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| April 29, 1999 |
| April 29, 1999 |
The Other Collateral Damage
By Tomas Valasek, Research Analyst, tvalasek@cdi.org
The bombs and missiles pounding Yugoslavia are shaking the governments in neighboring countries. It is not just an occasional stray missile, such as the one that missed a target in Kosovo and landed in the suburbs of the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, some 40 miles from the Kosovo border. The expansion of the bombing campaign, which requires that more and more Central and Eastern European countries open their airspace and airports to NATO aircraft, presents a dilemma to regional governments -- how do you support NATO's action without committing a political suicide or endangering ethnic kin in Yugoslavia?
No country is in a more complex a situation than Hungary. A new NATO ally, as of March of this year, Hungary hardly expected to be waging a war on its neighbor within weeks of joining the alliance. NATO refueling aircraft now take off daily from airbases in Hungary to keep the fleet of Western bombers and fighters in operation. To Hungary's dismay, bombs also hit targets in the heavily ethnic Hungarian province of Vojvodina, a province in the north of Yugoslavia. "There was a request from the Hungarian government [to NATO] not to bomb targets on the territory of Vojvodina ...but now, taking into consideration new developments on the battlefield, it's not reasonable anymore," said the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
The 300,000 ethnic Hungarians in Vojvodina also fear retaliation from the Serbs. "If Serbia loses Kosovo, initially I can bet that the Serbs would lose their heads and uncontrolled events would occur," an leader of a Yugoslav Hungarians association told Reuters.
If attacks against Hungarians do occur, Prime Minister Orban said, NATO will provide "a security umbrella" for the Vojvodina Hungarians. The "responsibility for the fate of Hungarians living outside its borders" is enshrined in the Hungarian constitution. If ethnic violence does flare up in Vojvodina, Hungary may try to evoke the collective defense clauses of the Washington Treaty to obtain NATO protection. Such step could significantly widen the scope of NATO operations in Yugoslavia and possibly trigger a NATO ground operation.
Another country thrown into turmoil by NATO attacks is Bulgaria. On Thursday the Bulgarian government agreed to allow NATO to use of a 70-90 mile wide air corridor on the border with Yugoslavia in exchange for security guarantees. The agreement is expected to sail through the Parliament, where the ruling Union of Democratic Parties enjoys a comfortable majority. The largest opposition party, the Socialists, however, are vehemently opposed. They also enjoy public support on this issue -- some 70 percent of the public are against granting access to Bulgarian airspace to NATO.
The Bulgarian government risks a serious political crisis to accommodate NATO demands, but it had little choice. Bulgaria is applying for NATO membership. Breaking the ranks with the alliance during the Yugoslav war was viewed as damaging to the country's membership bid. Slovakia, Romania, and Macedonia are in similar positions. All have agreed to grant NATO the use of air and/or land to support Operation Allied Force.
The war in Yugoslavia has struck Bulgaria in a more direct way than some of its neighbors -- three missiles have landed on its territory since the beginning of NATO's air operations.
In the last incident on Thursday, a missile struck the suburbs of the capital of Sofia. The weapon -- apparently the Air Force's High Speed Anti-Radiation (HARM) missile -- locks on signals emitted by radars and guides itself to its target, usually a surface-to-air missile system. If the SAM radar is turned off while the missile is in flight, the missile can lock on to other signals. Sofia, only 40 miles from the Yugoslav border, has a large airport with the usual array of radars. It is possible that the HARM missile, after losing its original signal, followed the airport radar beams before crashing into Sofia suburbs.
The Bulgarian government already requested an Identification Friend-or-Foe (IFF) system from NATO in conjunction with granting the alliance airspace transit rights. The IFF would not prevent similar mishaps in the future but it would allow Bulgarian air coordination centers to better distinguish between NATO and other planes in its airspace, reducing the likelihood of other unfortunate mishaps.
The U.S. Finally Goes to War -- As Intended
Colonel Daniel M. Smith, USA (Ret.), Chief of Research, dsmith@cdi.org
On April 27, President Clinton agreed to the Pentagon's request to call to active duty as many as 33,102 National Guard and Reserve personnel to support the air campaign against Yugoslavia. Almost immediately, and rather predictably, came the chorus of naysayers who pointed to this action as "proof" that the U.S. active military had been so decimated since the end of Desert Storm that it could no longer defend the nation's interests.
Those who make these accusations either have no sense of post-Vietnam legislative history or are purposely ignoring that history. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, key skills such as psychological operations, air transport pilots, civil affairs, reconnaissance, public affairs, and aerial refueling specialties were intentionally concentrated in the reserve components. In part this reflected congressional and Pentagon determination that no future president would be free -- as Lyndon Johnson was -- to commit the nation to a major conflict without a national consensus as reflected in the deployment of citizen-soldiers.
Congress, of course, wields the power of the purse, but the pattern of post-World War II U.S. military actions is for the President to commit forces and then go to Congress for funding. This sequence tends to place Congress in the position of feeling obliged to support the troops in the field by acceding to the funding request even if it disapproves of the action itself. In Yugoslavia, this is the position expressed by the House of Representatives just this week; the House failed to pass a resolution endorsing the air campaign, has said that the President must obtain congressional approval before deploying ground troops to fight in Yugoslavia, but approved nearly $12 billion to help pay U.S. costs of fighting in Yugoslavia and helping with humanitarian relief.
In fact, since World War II, only President Bush, in the 1990-91 Gulf War, sought and obtained prior congressional concurrence to employ U.S. forces in combat. In the absence of invoking its constitutional power to declare war and thereby formally mobilize the nation, last done in World War II, Congress hoped that concentrating key specialities in the reserves (as part of a needed restructuring and resizing of the military services) would put a "popular" restraint on the propensity to dispatch U.S. military forces unless the nation was behind the presidential action.
Even so, the brevity of some of the more recent military engagements -- Granada, Panama, Desert Fox (the four-day bombing of Iraq in December 1998) -- has frustrated this effort to restrain U.S. military action. Furthermore, despite this week's actions by the House of Representatives, the public so far seems to support the air campaign in Yugoslavia and is not as opposed to the use of ground forces as many thought would be the case (although that could change if ground forces were introduced and began to take significant casualties). Finally, the Senate seems unlikely to follow the House of Representatives in refusing to endorse the air campaign.
Because the call-up of the reserve components will be phased -- only some 2,100 initially -- any public opposition to the expansion of U.S. involvement in Yugoslavia will likely be muted. Such an outcome could, in the end, frustrate the expectation that the public could act as a "fail safe" brake on military adventures. Our troops would then find themselves again -- as in Vietnam -- fighting without the American public's support.
To avoid that situation, it is time to move beyond incremental force enlargement, the phased expansion of targets (with its attendant risks) and beyond opinion polls and really have a public debate on whether the nation is ready to support this war. Only then can we be sure that we have gone to war "as intended."
Labeling The K.L.A.
Lt. Colonel Piers Wood, USAR (Ret.), Senior Fellow, pwood@cdi.org
In the news coverage of the K.L.A., the terminology of unconventional warfare has been badly mauled. It is easy to believe that the public could be confused by the contradictory news. One week the K.L.A. are "in control" of villages in Kosovo, are being "wiped out" by Serbian forces the next week, only to rise -- phoenix like -- the third week to be "guerrillas" worthy of receiving heavy weapons. There seems to be little agreement about whether they are "fighters," "guerrillas," "soldiers," or "terrorists."
The most abused of these terms is terrorist. The too frequent and indiscriminate use of this term makes it difficult for most of us to realistically distinguish between many sub-national organizations such as the "old" Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the "new" PLO, Ronald Reagan's "freedom fighters" and the "contras," or to categorize the various factions of the Kurdish resistance or the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). "Terrorist" has become almost trite -- synonymous with a Hollywood "bad guy" and thus a label which identifies any armed individual disliked by the current Administration in Washington.
It is probably too late to devise a neutral definition for the term "terrorist." The expression is so laden with political baggage and fraught with emotional content that it should be relegated to the propagandists.
However, it may not be too late to preserve other very useful terms in the ongoing discussions of unconventional warfare in Kosovo. What follows are modest proposals for establishing a common ground on the language front.
Guerrilla warfare: A type of small unit warfare in which inferior forces use surreptitious tactics to harass and interdict forces superior in manpower and weaponry. These tactics preclude the holding of territory and the use of conventional logistical support. This type of combat is used across the entire spectrum of warfare from high intensity to contested elections. Lawrence of Arabia used guerrilla warfare to secure the Mideast flank for the allies in WW I. At the other extreme, impoverished Mexican Zapatistas have resorted to guerrilla tactics as their last means of resistance.
Guerrillas do not take ground nor occupy territory and seldom use heavy weapons. They rely on stealth, speed and surprise. Guerrillas operate only with the willing support of a friendly population that offers sufficient cover and sustenance to free them of supply lines. When a guerrilla force does adopt linear tactics and becomes dependent on logistical trains to support such things as artillery, tanks and aircraft; it is no longer a guerrilla unit.
Insurgency: A lopsided struggle in which a government's opposition resorts to military means to achieve its political aims. It is another form of revolution which relies heavily upon armed force [usually conducted by guerrillas] to gain politically legitimacy gradually. The French and Russians suffered classic political revolutions characterized by rapid collapse of the old regime. In these cases the established military joined the revolutionaries. The American and Chinese revolutions were primarily insurgencies.
Insurgents do not measure their success by body counts. The destruction of enemy forces is a means to an end, not the insurgent's objective. They seek to govern, not to merely occupy territory. Often they become the de facto government in regions of the country as the struggle rages around them. The Viet Cong ruled most of Vietnam -- under American noses -- long before the U.S. forces withdrew from the war.
Africa Reacts to Child Soldiers Problem
Rachel Stohl, Research Analyst, rstohl@cdi.org
Last week people around the world were shocked and horrified by the thought of two heavily armed teenagers "waging war" against their classmates and teachers in Littleton, Colorado. But for many parts of the world, the sight of armed children is a common occurrence. In over 30 countries around the world, children are used as soldiers and daily wage war against their former neighbors and friends. Last week in Maputo, Mozambique, at the same time the United States was reeling from the Columbine shooting, governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) reacted to the prevalent use of child soldiers on the African continent.
According to a report released by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, a group of international non-governmental organizations, there are more than 120,000 children -- some as young as seven years old -- being used as soldiers in Africa. This figure makes up almost half of the estimated 300,000 such children world-wide. The report also elaborates upon the risks to children who participate in armed conflict and the consequences for societies in which child soldiers are used. The report examines the use of child soldiers by both governments and armed opposition groups.
The meeting in Maputo brought together more than 250 participants from over 50 countries to address the problem of child soldiers in Africa. Participants included representatives from 25 African governments, regional and international NGOs, and international agencies and organizations including the United Nations Children's Fund, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, International Committee of the Red Cross, United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, United Nations Development Program, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and the World Health Organization. Observer governments which supported the International Coalition and its goals were also invited; participants included Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, and Uruguay.
At the end of the conference, the participants drafted the Maputo Declaration on the Use of Children as Soldiers. The Declaration set forth 15 conditions by which the use of child soldiers could be "put to an end." Very strong statements against the use of child soldiers were included in the Declaration. For example, the Declaration stated that the participants "solemnly declare that the use of any child under 18 years of age by any armed force or armed group is wholly unacceptable, even where that child claims or is claimed to be a volunteer."
The Declaration also calls upon states to end the recruitment of all children under 18 into the armed forces and to establish mechanisms for an accurate birth registration and document provision system. Furthermore, governments are called upon to use their influence to encourage armed opposition groups from using child soldiers. In addition, the importance of the demobilization and reintegration of child soldiers was highlighted.
The participants in Maputo also committed to "intensify [their] efforts to ensure the early entry into force of, and adherence to, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child." The African Charter is the only international and regional legal standard which establishes 18 as the minimum age of recruitment. Approved by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1991, the Charter still hasn't entered into force because it has only been ratified by 13 governments, two short of the 15 required. However, Ugandan Minister of Gender, Labor, and Social Development Janet Mukwaya announced that she was able to elicit commitments from the governments of Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, and Tunisia to ratify the Charter, and it is hoped the Charter will therefore enter into force soon.
The conference was sponsored by the International Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers and Save the Children. The next regional conference will be held in Latin America on July 5-8, 1999 and will be hosted by the Uruguayan Foreign Ministry. This conference will focus on the issue of child soldiers in Latin America. Additional conferences, focusing on the use of child soldiers in other specific regions, will take place in Europe in the fall of 1999 and in Asia in 2000. There are also plans for an international conference addressing the use of child soldiers world-wide sometime in the future.
For a full text of the Maputo Declaration on the Use of Children as Soldiers, please contact rstohl@cdi.org. For more information about the International Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers please see "International Efforts Address Use of Child Soldiers," By Rachel Stohl, Weekly Defense Monitor, July 9, 1998.
Administration, Congress, Push Kosovo Funding Package
Christopher Hellman, Senior Analyst, chellman@cdi.org
Last week the Clinton Administration announced its plans for funding U.S. military operations as part of NATO's activities in the Balkans. This is likely just the first such request, given that the nature and duration of U.S. involvement in the region is far from certain. According to the Pentagon, as of April 19 U.S. forces had incurred $985 million in operational and munitions costs during the first 24 days of air strikes. At that rate, the total cost of U.S. military operations through the end of this fiscal year would be roughly $7 billion. However, the initial Administration request was roughly $6 billion, with about $1 billion intended for humanitarian assistance.
GOP leaders in both the House and Senate quickly expressed their intention to add significantly to this request, and the funding packages now being considered in each house nearly double the amount, with the House package, the higher of the two, totaling $12.9 billion.
This significant increase in not, however, due to concerns among Congressional leaders that the Administration has underestimated the cost of the war in Kosovo. Instead, Congress is taking this opportunity to funnel billions of taxpayers' money into military programs neither requested by the Administration nor related to the war in Kosovo.
Here are some specific examples: $1.8 billion for military pay and retirement benefits, $1 billion for routine maintenance of U.S. military equipment, $1.3 billion for the purchase of unrequested spare parts, and $1 billion for new construction at U.S. military bases in Europe.
The pay portion is particularly interesting in that it is intended for FY'00 and is not to be used to increase benefits in the current fiscal year. One is led to wonder why funding for next year's pay raises is being included in the supplemental for this fiscal year, particularly when Congress has already allocated $8 billion in additional Pentagon funding for FY'00 above the Administration's request. In effect, what Congress has done is free up almost $2 billion in available new military spending in FY'00, which will most likely be devoted to member's pet projects, not real needs.
Congress' willingness to pad an emergency Pentagon spending bill with funds not related to ongoing military operations should come as no surprise. A similar thing happened last September, when the Administration requested $4 billion for operations in Bosnia. The request also included $1 billion for spare parts, but the Administration indicated that it would not treat the funding of spares as an emergency. Instead, the White House planned to fund the purchase of spares by making offsetting reductions in other Pentagon accounts. Congress, however, doubled the request and declared all the funding to be emergency. This included $1 billion for ballistic missile defense programs that the Administration did not request, and that General Lester Lyles, head of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, said that he did not need.
Some of the additional programs funded by Congress in the supplemental request are worthy programs. They do not, however, belong in an emergency spending package intended to support U.S. troops in the field. Furthermore, the implications of this form of budgetary shinnanigans go beyond the potential impact on the federal budget. In their disregard for the intention of laws which they themselves wrote and enacted, members of Congress and the President may well undermine the voter's faith in the legislative process and, ultimately, in their elected representatives.
For information on September's Supplemental Appropriations package, see "Clinton Requests More Money for Pentagon," Weekly Defense Monitor, September 24, 1998.
This week from America's Defense Monitor: "Fighter Jet Fix"
Last year, more than 1,000 pilots walked away from the Air Force. Meanwhile, the Air Force spent more than $2 billion developing another sophisticated fighter, the F-22 Raptor.
In this episode of America's Defense Monitor, we'll take a close look at the Super Hornet and the F-22. Are decision makers in Washington clinging to these programs at the expense of our fighting forces? You might be surprised at how far the U.S. military is willing to go to get its fighter jet fix.
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