Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

1 April 2004

AFGHANISTAN

• NATO foreign ministers will focus on slow delivery of their pledges to expand security in Afghanistan after a ceremony Friday marking NATO’s enlargement, reports Reuters, citing unnamed diplomats. The dispatch also quotes a NATO official saying the Alliance’s drive to expand its Afghan peacekeeping presence beyond Kabul to the provinces was “well on track,” despite criticisms from the EU and non-government organizations. He reportedly stressed that NATO would meet its target of establishing five more PRTs with military protection by June.
  
  
• According to Le Monde, during talks with reporters in Brussels Tuesday, Hikmet Cetin, NATO’s representative in Afghanistan challenged the view that the international community has failed overall in Afghanistan. He cited “the organization of two Loya Jirga, the adoption of a constitution, the training of 8,000 men in the national army, the training of some 20,000 police officers by the end of May, the registration of 1.5 million persons on voter rolls, the construction of 860 kilometers of roads and the fact that 4 million children are in school.” Last of all, he reportedly stressed, “Kabul has become safe” and there is no longer an “organized terrorist structure in the country.” The newspaper adds that Cetin feels the strategy of increasing the number of PRTs remains suitable. It notes, however that currently, NATO is in charge of only one PRT, “with its member states facing difficulties in mobilizing the necessary military resources.” A commentary in Frankfurter Rundschau, March 31, acknowledged that “(PRTs) made up of military and civilian personnel are substantial progress.” But, the article asked, “of what use are they to the populace if they are stationed in the wrong places, ignore the drug trade, and are not strong enough to enforce the will of the central authority in Herat and Kandahar as well?” The daily insisted that “Afghanistan needs additional resolve more than it needs the promise of additional billion of dollars or euros.”
  
  
• AP reports Afghanistan and its neighbors agreed Thursday to cooperate in stemming the country’s drug exports after donors pledged $8.2 billion in new reconstruction aid. According to the dispatch, the accord commits Afghanistan, China, Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to strengthening security in their border areas, creating a “security belt around Afghanistan” and exploring the possibility of coordinated anti-drug operations. The dispatch adds that as aid pledges rolled in, Italy offered a direct contribution to security outside Kabul, pledging to send up to 300 soldiers to expand PRTs in the provinces.

In a contribution to the Wall Street Journal, James Goodby and Kenneth Weisbrode, respectively a former U.S. ambassador to Finland and a councilor of the Atlantic Council of the United States, insist that “NATO can’t be globocop.”
Proponents of NATO’s transformation into a global expeditionary force argue that the Alliance must undertake new missions virtually anywhere in the world if it is to survive as a viable and positive force for peace. Thus the Allies will likely extend the Afghanistan mission, and consider Iraq, at their June summit in Istanbul, Goodby and Weisbrode write. They continue, however: “We should proceed with caution down this particular road. A reinvention of NATO as a globocop … would weaken NATO’s still significant role as a deterrent in Europe and elsewhere…. Even before the squabbling over Iraq, as the Kosovo bombing in 1999 made clear, intervention in a relatively minor conflict creates terrible strains within the Alliance. Such missions should be undertaken only in the last resort. The concern about NATO unity is as valid in regard to post-conflict interventions. Fortunately, NATO has avoided heavy casualties in Afghanistan or the Balkans…. But at some point, NATO members won’t be able to stomach the cost of elective interventions merely for the sake of the Alliance’s survival. More importantly, using NATO as a stand-in for the UN obscures the enduring importance of the Alliance in two critical areas—neither of which involves peacekeeping or peace-enforcement. First, NATO must continue efforts to integrate the former Soviet bloc into an emerging Euro-Atlantic security community. Second, it needs to remain a “force in being” as a powerful deterrent against an attack from any quarter on Europe or North America, or on their combined interests. This latter role is being overlooked…. In the real world, deterrence and peacekeeping … are not incompatible. Until the United States and others decide that a UN standby force is indispensable in today’s security environment, NATO should probably assume the burden for the time being in Iraq and Afghanistan. But absent a vision of NATO’s unique capacities and a determination to preserve them, the world will lose an irreplaceable asset.”

BALKANS

• Reports that war crimes fugitive Radovan Karadzic eluded an SFOR raid in which a priest and his son were injured are generating high interest. AFP reports some 2,000 angry Bosnian Serbs gathered in Pale to protest the pre-dawn raid. The dispatch adds that the most senior officials of Bosnia’s Serb-run part, including Prime Minister Mikerevic, had joined the protest. It quotes Foreign Minister Ivanic stressing that “SFOR must have its limits,” and adding he would insist that those responsible for civilian casualties be found an punished. NATO peacekeepers mounted a night-time swoop on Karadzic’s old stronghold Pale Thursday, seriously wounding a priest and his son but failing to find him, writes Reuters. “It appeared to be the first time that the Karadzic manhunt had resulted in injury to civilians and it was likely to anger Bosnian Serbs, many of whom view Karadzic as a hero and the church as inviolate,” the dispatch commented. BBC News observed that SFOR has intensified its search for Karadzic and his supporters before it hands over its mission to a European Union force. “Our correspondent says NATO will not officially describe the latest raid as a failure—a spokesman said information from such operation is always valuable. But this is the second time in three months that NATO has mounted an operation in Pale in its hunt for Karadzic without finding the fugitive,” added the broadcast. “NATO troops failed again to arrest … Karadzic in an operation early Thursday,” reports AFP, adding: “The NATO-led troops in Bosnia have recently stepped up efforts to find Karadzic. Peacekeepers raided Pale in January, in a bid to arrest Karadzic but have failed to find him.”