Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

6 April 2004

NATO-RUSSIA

• Moscow Times reports Defense Minister Ivanov said in Oslo Sunday Russia and NATO plan to sign an accord this year that would allow the former Cold War foes to deploy troops and military hardware on each others’ territories. “The document will allow NATO units with military hardware onto our territory and our units onto the territories of Alliance countries,” Ivanov reportedly said. He expressed hope that the Status of Forces Agreement would be signed this year and that it would enhance cooperation between the Alliance and Moscow in their fight against terrorism. The report adds that a NATO spokesman confirmed in Brussels Monday that the Alliance and Russia were working on the agreement. According to the article, he said the SOFA would regulate, among others, the legal and administrative aspects of the transit or deployment of NATO troops and military hardware for joint exercise on Russia’s territory and vice versa. The article quotes the NATO spokesman explaining that the Alliance had signed SOFAs with most of the other countries participating in the PFP program. “It is a standard … technical agreement, but it is also politically important and it helps enormously” in organizing joint exercises and transits, the spokesman reportedly said. According to Moscow’s Interfax, Konstantin Kosachev, head of the State Duma’s International Relations Committee, expressed optimism Tuesday over prospects for signing the agreement. “The future agreement in no way hurts our country’s sovereignty and does not allow NATO military units to take any steps in Russia without its agreement. All possible speculation on this issue has neither actual nor legal foundation,” he told a news conference. According to the dispatch, he said the SOFA was a typical document NATO signs with most countries which are working together with the Alliance. “There is nothing unique about Russia and NATO signing this agreement. It is not a breakthrough, either,” Kosachev added.

ESDP

• According to AP, EU security chief Solana said in Brussels Tuesday Kosovo’s recent upsurge of ethnic violence underscores the need for the EU to ensure it has sufficient reserves when it undertakes its biggest ever military operation in Bosnia this year. Outlining plans for the peacekeeping operation at a meeting with EU defense ministers, he reportedly said the EU would need to work with NATO to ensure “it has guaranteed and timely access to sufficient reserves” in the light of last month’s Kosovo bloodshed. He also insisted that the two organizations had to ensure “clarity” in their relations after the handover. The dispatch notes that the EU is expected to takeover the peacekeeping mission in Bosnia from NATO at the end of this year, but the Alliance is seen providing “over the horizon” reserves for both the EU in Bosnia and its own continuing operation in Kosovo under a cooperation deal between the two organizations.
  
  
• Reuters reports the EU Monday rallied behind a plan to set up rapid-reaction battle groups for crisis spots around the globe but acknowledged that a chronic lack of key military equipment stood in the way. Irish Defense Minister Michael Smith, whose country currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, is quoted saying there had been “very, very positive reactions to the proposal.” He reportedly noted, however, that the success of the concept would rely on European nations acquiring capabilities to make their forces both rapidly deployable and self-sustaining. The dispatch also quotes EU security policy chief Solana saying in a news conference that “at least three countries” had already offered to lead battle groups of their own and that others could join forces to form multinational units. “Get out of your mind that the European Union is starting from scratch: for operations of this size, we have … today enough capability to deploy,” he reportedly noted. However, he called on the ministers of the 25 current and future EU states to keep working toward military capability goals which were set—but not fully met—for the creation of a 50,000-strong crisis management force. A related AP dispatch recalls that under a strategy paper adopted by leaders in December, the EU wants to move quickly to stabilize potential trouble spots before they develop into major conflicts. The team of highly mobile troops would give the EU the means to do that, acting under a UN mandate and handling over later to UN forces, which take more time to assemble, the dispatch stresses.

BALKANS

• AP reports an SFOR spokesman said Tuesday NATO regrets the innocent victims of a recent effort to catch war crimes fugitive Karadzic but force has to be used as he is surrounded by armed criminals. The troops are going after Karadzic because Bosnian Serb authorities have failed for nine years to arrest him and hand him over to (the ICTY), the spokesman reportedly said, adding: “We have made it very clear that SFOR will continue to hunt for Karadzic; the noose is getting tighter.”

IRAQ

• According to BBC News, a top Central Command official said Monday the United States is examining the possibility of sending more troops to Iraq if the situation there gets out of control. The official confirmed that commanders had been asked to present such options, but said the U.S. military did not believe it was needed. He said the request had been made “as a matter of planning.” The broadcast remarked that the comments came on the second day of anti-coalition protests by supporters of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr. A related article in The Guardian stresses that the Bush administration is facing a nightmare scenario in Iraq, fighting on two fronts against Sunni and Shiite militants less than three months before it is due to hand over power to an Iraqi government.

TERRORISM

• Suspicions hardened Monday that Europe has become the main target of Islamist terrorists in the western world as a letter signed by Al Qaeda’s European branch promised to turn Spain into “an inferno” and French special forces rounded up more than a dozen suspected members of a group with ties to the network, writes the International Herald Tribune. “Europe is now clearly in the spotlight of terrorism,” Daniel Keohane, a security and defense expert at the Center for European Reform in London is quoted saying and warning: “It is the greatest terrorist threat the Continent has ever faced.” The newspaper observes that in Europe, no recent week has passed without what appeared to be a narrowly missed terrorist attack or the discovery of a cell of potential terrorists. It further quotes Keohane saying that while the United States remains the prime target of militant Islamist groups, Europe’s relatively greater vulnerability has made it the focus of attacks. Keohane reportedly said Europe’s disparate security and intelligence services were not prepared for global terrorism as America is two and a half years after the Sept. 11 attacks. The second weak spot, he added, is geographic. Through Turkey, Europe has land links to the Middle East and Caucasus regions, which have spawned much of the Moslem fundamentalism of recent years. Spain is vulnerable, too, because only the narrow Straits of Gibraltar separate it from Morocco and neighboring North African countries. In addition, Europeans rely much more on public transport and rails than Americans. According to the newspaper, Keohane said the real challenge for European governments was to join forces. The only way to defeat global terrorist networks of the Al Qaeda kind is to improve infiltration of Islamic militant networks and to join forces on intelligence across Europe, he stressed.