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| April 11, 2002 |
"Coalitions of the Willing" Ease Way for NATO Enlargement
Tomas Valasek, Senior Analyst, tvalasek@cdi.org
In six months, NATO allies will choose new alliance members from among nine candidate countries. Slovenia, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Bulgaria are considered realistic candidates; Macedonia and Albania also applied. The November NATO summit in Prague will end with at least one new member -- this much is known -- but exactly how many countries and which ones will join is still in the air. Part of the difficulty of selecting candidates lies in the uncertainty about NATO’s very purpose and missions. During the 1997-1999 round of NATO enlargement, enlargement’s size and direction were mostly shaped by concerns about Russia’s reactions. But relations with Russia have since vastly improved. This time, the Prague enlargement summit promises to be as much about the transformation of NATO itself as about its expansion. The challenge before the allies is to choose countries capable of contributing to NATO’s missions at the same time as the missions themselves are under review, as is the division of responsibilities amongst allies for these missions.
Two major tasks have defined NATO’s work since the end of the Cold War. In security terms, NATO has helped make Central and Eastern Europe a safer place, both indirectly -- by holding candidate countries to high standards of democracy and human rights -- and directly, by requiring and assisting with democratization of the countries’ armed forces. At the same time, the alliance is still very much a military organization. NATO has helped keep peace in the Balkans with tens of thousands of NATO troops in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Macedonia separating warring parties, collecting weapons, and hunting war criminals. The allies also fought in Bosnia and in Kosovo, and may take on counter-terrorism tasks in the future.
What do these tasks portend for further NATO enlargement? The alliance’s problem is in that it is evolving in a couple of directions, which, on the first glance, seem to dictate contradictory approaches to enlargement.
NATO’s contributions to European security dictate a continued enlargement beyond this upcoming round. NATO requirements and Western assistance played an important role in putting defense establishments in candidate countries under civilian control. NATO also helped make the countries’ military budgets more responsive to military needs and the societies’ means, and reduce the burden on post-communist societies by reforming the personnel- and armor-heavy Warsaw pact armies. Perhaps more importantly, NATO forged an unprecedented degree on transparency on candidate countries by enticing them to discuss their threat perception and military plans in an open forum, the alliance itself. This approach leaves little room for the armed forces to create suspicions or tensions among such historic rivals as, for example, Romania and Hungary.
But for these security gains to be preserved and expanded, NATO must continue to enlarge. It was the promise of eventual membership in the alliance that played a key role in motivating candidate countries to pursue the military reforms and to join NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP), under whose auspices NATO candidates plan, cooperate, and exercise alongside full NATO members.
This enlargement approach, however, appears to fly in the face of NATO’s increasing interoperability and capability problems. Even with the post-Cold War makeover, the alliance is still primarily a vehicle for joint military operations. It no longer plans to wage war on large Soviet conventional forces but it fought air wars in Bosnia and Yugoslavia and may be assigned new counter-terrorism missions in Prague. The warfighting task is becoming increasingly more complicated as non-U.S. NATO allies fall behind the United States in both the size and the quality of their military forces. In some regards, the new allies with their antiquated equipment and (with few exceptions) under-trained personnel will only add to the problem.
This view, however, ignores changes in the way NATO conducts its operations. Increasingly, the alliance fights not as a whole but using clusters of interested members, the so-called "coalitions of the willing." The current fighting in Afghanistan is a good example -- although not conducted under a NATO flag, it brings together Special Forces units from a number of allied countries. The joint operations were made possible to a large degree by decades of NATO exercises and efforts to standardize equipment as well as command and operational procedures. Similarly, the peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan capitalize on NATO’s extensive experience built in Bosnia and Kosovo.
The common wisdom that candidate countries will weaken NATO by creating new liabilities and failing to contribute to new missions would be true only in case of a conventional attack on the new allies, extremely unlikely by anyone’s estimates. In virtually any other kind of scenario -- be it peacekeeping operations or counter-terrorism -- assets that new allies contribute are a net gain to NATO. This is especially true when candidate countries lie close to NATO’s area of operations. NATO allies’ missions in the Balkans and Afghanistan were vastly aided by the establishment of bases in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Croatia, and Hungary (since made a full member) as well as overflight rights granted by Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan or Romania and Bulgaria.
The "coalitions of the willing" concept makes it easier for NATO to continue to enlarge and to perform its security role in Central and Eastern Europe but it also creates its own set of problems. Will allied countries have enough incentive to increase military spending and invest in weapons compatible with other NATO countries? Ad hoc coalitions built outside NATO’s formal auspices only add to the ‘free rider’ problem. They make it easier for all allies to choose to avoid investing in the military and to opt out of military preparations as well as the actual operations. And if allies fight wars under the NATO flag again, should countries not taking part in military operations have an equal say on the conduct of war? The answer may lie in reforming NATO’s command and decision-making procedures, one of the last aspects of alliance operations as yet untouched by the post-Cold War changes.
The new allies, for their part, must continue upgrading their militaries, both in specialized areas where they can most add to NATO’s skills as well as across the board. NATO hardly benefits if the Czechs or Poles train Special Forces or chemical weapons detection units but cannot transport them to and sustain them in the area of operations. Similarly, new allies as well as candidate countries need to take steps to avoid being liabilities. This includes strengthening border controls, finding more effective ways of controlling the spread of sensitive technologies, and improving intelligence and counter-intelligence abilities.
Lifting Restrictions on Aid to Colombia
Devon Chaffee, Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellow, dchaffee@cdi.org
As the Bush Administration expands its war on terror beyond Afghanistan, other countries are being targeted as key areas for increased U.S. support. While several countries receive the aid without any conditions, there are some legislative provisions that place conditions on aid to certain countries. Colombia, for example, has been subject for years to restrictions on the type and use of U.S. military assistance. However, some of the most important conditions may be ignored or bypassed in the near future by the Bush Administration in the name of fighting terrorism. Such actions would undermine congressional oversight and set a dangerous precedent for future aid to Colombia.
Current regulations on aid to Colombia include:
The certification process is laid out in FY 2002 appropriations legislation. Currently forty percent of the military aid to Colombia through the Foreign Operations budget is reserved for the State Department to obligate only after it determines and certifies that the Colombian armed forces are meeting certain criteria. These criteria include enforcing the suspension of members of the Armed Forces, of whatever rank, who have committed human rights violations or aided paramilitary groups, as well as cooperating with the prosecution and punishment of such members in the civilian judicial system. The Colombian Armed Forces must also take effective measures to sever with paramilitary groups at all levels in order to meet the certification requirements (1/10/2002 P.L. 107-115).
In practice the prohibition of aid for counterinsurgency measures has already been broken. It has been known since the early 1990s that the Colombian Armed Services have been using counter-narcotics aid for counter-insurgency efforts. Congress has demonstrated support for considering changing the official policy to allow for counter-insurgency, or "counter-terrorist," military and police aid to Colombia, as a recently passed house resolution demonstrates (see 107th Congress, 2d Session H. RES. 358).
This same resolution, however, exhibits support in the Congress for keeping the human rights and anti-paramilitary restrictions involved in the certification process (to see also relevant letter circulated by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO) click here).
The anti-paramilitary/human rights restrictions are particularly important because certain sectors of the Colombian military have a long history of collaborating with illegal paramilitary groups. The paramilitary groups are responsible for some of the worst human rights violations in Colombia today, have a history of involvement in drug trafficking, and are recognized by the United States State Department as terrorist organizations.
Although eliminating the prohibition of aid to counter-insurgency efforts does not necessitate the elimination of the anti-paramilitary/human rights certification process, the FY 2002 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Request recently released by the Bush administration would render both current restrictions irrelevant. The proposed legislation states that all appropriated State Department FY 2002-2003 assistance to Colombia shall be available notwithstanding any other provision of law. The proposed supplemental would lift the restrictions on all past, current and future aid. (For exact language of supplemental request click here.)
Even if Congress is able to re-establish the certification process within the supplemental legislation there is fear that the State Department, under great pressure to provide increasing military aid, will certify Colombia even though there is evidence that Colombia is not complying with the certification requirements. (For evidence of poor compliance see the State Department’s Human Rights Report and the Human Rights Group Certification Consultation Report).
If United States government chooses to abandon the conditioning of aid to Colombia, or to certify Colombia when their compliance is highly questionable, it may be setting a dangerous precedent. Abandoning the certification process would be signaling indifference towards Colombia’s military links to recognized terrorist organizations. If the certification process remains but is not taken seriously by the State Department it would send a message that legislative restrictions on foreign aid need not be followed, undermining the ability of Congress to oversee the executive branch’s foreign policy decisions. The integrity of the certification process must be preserved, sending a no tolerance message to Colombia with regards to collaboration between its armed services and terrorist groups.
The Bush-Putin Nuclear Agreement: Rhetoric vs. Reality
Ben Friedman, Research Assistant, bfriedman@cdi.org
A new American-Russian strategic arms control agreement will be unveiled in May. The treaty, if that is the appropriate word, will not be finalized until U.S. President George W. Bush arrives in Moscow in May for a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but its outlines have emerged.
Codifying Bush and Putin’s handshake agreement reached in November, the accord will replace the START II treaty, which, while ratified by both nations, has never entered in to force. The agreement will be accompanied by a political statement outlining areas where the two countries aim to cooperate in the future. Under this new agreement, the United States and Russia will reduce their arsenals of operationally deployed strategic weapons from 6,000 to 1,700-2,200 by 2012. Barring a late American capitulation, the agreement, like the START treaties, will not dictate how the weapons are dealt with after being taken off their delivery vehicles and will not deal with the thousands of small, shorter-range tactical nuclear weapons. The new agreement will differ from START I and II, however, by counting nuclear warheads themselves rather than attributing an agreed number of warheads to a delivery vehicle -- a plane or missile. Moreover, unlike START II, the agreement will likely allow Russia to retain multiple independent reentry vehicles, which outfit missiles with several warheads.
According to the lead U.S. negotiator, the undersecretary of state for arms control, John Bolton, the agreement will include a withdrawal provision, like most major treaties, but it also will allow either side to readjust the warhead ceiling in the face of a major shift in international circumstances. Thus, faced with a major threat such as a rapidly arming China, the United States could choose to hold onto more than 2,000 operationally deployed warheads without withdrawing.
According to Dr. Ivan Safranchuk of CDI Moscow, the agreement hinges on a simple quid pro quo: the Americans agree to make it subject to ratification -- more than the executive agreement the Bush administration initially wanted – and the Russians agree to the U.S. counting rules for reductions, meaning that warheads taken off their delivery vehicles but kept nearby them in storage will not count towards the ceiling. Subjecting the treaty to ratification is important to the Russians because, symbolically, the arrangement mirrors the great power status they had in Cold War. Counting stored warheads is important to the Bush administration because it believes that having thousands of weapons in storage is essential for deterring other potential adversaries. The political declaration will discuss future cooperation on issues such as counter-terrorism, non-proliferation, and even missile defense.
The two documents will likely illustrate the gap between rhetoric and reality. While the two sides say their relationship is no longer based on mutually assured destruction, the reality of 2,000 operationally deployed warheads tells a different story. No contingency short of deterring a nuclear first strike justifies keeping that many nuclear weapons. Bearing in mind former Secretary of State George Schultz’s principle that it is the capabilities, not the intentions, of other states that govern national security decisions, it is clear that though we are moving toward a day where U.S.-Russian relations are no longer based on the prospect of annihilation, we have not yet arrived there.
Bolton has said that getting the deal finished by May precludes discussion of what is to be done with the dismantled warheads. Yet surely something as essential as the security of thousands of nuclear weapons and their components should not be held hostage to political schedules. More likely, the treatment of the dismantled warheads is not being discussed because the Bush administration, fixated on the flexibility provided by a massive nuclear hedge force in storage, refuses to discuss the issue. That could be a dangerous error.
The potential for leakage from the massive Russian weapons complex was called the greatest threat to American national security by the Baker-Cutler Task Force on Nonproliferation Programs in Russia, a bipartisan commission of national security experts chaired by former Senator Howard Baker and former White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler. As their report made clear, operationally deployed strategic weapons are just the most visible part of a this vast nuclear infrastructure and, in the age of suicidal terrorists, just one component of nuclear security.
The Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program, also known as the Nunn-Lugar program, after the two senators that created it, former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., and Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., provides funds and assistance to aid the security of the Russian nuclear infrastructure. The Bush administration recently announced that it would withhold funding for some CTR programs pending greater Russian compliance with the treaties banning biological and chemical weapons. A reduction in American funds for disarmament programs coupled with the possibility that the Russians will mimic the U.S. hedge force could further strain Russia’s overburdened system of storage and dismantlement, possibility making it more vulnerable to terrorists.
The Russians have been asking the United States to agree to cuts on this order for the better part of a decade. With most of Moscow’s ICBMs due to go out of service by the end of the decade and the nuclear submarine fleet too expensive to maintain, Russia has little choice but to reduce its arsenal substantially.
Ironically, by exerting its considerable leverage to get the Russians to agree to their counting standards, the United States may have missed two opportunities to stem weapons proliferation – the opportunity to block the sales of nuclear and missile technology to rogue states and the opportunity to reduce the vulnerability of Russia’s nuclear infrastructure to theft by terrorists or their agents. These negative potentialities can still be avoided by increasing pressure through other measures to stem proliferation on one hand and by increasing funding for the CTR program on the other. Short of that, these missed opportunities may undermine any gains in security this agreement provides. Bringing the full influence bought by nuclear reductions to bear on non-proliferation issues could do more for American security than any nuclear hedge.
Germany Suspends Weapons Deliveries to Israel -- The Berlin government has quietly halted deliveries of arms and weapons parts to Israel in protest of their invasion of the Palestinian territories, the Washington Post reports. Germany thus becomes the first European Union (EU) country to implement an unofficial embargo of Israel. The EU has been very critical in recent days of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's offensive in Palestine, particularly after the Israeli government blocked attempts by EU envoys to meet with Yasser Arafat. Opposition to Israeli military actions even unified the two largest political parties in Germany, which are currently locked in a bitter election fight. The spokesperson for the opposition Christian Democrats, historically very supportive of the Jewish state, said that the policy of the Israeli government is leading to a catastrophe, the Post reports.
Report Faults Dutch Government, UN for Srebrenica Massacre -- A five-year, 7,600-page report by a Dutch research group points fingers at the United Nations, the Dutch government, and commanders of the Dutch peacekeeping units for failing to prevent the 1995 massacre of some 6,000 Muslims in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica. Bosnian Serb troops under Gen. Ratko Mladic overran the UN-declared "safe haven" in July of that year, killing thousands of its male occupants. The new report commissioned by the Dutch government puts primary responsibility for the slaughter on Gen. Mladic. But the researchers also conclude that the UN was culpable for launching an "ill-considered, and practically unfeasible peace mission." The 800 Dutch peacekeepers, outmanned and outgunned by the Bosnian Serbs, were described in the report as morally and physically exhausted, and led by an incompetent commander.
GAO: Base Closures Have Saved $16.7 Billion -- Closing U.S. military bases has saved the Pentagon $16.7 billion to date, and is expected to generate $6 billion in future annual savings, according to the General Accounting Office (GAO). Savings were as of Sept. 30, 2001 – the end of the fiscal year -- and are the result of four rounds of base closures that closed or realigned 451 installations, including 97 major ones. However, while GAO reported that the Defense Department expects to save $6.6 billion annually in the future, the auditing agency cautioned that "our reviews have found that the department’s savings estimates are imprecise and should be viewed as rough approximations of the likely savings."
Navy Leaders Considering Keeping Carrier -- The Navy is looking at plans to extend the life of the aircraft carrier USS Constellation beyond its scheduled retirement next year. Keeping the carrier would give the Navy 13 carriers when its planned replacement, the USS Ronald Reagan, joins the fleet next year. The Navy’s current force structure calls for a 12 carrier fleet, and the Navy does not have plans to expand the carrier fleet at this time. According to Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations, keeping the USS Constellation would require about $150 million in repairs, and roughly $500 million annually to operate.
Quotation of the Week –- "I hope the guys spending at the Pentagon will have a big poster on the wall that says ‘interoperability’…[because with out it] you could have coalitions of the willing, but the incapable," NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson, speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations on the need to close the capability gap between U.S. and NATO military forces, April 10, 2002.
This Week on "SUPERPOWER: Global Affairs TV:" Israel's Place in the World?
Sunday at 12:30 pm on MHz2 (check local listings) "SUPERPOWER: Global Affairs TV" showcases international television coverage of world events. Host Lisa Simeone along with Mark Thompson of Time Magazine and Jefferson Morley of the washingtonpost.com, discuss current events with a regular rotation of foreign journalists, as well as other guests from the foreign military and diplomatic communities in Washington.
This week's topic is "Israel's Place in the World?" featuring Husain Haqqani, a journalist and scholar from Pakistan, and Kostantin Klein, a TV reporter for Deutsche Welle of Germany.
Where to watch: http://www.mhznetworks.org/cable/listings.html