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| May 20, 1999 |
| May 20, 1999 |
Substance Over Form: The Kosovo Peacekeeping Proposals
By Tomas Valasek, Research Analyst, tvalasek@cdi.org
A day after President Clinton hinted, for the first time, that he might order ground troops to Yugoslavia, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder apparently closed this option. Referring to a NATO ground invasion plan advocated by Great Britain, Schroeder said on May 19, "I am against any change in NATO's strategy...this is first and foremost a German position." As a NATO member, Germany has the right to veto any changes in the alliance's operations.
The apparent end of NATO's flirt with ground war plans thus shifts attention back to negotiations. NATO closed ranks with Russia on most issues regarding the post-war status of Kosovo, with few notable exceptions. Chief among them is the composition and the role of the future international force in this Yugoslav province.
Even in the sometimes flippant world of diplomacy, where the shape of the negotiating table can stall talks for months, the question of the Kosovo peacekeeping force has more than a procedural value. Since the Yugoslav army and police managed to drive virtually all the Albanians out of Kosovo, it will be up to the international force to guarantee their safe return. According to the plan produced at the G-8 meeting on May 6, the peacekeepers may also be responsible for disarming the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the Albanian guerilla force.
Exactly who will carry out these ambitious tasks is unclear. The G-8 document mentions an "international civil and military presence" in Kosovo, which Secretary Albright interpreted as a "strong military force with NATO at its core." Russia's Foreign Minister Ivanov, on the other hand, reiterated that any Kosovo peacekeeping force could not include NATO troops without Belgrade's agreement. Belgrade vehemently opposes any NATO role in Kosovo and insists that the international units be civilian and unarmed.
The composition of a future force would have to fall somewhere between NATO's and Belgrade's demands. The deployment of an unarmed civilian force will never convince Kosovar refugees to return to their homes. Without armed backing, the units would be unable to disarm the KLA or face the Yugoslav army in possible confrontations. In the end, the expulsion of Albanians from Kosovo would become permanent and hostilities between the KLA and the Yugoslav army would continue, with casualties likely among the international personnel as well.
The peacekeepers must be "a well-armed, professional, competent and disciplined force," said retired Major General William L. Nash, who commanded the 1st Armored Division in Bosnia in 1995-96. The mission promises to be a dangerous one. The Yugoslav army has laid scores of mines on the border with Albania and Macedonia and along major roads in Kosovo. Besides mines, the peacekeepers may have to contend with Serbian paramilitary forces outside Belgrade's command. If Kosovo is occupied by force rather than through a negotiated agreement, the follow-up international units could come under attack from the Yugoslav army as well. And then there is the KLA. Its leaders reject any outside suggestions that they should disarm, setting the stage for a conflict with peacekeepers who may attempt to do just that. "In the end, it would come down to the degree to which the peacekeepers would be able to establish themselves as a dominant force," General Nash told CDI, adding that "the KLA would be more likely to cooperate if the [international] force would be able to guarantee safety for the Albanians." The KLA and the peacekeepers may also find a compromise arrangement inspired by Bosnia. "The SFOR [NATO-led Stabilization Force in Bosnia] did not disarm the warring parties -- the equipment was stored in cantonment areas and destroyed only if moved or used in violation of the agreement," said General Nash.
NATO units have the training and equipment to serve as Kosovo peacekeepers but Belgrade is unlikely to stomach the presence in Kosovo of soldiers from countries which participated in the aerial attack against Yugoslavia. Nevertheless, the allies are updating their original plans which called for 28,000 NATO peacekeepers to be deployed in the province. Given Belgrade's position, a NATO force could be deployed only in the unlikely case of a capitulation of the Milosevic government or if the units fight their way into Kosovo -- in which case they would hardly be peacekeepers in the traditional sense.
For NATO to negotiate an agreement with Yugoslavia, the peacekeeping mission would have to draw on countries that did not take direct part in Operation Allied Force. Sweden, Ukraine, Greece, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, among others, have offered to send troops to Kosovo. While more politically acceptable, such a force would suffer from logistical difficulties. The countries do not share a language, their communications equipment may not be compatible, and they use different command structure and procedures. Most UN peacekeeping missions are composed of soldiers from dozens of different countries but their tasks are usually far less assertive than the ones proposed for Kosovo. The only analogy for the proposed Kosovo force is the NATO-led Stabilization Force, which supervised and helped enforce the pullback and partial demilitarization of the armed factions in Bosnia.
In case of Kosovo, NATO countries, while staying out of the actual peacekeeping force, could provide the much needed communication equipment and intelligence. Given Ukraine's and Russia's financial situation NATO countries may be called on to help pay the cost of the deployment. In addition, British, French, and American units could remain on stand-by in neighboring countries to provide military force when needed.
Standing Down Nuclear Weapons
Lt. Colonel Piers Wood, USAR (Ret.), Senior Fellow, pwood@cdi.org
Those who speak ominously of the damage the Kosovo crisis has done to U.S. - Russian relations have their eyes on Russia's nuclear weapons. Lest we forget, Russia still has some five thousand warheads poised atop ballistic missiles on a hair trigger.
No one is implying that nuclear weapons would be used in a confrontation over Kosovo itself. The primary concern is the increasing likelihood of an accidental nuclear war because of escalating tensions. Russia's economic and social turmoil has adversely affected their early warning systems, and Western provocations such as NATO expansion and the proposed U.S. national missile defense system have increased the Russian military's suspicions that the gaps in their early warning might actually be exploited. The Y2K problem only exacerbates the uncertainties of this situation and makes finding a solution all the more urgent.
As alarmist as all this may sound, we should not forget that the same scholasticism that precipitated the Cold War reign of terror still pertains today. The use-it-or-lose-it posture of launch on warning is still in place.
The only permanent solution is to remove all nuclear weapons from their hair-trigger status.
To do this both sides have to conduct a substantial, mutually verifiable stand-down of strategic nuclear weapons. This could be done by placing significant impediments in the way of those who would actually launch weapons. A classic illustration of such a barrier is placing tons of dirt over a missile silo hatch. As primitive as it may sound, this simple step vividly illustrates how easy it would be to safely back away from a state of high alert. It substantially impedes rapid launch; it does not increase the vulnerability of the missile or its warhead; it is mutually verifiable; and it is even reversible. More importantly, however, the immediate result would be an increase in the time required to launch any nuclear weapon against each other's homeland.
Of course, disassembly can be just as effective and is a more generally applicable method of standing down nuclear weapons. If the U.S. and Russia could agree to separate warheads from delivery or propulsion systems for each of their nuclear weapons, the world would take a giant step back from the precipice of accidental nuclear war. In this scenario, the great obstacles to rapid reduction in alert levels are problems with verification and vulnerability of the separated weapons components. But these impediments also can be overcome by the application of low-tech thinking and return to first principles. The crux of the issue is how to slow down a frantic decision process, not merely to find some new or more elegant way to control nuclear arms.
For example, bombs and air launched cruise missiles can be stored aboard cargo aircraft based thousands of miles from the bomber designed to deliver them. The stored warheads can be protected by putting the cargo aircraft on "strip alert," making them as invulnerable to surprise attack as the B-52 fleet was during the Cold War.
Warheads from silo based nuclear missiles can be handled the same way as bombs. Mutual on-site inspection of loaded cargo aircraft could be confirmed by continuous spy satellite surveillance of airbases where the warhead carrying planes would have to be parked in the open.
Nuclear submarines would be more difficult to stand-down. However, if both parties agreed to reduce the numbers of weapons on patrol, then detached warheads could be placed in separate launch tubes from the missile. Since re-mating warheads to missiles is impossible while submerged, a submarine would have to surface and re-mate missiles and warheads with the assistance of another vessel before it could be made launch-ready again. The time it might take nuclear submarines to link up and re-assemble weapons could be considerable. Nonetheless, because of the near invulnerability of nuclear submarines at sea, this approach would go far toward preserving their unique retaliatory capabilities -- their most important feature.
No treaty would be necessary to make these changes. The presidents of both nations could implement them through mutual, reciprocal initiatives similar to that of Presidents Gorbachev and Bush when they mutually and reciprocally withdrew deployed tactical nuclear weapons in 1991.
Mutual disassembly of strategic nuclear weapons -- verifiable, sustainable, reversible, protected and substantial -- warrants early trials of this stand-down approach. The deteriorating early warning situation in Russia and the uncertainties of nuclear command and control during the approaching Russian Y2K crisis suggests that immediately implementing this concept would be none too soon.
Of Asteroids and Budgets -- A Reflection
Colonel Dan Smith, USA (Ret.), Chief of Research, dsmith@cdi.org
Ever since President Kennedy challenged America to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s, we as a nation have been fascinated with space. In addition to real world challenges and the discoveries by astrophysicists, we have been mesmerized both by feats of daring-do and potential disasters from space that Hollywood has conjured for our entertainment and its profit.
While the Star Wars "prequel" is the latest example from the entertainment world, scientists in the real world of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory have calculated that a recently discovered "small" (one kilometer wide) asteroid designated as AN10 may pass as close as 38,000 kilometers to the earth in 2027. This distance is well within the moon's orbit around the Earth, meaning that the asteroid's course may be altered during 2027 by the Earth's gravitational field. Any change will not be enough to cause a collision in 2027, but the change might be enough to significantly increase the chance of impact when the asteroid returns in 2039.
Astronomers predict that a collision of the Earth and a one kilometer wide asteroid could wreak enough havoc to destroy a large section of the planet and alter Earth's climate. Now some might believe we need to develop an anti-asteroid "missile" defense able to ward off such a potential natural -- as opposed to a human-induced -- disaster. But the high costs and abysmal success rate of U.S. programs to develop a high altitude hit-to-kill anti-ballistic missile defense does not inspire much confidence that we could develop a system to stop asteroids.
As it is, the reason for mentioning the asteroid is not ballistic missile defense. Rather, it is to highlight by analogy another potential disaster threatening America: the destruction of key elements of our domestic policy landscape resulting from the impact of huge defense spending increases projected over the next six years.
In 1997, recognizing that spending had to be controlled, the White House and Congress agreed to the Balanced Budget Act which set budgetary ceilings or "caps" within which the federal government had to operate. If spending increased in one area, it had to decrease elsewhere. Furthermore, "firewalls" were erected between defense and nondefense programs so that cuts in defense could not be used to fund nondefense programs (and vice-versa). Only if Congress and the President agreed that an emergency existed -- natural disasters or war -- could the budget caps be ignored. But the equilibrium established by the Balanced Budget Act, like the equilibrium of near space that we take for granted, is now threatened because in Fiscal Year 2000 the firewalls disappear. Defense can be increased at the expense of nondefense programs.
Given recent Administration and congressional actions on the FY2000 budget, it is no exaggeration to say that the potential damage to nondefense programs could be as devastating to the nation as a collision with the AN10 asteroid.
Just as the Earth's gravitational field could distort the path of the AN10 asteroid and cause a future collision with the Earth, proposed defense spending increases -- $112 billion over six years by the Administration, raised to $133 billion in the congressional budget resolution -- threaten to distort the development and improvement of domestic programs essential to our nation's future -- notably education (Head Start, Pell grants, special education), health, job training, low-income heating assistance, and other important social programs. Just this week the House Appropriations Committee voted to cut these programs by almost $11 billion below their FY1999 levels. The devastation that such cuts would inflict is so palpable that even Representative John Porter (R-IL), chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, is warning his colleagues that his committee cannot do its job with the magnitude of reductions voted by the full Appropriations Committee.
Unlike the asteroid, whose intersection with the Earth won't occur before 2039 (if then), these cuts, if sustained by the entire House and then by the Senate, will take effect this October just as the Defense Department gets its initial $20 billion from the $133 billion budgetary "asteroid" contained in this year's congressional Budget Resolution. As Representative Porter observed, barring a change in the trajectory on which Congress now seems intent, the nation is "headed for another debacle."
Peace is a Human Right; Time to Abolish War
By Rachel Stohl, Research Analyst, rstohl@cdi.org
From May 11-15 in the Hague, the Netherlands, the Hague Appeal for Peace conference was held to celebrate the centennial of the 1899 Hague Conference called by Russian Czar Nicholas II. The original Hague meeting created the framework for the development of the International Court of Justice and the International Court of Arbitration.
The core areas of this year's conference were: strengthening humanitarian and human rights law; conflict resolution and transformation; disarmament; and creating a culture of peace. Workshops were held relating to these core areas, generating discussion and action plans on topics such as Kosovo, landmines, small arms, child soldiers, arms control, and nuclear abolition, among others. The goal of the conference was to develop networks, initiatives, and strategies for the implementation of the Hague Agenda for Peace, an action plan for the "most important challenges facing humankind as it prepares to embark upon a new millennium," that will be released to governments shortly.
In her opening address to conference participants, Hague Appeal President Cora Weiss said, "think of the people in East Timor and Chiapas, in the Sudan and Somalia, in Burma and Kosovo, people who suffer from the cruelty of violence and the barbarity of human rights abuses. We are here, together, to say we must not bring the baggage of violence and injustice into the new century." Weiss also mentioned the significance of the enormity of military budgets around the world. "As long as over $780 billion a years is pent on the military, while $13 billion is spent on basic health and nutrition, as long as three-fifths of the world's 4.4 billion people in developing countries live without basic sanitation, and 1.3 billion live on less that $1 a day, we will continue to have violence and war. For every war budget that goes up in the name of national security, human security is cruelly threatened."
According to conference organizers, almost 10,000 people from more than 100 nationalities attended the Hague Conference. Participants in the conference chose from over 400 debates and artistic presentations, including musical, cultural, and film exhibitions.
The Hague conference provided a forum for the launch of several new initiatives and campaigns. The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) was formally launched on May 11. IANSA is a network of more than 200 organizations including arms control and peace organizations, human rights agencies, gun control and community groups, and others. It's aims are to reduce the demand and supply of small arms, stop the illegal arms trade of small arms, reduce the quantities of guns in circulation and reverse cultures of violence.
IANSA was launched with a ceremonial bonfire in which weapons were destroyed. Speakers at the"Flame of Peace" included Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jose Ramos-Horta, who spoke about the lack of action until now on the small arms issue. "I hope we don't have to wait another 100 years to heed the warning of small arms that have had so many devastating consequences to countries, communities and peoples," Horta said. Similarly, Mick North, whose 5 year old daughter was killed in the Dunblane school massacre said, "Only by reducing the number of guns on a global basis can we hope to make a world which breaks free from the trauma caused by these instruments of death." Cora Weiss summed up the gravity of IANSA's work saying "Just as the first step toward the abolition of slavery was the abolition of the slave trade, so now the first step toward the eventual abolition of excessive national arsenals should be the abolition of the arms trade."
Other significant events occurring at the Hague Conference included the launching of the Global Action to Prevent War, a non-governmental campaign for the early entry into force of the International Criminal Court, and the presentation of new reports on landmines and weapons of mass destruction.
For more information about IANSA, please see the website www.IANSA.org or email contact@IANSA.org.