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Thu, 26 Feb 05
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NE-@latvia-usa.org
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Feb 26, 2004 08:39 PST
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NATO ENLARGEMENT DAILY BRIEF (NEDB)
Thursday, 26 February 2004, 11:43 EDT
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* RETURN TO RIGA / NYT / William Safire
* NATO IN BUSINESS AGAIN / IHT / Martin Walker
* GERMAN MILITARY MUST FIT EUROPE?S GLOBAL PROFILE /Defense
News / Hans-Peter Bartels (Bundestag?s Defense Committee)
* POLITICS AND SELF-DEFENSE / WT / Helle Dale (Heritage
Foundation)
* DARK SKIES TO THE EAST / The Economist
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RETURN TO RIGA
New York Times, 25 Feb 04, by William Safire
Can people who have been taught only submission for
generations, who are strangers to democracy, be trusted to
govern themselves?
That's the question facing us in Iraq today. We will be
asking the same question come the revolution in Iran or,
even sooner and closer, after the chaos in Haiti.
Look for an answer in Riga, the beautiful capital of
Latvia, a northern European nation conquered by Hitler
before we entered World War II. He traded it to Stalin, and
Latvians lived under oppression and Russian colonization
for two generations.
Fifteen years ago, a Latvian in the U.S., Ojars Kalnins,
put me in touch with dissidents there. He showed me on a
map of Riga where to position myself and said that an
intense, dark-haired young woman would take me to leaders
of the Popular Front agitating for freedom from Moscow's
rule.
The route was through Leningrad in the U.S.S.R. because the
Communists permitted no air service directly between Riga
and the West. At the designated meeting place, the courier
signaled me to follow her to the writers of a declaration
of independence.
The streets of Riga were dismal; the gray buildings were
crumbling; the faces of Latvians, whenever they looked up,
were expressionless. There was no place to buy a cup of
coffee, lest people congregate. No telephone books were
printed, lest people communicate. Americans who never
visited the Soviet Union or its captive nations cannot
imagine the palpable weight of oppression everywhere.
I datelined my column "Riga, Soviet-occupied Latvia" and
followed up with "Free the Baltics" agitation, reminding
readers that the U.S. had never recognized the cynical pact
transferring that nation's captivity. This irritated
Moscow's apologists and embarrassed the elder Bush's
administration, which supported Mikhail Gorbachev's call
for "stability."
But the Baltics, whose annexation by the Soviet Union had
no legitimacy in law, were the key to the Soviet empire's
dissolution. When Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia broke free,
Ukraine followed (despite Bush's "chicken Kiev" speech) and
the house of Communist cards collapsed.
In the years since, Latvians suffered the anguish of raw
democracy. The hundreds of thousands of Russians sent to
colonize and dominate were no longer the elite; they now
made up a disliked minority that would not go "home."
Grudgingly, Latvia offered citizenship to Russians willing
to learn the local language and residency to the rest.
Meanwhile, squabbles proliferated among former political
allies. Personalities clash; coalitions are hard. Ten
rightist cabinets failed to last a full term and only last
week, the Parliament had to turn to an amiable Green Party
leader to preside as the nation achieves its dream of
membership in NATO and the European Union.
The Kremlin hates that proximity of political freedom and
is trying to intimidate its "near abroad." I recently went
back to Riga, site of a conference that rallied support for
reformers in Belarus and Ukraine, urging resistance to
local despots as well as to Putin's revanchism.
I took a stroll around the center of Riga with my friend
Ojars, now a spokesman for his nation. We were joined by
Sarmite Elerte, editor of the newspaper Diena and one of
the best journalists in Europe.
Sarmite is the dissident who was my resistance contact in
the Soviet days. "Do you feel the difference in the
atmosphere here now? The streets are active, and doors are
not shut. Cafes are open with delicious cakes, we have
bookstores, antiques, new arts, and" ? she pointed to an
old-new purple structure ? "buildings have their colors
back. The people talk to each other, and look right at you
and not at their feet all the time."
Latvians, new to democracy, are trying to embrace Europe
without forgetting that America is their most reliable
friend. In the same way, my other favorite pushed-around
people ? the Kurds of Iraq ? have emerged from a
U.S.-protected decade of tribal rivalries to show other
Iraqi Muslims how their regional parliamentary progress can
be a national example.
Democracy is heady wine and causes initial hangovers. But
given a chance to become a habit, the exhilarating
experience of freedom enriches and ennobles people. That's
hard to believe until you've seen it with your own eyes.
NATO IN BUSINESS AGAIN
United Press International, 25 Feb 04, by MARTIN WALKER
A year ago, at the height of the trans-Atlantic row over
Iraq, there were dire predictions that NATO was collapsing.
Insults and jibes were traded back and forth, from U.S.
Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld's "old and new Europe" to
sneers at Britain's Tony Blair as "Bush's poodle." NATO
even locked itself into an unprecedented theological row
over whether or not the alliance should come to Turkey's
aid if the predominantly Muslim country was attacked in the
course of a war.
Even well informed diplomats were suggesting the world's
most enduring and successful military alliance might not
survive the combination of the Bush administration's
unilateralism and the European Union's determination to
become a serious and independent player on the world stage.
They were all wrong. NATO is looking in remarkably healthy
and vigorous shape. This year, it will enlarge by bringing
in seven new members from Eastern Europe, including the
three Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia,
without any of the predicted dramas and crises with Moscow.
The old arguments about whether or not NATO could go "out
of area" -- beyond its traditional Euro-Atlantic stamping
grounds of the Cold War -- have simply vanished. NATO now
has troops and a staff headquarters in Afghanistan, and is
running the logistics for the Poles in their sector of
southern Iraq. NATO has beefed up its sealift capabilities
and the Europeans are buying $200 billion worth of military
transport aircraft, as the alliance members accept their
front line is no longer the Rhine, but closer to the
Persian Gulf and the Congo river and the Hindu Kush.
Many of the bitter theological disputes over
responsibilities and HQ staffs between NATO and the EU are
giving way to a far more pragmatic approach, like the
agreement that NATO will later this year hand over
responsibility for Bosnian peacekeeping to the EU.
There has been an outbreak of common sense on both sides.
The Americans seems relaxed about the French proposal to
send the Eurocorps to Afghanistan. The Germans are
deliberately not panicking about the plans to scale back
the traditional U.S. military garrison to fewer than 50,000
troops.
Maybe it needed last year's furious rows to make both sides
realize once again how much they need each another.
"Those U.S. unilateralists who believed the United States
was so powerful as not to need allies now have to
acknowledge that they had it wrong," argues Michael Ruehle,
head of NATO's policy planning unit. "They do need allies,
in Iraq, in Afghanistan and possibly elsewhere."
"Those in Europe who championed the notion of acting as a
'counterweight' to the United States now have to
acknowledge that their calculus has also been proved wrong.
Europe does not now -- and will not want in the future --
to define itself in opposition to its key strategic ally
across the Atlantic. Any attempt to do so will simply leave
Europe fractured." Ruehle notes.
At off-the-record sessions in Washington this week, top
NATO officials have been giving upbeat briefings, stressing
their problem is no longer whether NATO still has a role,
but whether they can live up the expectations of their
political masters. The new agenda includes widening NATO's
role in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and also getting involved
in President George W. Bush's ambitious "Greater Middle
East" democratization and development strategy. The
Europeans seem prepared to sign on for the broader Bush
strategy; the Americans are keen to have the Europeans on
board.
There is even optimism about the French, despite those
nursed bruises on both sides after the American refusal to
pay the price of Mediterranean commands the French required
before re-entering the NATO military command structure.
(France remains a full member of the Alliance's political
wing.)
"The nature of the debate has changed as NATO evolves,"
says one cheerful NATO diplomat. "It's no longer about
whether or not France should reintegrate into the old
structures, because we already have serious French
re-integration into NATO's new structures, like the Rapid
Response Force and the Afghan mission."
And the old debate about whether Europe's neutrals will
ever make up their minds about joining NATO is also
becoming irrelevant, as the Swedes and Finns contribute to
the NATO operation in Kosovo.
Not everything in the NATO garden is rosy. It is still
unclear whether this year's June NATO summit in Istanbul,
Turkey, will also see the now-customary NATO-Russia and
NATO-Ukraine summits. There is a long way to go before NATO
can claim to have fulfilled former President Clinton's
vision of "transformation from a Cold War military alliance
aimed against Russia into a new trans-Atlantic security
system that includes her."
But with NATO officials already discreetly discussing the
option of NATO taking over one of the sectors of Iraq,
possibly the southern area now run by the British and the
Poles, the old alliance is more than recovered from last
year's crisis. And both sides seem to have learned from the
experience.
A NEW BUNDESWEHR
GERMAN MILITARY MUST FIT EUROPE?S GLOBAL PROFILE
Defense News, 16 Feb 04, by Hans-Peter Bartels *
* Hans-Peter Bartels is a member of the Bundestag?s
Defense Committee and Social Democratic Party.
Fourteen months after the publication of the U.S. National
Security Strategy, the European Council has agreed on its
own security philosophy: ?A secure Europe in a better
world.?
While the U.S. paper categorically states, ?The United
States possesses unprecedented ? and unequalled ? strength
and influence in the world,? the Europeans calmly added
this perspective: ?The conclusion of the Cold War has left
the United States in a dominant position as a military
actor; no other country or group of countries comes close
to its capability. Nevertheless, no single country is able
to tackle today?s complex problems entirely on its own.?
This neatly summarizes how Europe and Germany are changing
and facing a changed world. Bloc-to-bloc confrontation has
been replaced by the risks of proliferation, the dangers of
terrorism and the crisis zones on the peripheries of the
continent. But Europe is now a global player, and Germany
must decide what role it will play, how loosely or tightly
it will be bound to broader European strategy, and how to
shape its military accordingly.
Even Henry Kissinger?s well-known derisive question about
who or what ?Europe? was ? which phone he should ring ?has,
for the moment, been answered: Javier Solana, the high
representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy and
author of the EU Security Strategy.
So which strategic aims should we pursue as Germans and
Europeans to contribute to a secure future? European
integration will increase our security, but also pushes our
borders closer to crisis zones. That means we must
cooperate with neighboring states to the east and in the
southern Mediterranean to see they are governed sensibly.
In the Balkans, tardy but determined efforts by NATO and
the European Union resolved civil wars. Today, we are
stabilizing these states and bringing them closer to
Europe.
Another European policy objective must be a willingness to
ensure, by military means if necessary, that international
rules are actually enforced. The core of this norms-based
world order is the United Nations charter.
For us as Europeans, NATO remains the critical strategic
link between the European Union and the United States. But
each must be able to take independent action if necessary.
Along with NATO, these three entities can be extremely
efficient strategic partners, as efforts to bring peace and
security to the Balkans have demonstrated.
The new threats are not static. Failing to address them
only increases the danger. Often, the first line of defense
will be abroad. We must be prepared to take action before a
crisis erupts and to more effectively coordinate our aid
programs and development activities, and our military and
civil capabilities.
This means the future 25 states of the European Union must
more efficiently use the 160 billion euros ($203 billion)
they will spend in this area, and focus on merged and joint
resources and capabilities to cut costs and create new
capabilities. We cannot, and do not intend, to match the
$400 billion the United States spends on its armed forces,
and we are not competing with them for military power or
prestige.
And since we can scarcely tackle any global problems alone,
Europe must reinforce its strategic ties not only to the
United States, but also Russia, Japan, China, India and
Latin America.
The EU Security Strategy forms the political framework for
German security policy. Germany needs to debate whether
this European umbrella is sufficient or whether Germany
must define its own national interests and state explicitly
where and how it wants to become engaged around the world,
and where it does not. The new Defence Policy Guidelines
are a first step in this direction.
The fundamentally changed security environment calls for a
changed Army. In the summer of 2000, then-Defense Minister
Rudolph Scharping initiated a comprehensive transformation
of the Bundeswehr into a force primarily shaped for crisis
prevention and reaction outside Germany. Following Sept.
11, 2001, Defense Minister Peter Struck further developed
these reforms.
Bundeswehr priorities need to be systematically defined in
areas vital to missions abroad so it can adapt to limited
resources and shift military investments when necessary.
Structural changes also are coming to the Bundeswehr.
Struck outlined future developments in January, including
reducing the armed forces by another 30,000 personnel to
250,000 by 2010, and division of the Bundeswehr into three
categories.
The reaction forces (35,000 service personnel) are to be
deployed in peace enforcement operations. This requires
standoff capability, precision, rapid mobility and the
capacity to carry out networked operations.
The stabilization forces (70,000 service personnel), with
modern equipment and a particular focus on leadership
ability, logistics, staying power and self-protection, also
need to be able to confront asymmetric warfare. They will
be deployed to separate parties to a conflict and monitor
cease-fires.
The remaining institutions and units of the Bundeswehr make
up the support forces.
Germany must set priorities with regard to its military
capabilities and increase cooperation with its partners in
NATO and the European Union. Because our operations will
always be multinational, its contribution within the
framework of joint structures must be the very best.
Our neighbors are implementing similar concepts.
Tomor-row?s Bundeswehr does not need to be able to do
everything, but must be able to do many things better than
today.
POLITICS AND SELF-DEFENSE
Washington Times, 25 Feb 04, by Helle Dale *
* Helle Dale is director of Foreign Policy and Defense
Studies at the Heritage Foundation
Beware what you wish for, so the saying goes, you might
just get it. A case in point is the widespread desire to
reform the United Nations. Unless we are careful, the
reform movement might blow up in our faces -- and create
more problemsnext timethe United States wants to deploy its
troops abroad.
It has been just about a year now since the United
States found itself at loggerheads in the U.N. Security
Council with the French, the Russians, the Germans and
others who opposed the military action against Iraq. From a
diplomatic standpoint, the negotiations were an absolute
disaster. French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin
double-crossed Secretary of State Colin Powell royally,
and, in the end, much bad publicity and ill feeling was
generated.
The fact is that the United States and its allies could
go ahead with the invasion of Iraq, based on Security
Council Resolution 1441. The fact is also that we could
have gone ahead without asking for U.N. permission at all.
Now, a lot of people don't like that possibility at
all. As a consequence, the Russian government has now come
up with a proposal to tie down the U.S. military and limit
American options. In a speech two weeks ago at the 40th
Munich Conference on Security Policy, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Ivanov, in a comment that was drowned out
by the coverage of Russia's threat to leave the
Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, saw fit to make this
startling proposal:
"We all understand that one of the core issues in
modern international affairs is that of admissibility of a
unilateral use of force, undertaken by a state or a group
of states without relevant U.N. Security Council mandate,
first of all, to fight international terrorism.
"I am convinced that the Russian-NATO partnership
should foster such an environment in international
relations, where the use of force among other things, for
combating terrorism, would exclusively proceed within the
realm of international law. It is wrong to fight terrorism
with illegal techniques, and it is next to impossible."
Illegal techniques? The Russians would know a thing or two
about those.
Now, Mr. Ivanov was part of the sweeping house cleaning
by Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday when he fired
his entire government. But that is not likely to change the
substance of Russian foreign policy toward the United
Nations and the United States. Mr. Ivanov may in fact well
be back before long.
Other countries are also concerned about constraining
American power. Throughout the debate about Iraq last year,
the demand for U.N. approval of American actions was
constantly heard from Europeans. France and Germany took it
upon themselves to stop the United States in the Security
Council, an episode that cut so deep that David Frum and
Richard Perle in their new book, "An End to Evil," suggest
we stop treating France as an ally, but possibly see it as
an enemy.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his speech before
the U.N. General Assembly last September, was extremely
critical of the American military action. The logic of
pre-emptive or unilateral action, he said, "represents a
fundamental challenge to the principles on which, however
imperfectly, world peace and stability have rested for the
last 58 years."
But international law permits nations to act in
self-defense, and this is what the United States did in
Iraq (after trying a decade of U.N. sanctions and
containment). According to Article 51 of the U.N. Charter,
"Nothing in the present charter shall impair the inherent
right of individual or collective self-defense in an armed
attack against a Member of the United Nations, until the
Security Council has taken measures to maintain
international peace and stability."
The reality is that in the 21st century terrorists or
states that wish to challenge American power increasingly
seek weapons of mass destruction to achieve their political
objectives. Customary international law allows for this
preventive or preemptive action as "anticipatory
self-defense."
If Mr. Ivanov's words about "the admissibility of
unilateral action" and "illegal techniques" can be taken
seriously -- and I believe they should because this idea
has wide resonance abroad -- we may see a movement toward
reform of the U.N. Charter Article 51 in a direction that
would be very detrimental to the security of the United
States. Mr. Annan has recently appointed an Eminent
Person's panel to look into U.N. reform. The U.S.
government needs to draw a line in the sand against any
threats to our ability to fight the war against terrorism.
DARK SKIES TO THE EAST
The Economist, U.S. Edition,21 Feb 04,
NOW that the German Question has been solved, the Russian
Question beckons. Can Russia, after centuries of autocracy
and imperialism, be turned into the sort of nice democratic
country that gets along easily with its European
neighbours? The answer seems to be: not for a while yet, to
judge from a policy paper released last week by the
European Commission, the European Union's executive body,
which suggests that relations between the Union and Russia
are close to a post-Soviet low.
The Commission calls for "discussing frankly Russian
practices that run counter to universal and European
values". It says Russia has problems with democracy, human
rights and press freedom. It points to rows over the
environment, trade, border regimes and technical
co-operation. It says aid to Russia has had "at best mixed"
results; and it chides Russia for "assertive" behaviour
towards neighbours.
Some of these arguments go back years. But they are getting
more heated with the approach of the EU's eastward
enlargement in May. The EU will embrace ten countries in
all, seven of which were subjects or satellites of the
Soviet Union. As these countries impose tight EU visa
rules, and close their markets to Russian goods, such as
noisy aircraft which fail to meet EU standards, Russia has
been jolted into realising that EU enlargement will affect
it much more in practical terms than the eastward advance
by NATO, which used to monopolise its attention.
So Russia has redirected its diplomatic firepower. It wants
to renegotiate its "partnership and co-operation agreement"
with the EU, Which is supposed to govern all aspects of the
relationship. It has also put forward a list of 14 big
items, from trade concessions to visa-free travel, that it
wants brought into the negotiations. It has threatened to
let the treaty lapse--though EU officials claim that Russia
itself would lose more from that course, by risking trade
privileges with the EU.
The EU also says that Russia, for all its demands, has
shown little recent enthusiasm for detailed talks. The
distractions of Russia's parliamentary election in December
and an approaching presidential one in March may be partly
to blame. But there is more to it than that. Russia resents
being informed--as happens now--of EU positions which have
already been agreed among governments and so are scarcely
changeable. It wants new joint bodies which will give it a
seat at the table when EU governments are debating
decisions that may affect its interests. It wants something
more like the arrangement it has with NATO, where its
representatives sit alongside those of NATO governments in
a ministerial council and a cascade of lesser panels,
enjoying "a voice but not a veto" in alliance
deliberations.
The European Commission hates that idea, fearing that
Russia-EU relations would then become hostage to bilateral
ties between national governments and Russia, in which the
latter could dominate more easily. Memories are fresh of
the EU-Russia summit in November when Italy's prime
minister, Silvio Berlusconi, supposedly representing EU
governments, disowned EU positions: he sympathised with
Russia's war in Chechnya and its harassment of the Yukos
oil company.
The Commission's latest analysis of Russia marks a sharp
change from its starry-eyed optimism of a year ago, when it
published a document called "Wider Europe" saying that
Russia, and other countries of eastern Europe and the
southern Mediterranean, could be turned into a "ring of
friends" around the enlarged Union, absorbing the Union's
political and economic values and being rewarded with aid
and improved market access.
The EU failed to see that Russia is once again driving hard
bargains in the world; it is less interested in friendship
than it is in commercial and diplomatic gains. The EU
forgot that Russia is fed up with foreign-dictated reforms,
having had its fill of them in the 1990s. Nor does Russia
have all that much to gain from wider access to EU markets
for most goods and services. Its biggest exports are oil
and gas, limited only by the EU's fear of over-dependence.
Wherever the Russian Question now leads, the question of
eastern Europe will follow. The EU's "Wider Europe"
strategy also calls for closer ties to Belarus, Ukraine and
Moldova, new neighbours of the enlarged Union. Poland talks
of offering them full membership some day. But Russia sees
them as its own close strategic allies, as its natural
business partners, and as members of an enlarging
Russian-led free-trade area. It will hardly look on sweetly
if the EU tries to lure away its key allies.
All this means that EU governments face big decisions in
the coming months. One is whether to stand firm in the
current sparring with Russia. That could mean letting the
"partnership and co-operation" accord collapse. The
consequences could be offset by temporary arrangements, but
the symbolic damage would be far-reaching.
Another is how to respond if Ukraine's presidential
election and Belarus's parliamentary election, both due in
October, are too blatantly rigged. November's peaceful
revolution in Georgia, another ex-Soviet republic, has
provided a tempting precedent. There, encouraged by
America, opposition forces profited from public anger at a
gerrymandered election to overthrow an incompetent (though
pro-American) president, Edward Shevardnadze, and to vote
in a younger and probably more effective pro-American
leader, Mikhail Saakashvili. Russia will be on guard now
against any similar foreign-led move in Ukraine or Belarus.
It has reason to worry. Some Americans scarcely conceal
their hope for a revolution against Belarus's wild-eyed and
dictatorial leader, Alexander Lukashenka, or against
Ukraine's entrenched and corrupt nomenklatura. Central
Europeans will tend to agree unreservedly. They want to see
Russia challenged and contained. The EU's older members
will tend to be much less gung-ho. They are impatient
already with the political and economic demands of the
current enlargement, and have little wish to get drawn
deeper into eastern Europe, nor to argue with Russia any
more than necessary. Finding a common policy towards
eastern Europe that satisfies old and new EU members will
be a big challenge for the enlarged Union. Finding one
acceptable to Russia too, if that is a criterion, will be
harder still.
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