#6
Izvestia
November 21, 2002
THE MISALLIANCE
The new NATO: nothing to be concerned about
Author: Georgy Bovt, Andrei Lebedev
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]

AT THE UPCOMING SUMMIT IN PRAGUE, SEVEN NEW MEMBERS WILL BE ADMITTED TO NATO. HOWEVER, RUSSIAN DIPLOMATS WHO HAVE STRIVEN TO PREVENT NATO EASTWARD EXPANSION NEED NOT BE WORRIED ABOUT THAT. THE NEW NATO DOES NOT SEEM TO BE AS GREAT A FORCE AS IT USED TO BE, EITHER MILITARILY OR POLITICALLY. THE EUROPEAN MEMBERS ARE MAINLY INCAPABLE OF SUPPORTING THE U.S. IN NATO.

The summit of NATO, which is admitting to its ranks seven new members from among the former Soviet satellites, has an appropriate location in Prague - the city where in 1968 Soviet tanks fired on the "Prague spring" - it would later be called the herald of Europe's reunification. However, the new alliance of 26 members is, alas, not a choir of winners in the Cold War. New war is breaking out - with international terrorism. Right in this connection, banal as it may be, another association occurs: the decline of any empire begins right at the moment of its highest bloom. Frankly speaking, all these years the former members of the Warsaw Treaty have been striving for quite a different NATO - a bloc where one country - America - is in charge of everything, thinking for everyone, and paying for everything. And where there is a common "scarecrow" - now in the form of a myth about the Russian empire which supposedly can revive. However, entering the alliance, the recruits will now find out that they have entered in something quite different. By the way, the response of the American press to the summit is remarkable: there is no other response except for skepticism as regards the "pretty European allies", as well as disbelief in their combat morale, power, and which is main, their ability to make but a single distinct decision. .

Yet, to stress the importance of the event, the U.S. president personally arrives to Prague. To compliment, pat the juniors on the shoulder. Of course, for order's sake he will recollect figures like, for instance, the following: the present 16 European NATO members (without the U.S., Canada, and Turkey) spend $500 million a day altogether on defense. The U.S. alone - $1 billion. Only an annual increase in the U.S. defense budget for 2003 will make $48 billion. No NATO country spends as much. The operation in Afghanistan has clearly shown: the European military are technological incapable to cooperate with the Americans as their equals. NATO is not ready for rapid counter-terrorist operations, for refuting new threats. The operation on the Balkans showed formerly that the euro-allies were incapable of quickly making a clear political decision that would entail tough and fast actions. Except for the verbal disapproval of the "American monopoly", naturally. At the same time, the euro-NATO people have never decided for themselves who they are - U.S. partners or an "alternative to the U.S. hegemony". If the second - then in what way? Among the irreconcilable opponents of the war with Hussein is Germany (it has gone as far as the personal quarrel of Schroeder and Bush). No one except for Britain supported the U.S. And it is nearly time to speak about the arrival of a realer and more efficient military union: the U.S., Britain, Australia, and with great provisos, France (as a country that has efficient forces of rapid deployment). The rest is either a "hardware depot" for the U.S., or a variegated team where everyone has a very narrow specialization. Thus, Germany has strong anti-gas protection, the Spanish are renowned for combat engineers, the Eastern Europeans can furnish a couple of peacekeeping battalions. However, the main security threats in the world are now moving Southeastern Asia, the Middle East, and Central Asia. So NATO get more and more out of job. And Europe on the whole crawls behind to the edge of global geopolitics. Besides, it is heavily entangled in endless political adjustments.

To what extent overall can NATO be described in the old way - exactly a military, but not already a political organization? By the way, Russian diplomats stubbornly fought to transform the first into the second. For some reason though, they also took pains to make conjurations about the inadmissibility of NATO expansion eastward. Thanks God, they have ceased now. For they were afraid in vain! More so, that the main authors of the East European fears have something to celebrate as for the first matter: the new NATO has turned out to be by no means frightful militarily and still more harmless politically. After the summit in Prague, Putin and Bush can celebrate this modest victory tete-a-tete in St. Petersburg.

(Translated by P. Pikhnovsky)

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