Military

SHAPE News Summary & Analysis

27 August 2004

NATO

• According to German daily Bild, Aug. 26, Germany’s Bundeswehr elite unit KSK (Special Forces Command) will be expanded. The Defense Ministry intends to integrate the Navy’s 143 combat swimmers and mine clearance divers from Eckernfoerde in the unit. This would increase the KSK to 1,143 men, the daily said. It added that as of 2005, the KSK is to be part of the NRF.

  In a contribution to the Financial Times, Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and John Prendergast, an Africa scholar who worked in the National Security Council and State Department, called on the United States and EU countries to restructure forces to address global crises.
  Noting that for a solid decade, NATO members have been debating whether to expand the Alliance’s role to handle military operations beyond its borders, O’Hanlon and Prendergast wrote: “The world needs to recognize that humanitarian military interventions are here to stay and will place far greater demands on military forces than most governments have been willing to recognize. Countries should restructure their armed forces accordingly, not at the kind of modest pace that Europe has followed for a decade. The argument is strong enough on humanitarian grounds alone. But in the era of global terrorism, such intervention also has an important strategic dimension. That is because failed states can provide refuge for terrorists. In addition, western reluctance to assist beleaguered Moslem populations can breed further hatred of the West—and thus more recruits for Al Qaeda. There is no time to wait for the U.S. armed forces to take the lead in addressing these challenges…. To face future challenges, the EU should aim to have 150,000 to 200,000 deployable troops … not the 65,000 that EU leaders are aiming for. The U.S. and Europe need to get serious about funding their recent Group of Eight initiative to train and equip 75,000 African peacekeepers.”

OTHER NEWS

• Electronic media quoted Russian officials saying Friday traces of explosive have been found amid the wreckage of one of two Tupolev airliners that crashed on Tuesday. The BBC World Service quoted the FSB security service saying at least one of the almost simultaneous crashes was a “terrorist act.” The FSB reportedly said the traces of explosive, hexogen, were found amid the debris of the Tu-154, which was flying to the Black Sea resort of Sochi when it disappeared from radar shortly after the pilot pressed the SOS button. The program observed that details of the discovery came after an Islamic group claimed responsibility for the crashes in a website statement. According to the program, in the statement, a group called the Islamic Brigade said it had five people aboard each aircraft. It warned this act would be followed by others “until the killings of our Moslem brothers in Chechnya cease.” The crashes came just days before a presidential election in war-ravaged Chechnya, where separatists recently stepped up attacks on Russian forces and their local allies, noted the network.