iraq.” He opines that with intervention in Iraq, NATO would regain its former centrality as the basic western security organization. NATO would be confirmed as the primary international peacekeepers, and its unchanging role as the essential western security organization would be recognized once more. Stressing, however, that before NATO took on this job, some basic conditions would have to be met, Bonnart continues: “With NATO deployed in the Balkans and Afghanistan, as well as individual national military actions in support of the UN, military forces are in short supply. The United States would still have to furnish the biggest troop element, but the Europeans would have to show that they are now making real efforts to provide resources for new tasks to which they have committed themselves. In turn, the Bush administration would have to accept that the United States is one of NATO’s … member states, which reach their decisions by consensus. Decisions would have to be taken by NATO’s supreme authority, the North Atlantic Council, on which the United States sits together with the other members; U.S. military forces would not act independently but from their place within NATO commands. The image of NATO must not be that of an auxiliary in American undertakings…. Discussions for a possible NATO role are at an exploratory stage at present…. One option being considered is for the organization to take over the Polish commitment. Although the NATO Council would then exercise command of this allied division, such a mission should be categorically resisted. Not only would it create two separate chains of command, but it would place NATO into a secondary place, behind the all-powerful American command responsible for the overall security mission in Iraq. NATO should take on the task of making Iraq secure, but only in the lead role.”

GREATER MIDDLE EAST INITIATIVE

• According to the Financial Times, the EU responded cautiously Monday to U.S. proposals for a joint initiative to reform the wider Middle East, saying change has to be driven from within. Noting that the Greater Middle East Initiative has come to dominate the transatlantic dialogue in recent weeks, the newspaper quotes EU External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten saying, after talks in Washington with Secretary of State Powell: “We would not want to give the impression we are parachuting our ideas into the region. Reform would only take root in the Arab world if it is owned by them and it is home grown.” Patten reportedly also reflected wider European concern by noting that the U.S. proposals should not become an alternative to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. He also made it clear that the EU already had its program in place and, while being prepared to work with others, it did not want them to be eclipsed. The newspaper stresses, however, that after disputes with the U.S. over Iraq, European governments generally see reform in the Middle East as an area of fruitful cooperation with the Bush administration. “There is no appetite for another transatlantic battle,” the newspaper quotes one European diplomat saying.