Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

17 May 2004

ESDP

• According to AP , the creation of up to nine European elite battle groups for rapid deployment to international trouble spots formed part of a six-year plan under discussion Monday at a meeting of EU defense ministers. Ministers were also reviewing the EU's preparations to replace NATO's peacekeeping mission in Bosnia at the end of the year and efforts to set up a European armament's agency to coordinate purchases of military hardware. The dispatch notes that the battle group idea was first drawn up by France, Britain and Germany to give the EU the ability to respond quickly to quell crises-particularly in Africa-before they spin out of control. It adds that defense ministers were expected to flesh out the plans Monday as part of a broader package of defense targets known as the "2010 Headline Goal," which the EU wants to set up by the end of the decade. They reportedly include: Up to nine battle groups of 1,500 elite troops ready to deploy within 15 days for emergency peacekeeping operations by 2007. An aircraft carrier with an associated air wing and naval escort by 2008. An operational EU airlift command by 2010 to rush troops into international hotspots. A network of cutting-edge communications-including space-based assets by 2010. The plans are expected to get final approval at a June summit of EU leaders, adds the dispatch, noting that to fill shortfalls in their military capacities while sticking within tight defense budgets, the EU nations are aiming to pool resources and avoid wasteful duplication .

NATO

• A commentary in Sueddeutsche Zeitung , May 15, viewed the current situation in Iraq, the Middle East and Afghanistan and concluded that the involvement of several NATO allies in Iraq has undermined NATO's ability to act elsewhere. The newspaper said: "It seems to be of no concern to NATO that the desert is ablaze in Iraq and violence is rampant in the Middle East. Nor does it seem to mind that in Afghanistan, where the Alliance has vowed to demonstrate its value as the global peacekeeping power, the promised reconstruction is still threatened by warlords and returning Taliban members.. NATO is currently unable to demonstrate its ability to act, which, after all, is the only proof of the sense and purpose of its existence. How should it? Even the Alliance has no advise to dispense on how to deal with the anarchy and chaos in Iraq or the Middle East. Where the Alliance does follow a realistic concept, such as in the Hindu Kush, its 26 member states refuse to allocate the required resources. As long as helicopters and military high-tech equipment are missing, no general can deploy troops in troubled Afghan provinces with an easy conscience. As a result, the construction of schools and health centers is being delayed and preparations for the autumn election are being held up. All it does is to prove the shortcomings of the NATO states in the struggle against worldwide terrorism ." Stressing that the time of reckoning will be in six weeks and it will happen in public at the NATO summit, the newspaper continued: "The whole world may then have a closer look at the miserable state of the Alliance on all fronts. Iraq must continue to be a no-go area for NATO, as long as any allied servicemen are only seen as servants of the U.S. occupiers. The ostentatious push that the United States has made for the long-term stabilization of the "Greater Middle East" has been reduced to a few pages of gray paper.. And what about Afghanistan? NATO will be able, at best, to find a few additional helicopters and several hundred troops by the end of June. A few more, but not enough to make a difference. It will no suffice to stabilize the unstable situation in the former Taliban empire. And it will even be totally insufficient to maintain the impression of an intact Alliance. The reason for this malaise can be found in Iraq. Since President Bush has dragged several NATO allies to Baghdad as willing coalition members, NATO is now short of troops and equipment to do a proper job a least in Afghanistan. The United States has raided NATO's toolbox-which, in effect, has undermined the Alliance in political terms ."

IRAQ

• Electronic media report Ezzedine Salim, the current head of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council has been killed in a car bomb blast near the headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition in Baghdad. BBC News observed that Salim was the second council member to be killed since it was set up last July. It stressed that the bombing took place amid rising violence in Iraq as the United States prepares to transfer power to an Iraqi interim government on June 30.