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12 Mar 04; Op-eds; feature
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NE-@latvia-usa.org
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Mar 12, 2004 08:37 PST
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NATO ENLARGEMENT DAILY BRIEF (NEDB)
Friday, 12 March 2004, 11:38 EDT
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* GROUND ZERO, MADRID / NYT / Editorial
* NATO, EU CAN SEPARATE MISSIONS, PROTECT UNITY / Defense
News / Rep. Doug Bereuter (President, NATO PA)
* NO DISCOUNTS ON BALTIC SECURITY / WSJE / Vladimir Socor
(IASPS)
* BELGRADE'S NEW GOVERNMENT SHOULD STAY THE COURSE / IHT /
Rhard G. Lugar (Chairman, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations
Committee)
* AN ALLIANCE AGAINST THE TRAFFIC IN HUMANS / IHT / R.
Nicholas Burns (U.S. ambassador to NATO) and Kai Eide
(Norwegian ambassador to NATO)
* U.S. ALLY AND EUROPEAN STATESMAN? BLAIR'S GAMBLE / IHT /
Reginald Dale (Hoover Institution, Stanford University)
* ODD COUPLE MUST STEER CLEAR OF CRISES / Irish Times /
Daniel McLaughlin
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GROUND ZERO, MADRID
New York Times, 12 Mar 04, Editorial
The terrorist attacks in Madrid yesterday were a monstrous
crime against innocent humanity. They were also a reminder
that terrorism is a worldwide threat and that fighting it
is not America's problem alone. Combating terrorism
effectively requires the fullest possible international
cooperation, especially in intelligence, law enforcement
and the tracking of terrorist finances. Most of the hard
work will be far less dramatic than the successful military
campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. Indeed, each new
terrorist act demonstrates that military action alone is
not the solution. Terrorism cannot be eradicated simply by
driving the Taliban out of Kabul or capturing Saddam
Hussein.
The series of bombs in Madrid that killed nearly 200 people
and injured more than 1,400 came three days before national
elections. Whether the bombers came from the Basque
terrorist group ETA, as the Spanish government initially
presumed, Al Qaeda or elsewhere, comparisons to the attacks
of Sept. 11, 2001, are inevitable and appropriate. Neither
Spain nor America stand alone.
The list of terrorist outrages around the world has been
grimly lengthening since that Sept. 11. Fanatics have sown
carnage in places like Bali, Mombasa, Baghdad, Jerusalem,
Moscow, Jakarta, Casablanca, Riyadh and Istanbul. Europe
has been a particular target for decades. Britain and
Northern Ireland have endured the bombings of the Irish
Republican Army, French civilians have been killed by
radical Algerian groups, and hundreds of Spaniards have
been murdered by ETA.
At a time like this, trans-Atlantic squabbling about the
nature of the terrorist threat and how to fight it seems
tragically misplaced. Terrorism threatens all of us,
everywhere, every morning. Terrorists respect no national
boundaries, political systems, ideologies or religions. The
fight against them must be just as multinational. We are
all Madrileņos now.
DIVISION OF LABOR; NATO, EU CAN SEPARATE MISSIONS, PROTECT
UNITY
Defense News, 8 Mar 04, by Rep. Doug Bereuter *
* Rep. Doug Bereuter, R-Neb., is president of the NATO
Parliamentary Assembly and chairman of the House
International Relations subcommittee on Europe.
The war in Iraq did more than starkly illustrate political
differences between the United States and some of its NATO
allies; it also reinforced perceptions about their relative
military capabilities.
Some who observed the rapid success of the invasion and the
subsequent difficulties of the stabilization concluded that
the United States should focus on winning wars quickly and
then turn to its allies to ensure security afterward.
Others, like the European Union?s (EU?s) top general, drew
the lesson that European defense should become less reliant
on NATO and increasingly independent from the United
States.
Both of these conclusions are erroneous. It would be a
mistake for NATO to become an alliance where, it has been
said, the Americans do the cooking and the Europeans and
Canadians do the dishes. Likewise, turning to other
organizations to undertake collective defense would destroy
the commitment at the heart of NATO and leave its member
countries less secure.
For some time, the overwhelming military capabilities of
the United States have contrasted with those of many of its
allies. Alliance governments have rightly concluded that
the best way to rectify this imbalance is for those allies
to develop the key capabilities that will allow them to
contribute to high-end military operations, a list that
makes up the 2002 Prague Capabilities Commitment. The
governments created the NATO Response Force to help ensure
such a contribution and drive transformation across the
alliance.
But some experts still maintain that U.S. allies should
focus on their comparative advantage in stabilization
operations and leave high-intensity combat to the United
States. In turn, others have argued, the United States
should avoid peace and stabilization operations because
they erode the combat capabilities of America?s warriors
and place an unsustainable burden on an overstretched
military.
Such a functional division of labor would destroy NATO?s
ethos of all-for-one-and-one-for-all by devolving to one
member state the responsibility for combat operations. It
would ignore the first-class military capabilities that
countries like the United Kingdom and France bring to the
alliance. And it would allow the Pentagon to abandon its
behind-the-scenes effort to improve American capabilities
for peace and stabilization operations.
Most harmfully, such a functional division of labor would
permit North American and European leaders to decide
whether to use armed force without having to cope with all
of the consequences.
U.S. leaders could undertake future military action secure
in the knowledge that American troops wouldn?t be bogged
down for years to come. Likewise, Europeans and Canadians
could readily agree to future interventions without concern
about the American casualties that might ensue. In short,
having the Americans do the cooking and the Europeans and
Canadians do the dishes is a recipe for disaster.
Instead of a division of labor along national lines, we
should consider an organizational division of labor between
NATO and the European Union.
The European Union is in the midst of developing a
rapid-reaction force to undertake crisis management
operations in and around Europe in those situations when
NATO as a whole chooses not to be engaged. Last year, the
European Union successfully completed a peace operation in
Macedonia that had been initiated by NATO, as well as
undertaking a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo.
This year, there is hope on both sides of the Atlantic that
the European Union can assume responsibility for the NATO
mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Ultimately, the European Union should assume primary
responsibility for what could be characterized as
intra-European crisis management; that is, for undertaking
military operations in Europe when the security of the
continent is threatened by domestic instability or civil
war. The Balkans conflicts, of course, are the best example
of such crises. Ideally, NATO should not have to intervene
in such conflicts in the future.
But the European Union should not seek to usurp NATO?s
responsibility to defend its members? territories against
outside threats, as suggested last month by Gen. Gustav
Hagglund, chairman of the EU Military Committee.
In the event of an external attack against a member
country, NATO must remain the primary vehicle for the
allies to provide for their common defense.
Defense is different from many other political issues. As
we saw a decade ago in Bosnia, when mistakes are made or
when there is a failure to act, people die. When mistakes
are made in defending your own territory, it is your own
people who die. Hagglund?s rash proposal to split the
collective defense of Europe and North America would render
the citizens of every allied nation less secure.
Maintaining NATO?s primacy in trans-Atlantic security is
not a barrier to European integration; rather, it is
essential for the security of not only Europe, but North
America. No one nation alone can defend against today?s
primary security threats: global terrorism, proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction, and the states that support
them. The United States needs allies in this effort, and
NATO must remain the cornerstone of its common defense.
NO DISCOUNTS ON BALTIC SECURITY
The Wall Street Journal Europe, 27 - 29 Feb 04, by Vladimir
Socor *
* Mr. Socor is senior fellow of the Washington-based
Institute for Advanced Strategic & Political Studies,
publishers of the Policy Briefings series on Eurasia.
Credibility, with its twin political and military
aspects -- is what makes NATO the longest-lasting and most
successful alliance in Western history, and underlies its
attractiveness to old and new members and to aspirant
countries as well. To keep that credibility intact, NATO
has never allowed deadline-driven public-relations goals,
or electoral campaigns in one or another member country, or
the pursuit of special relations with a non-member power,
to interfere with the alliance's policies.
These unique strengths are now more important
than ever, as the alliance completes its enlargement from
the Baltic to the western Black Sea, and acquires major
strategic interests in the South Caucasus.
Yet at this very moment, those aforementioned
strengths are unnecessarily being put to the test. Russian
President Vladimir Putin is well aware that some member
governments in NATO are eager for political reasons to
obtain his participation at the alliance's upcoming summit.
For that questionable favor, Mr. Putin hopes to extract a
price, ahead of the upcoming summit.
He wants NATO collectively -- and the U.S. in
particular -- to tolerate only partial and uncertain
compliance with Russia's 1999 Istanbul Commitments on troop
withdrawal from Georgia and Moldova. Mr. Putin also wants
NATO to initiate prematurely the ratification of the
adapted Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE,
adapted also in 1999) and the accession of Estonia, Latvia
and Lithuania to the CFE Treaty -- which originally did not
apply to the territories of the Baltic states.
According to NATO's as well as Washington's
long-held position, the fulfillment of Russian obligations
to withdraw the forces from Georgia and Moldova is
inseparably linked with the CFE Treaty's ratification by
the state-parties, and the accession to it of the three
Baltic states. As of now, it seems almost certain that some
Russian forces will stay on in Moldova and Georgia for a
number of years to come. Nevertheless the Kremlin wants to
hurry the CFE treaty's ratification, in hopes of setting
limits to defensive forces that the allies might introduce
in the Baltic states if necessary.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will in a few
weeks become members of NATO. These are small countries
that have created their armies from scratch, and possess
almost none of the heavy weaponry in the CFE Treaty-limited
categories (tanks and armored combat vehicles, heavy
artillery, combat aircraft). They have neither the means
nor the wish to acquire those types of weaponry.
For their defense, the Balts rely mainly on
small, well-trained, lightly armed infantry units and on
NATO allies' ability to bring in reinforcements in times of
crisis. The allies' ability to do so depends in turn on
creating adequate infrastructure in the Baltic states, and
on holding exercises on territory that might one day have
to be defended.
Along with all NATO member countries, the
Baltic states will be covered by Article Five of the North
Atlantic Treaty -- the bedrock of NATO's credibility, which
guarantees member countries against possible aggression. In
this alliance there are no zones with unequal levels of
security; nor should such differentiation ever be permitted
to emerge. This is why, in the interest of the alliance's
overall credibility, CFE Treaty constraints must never
impair the alliance's ability to defend Estonia, Latvia and
Lithuania.
The Baltic states concur with the NATO position
that Russia's complete fulfillment of its Istanbul
Commitments regarding Georgia and Moldova is necessary in
order to move forward on CFE ratification. By the same
token the Balts share the long-held allied view that a
premature ratification -- with Russian troops entrenched in
those two countries -- would run counter to Euro-Atlantic
values and interests. Decisions on that entire set of
issues are now under debate within the alliance.
NATO and the Baltic states should first
determine the defense requirements in that region, and the
force levels necessary for upholding Article Five
guarantees. Only after that determination is made, and not
before, will it be possible to proceed with Baltic
ratification of the CFE Treaty and with negotiations on
force ceilings in the treaty-limited categories.
The alliance can already now initiate the
process of planning for the defense of the Baltic states in
various contingencies. Such contingency planning is normal
practice in NATO (and indeed any alliance). While direct
threats to the Baltic states' security seem highly unlikely
at this time, contingency planning to meet such threats is
the way to minimize their probability in the future. If
Article Five is to maintain its credibility, it must
translate into contingency planning for the types of
situations in which that article is meant to be invoked.
Some time ago, NATO and the Balts initiated
Host Nation Support (HNS) programs, designed to create the
infrastructure for allied forces to bring in reinforcements
if necessary, to pre-position equipment, and to hold joint
exercises in the Baltic states. HNS programs focus on
building or upgrading ports, airfields and roads; these
programs have both military and civilian uses in allied
countries. As the Baltic states now join NATO as full
members, it is time for HNS programs to advance from ideas
to plans, joint financing decisions and implementation.
Russia's Kaliningrad exclave, next to Lithuania
on the Baltic coast, serves as a base for conventional
forces that are still incomparably more powerful than those
of the three Baltic states put together. To its credit,
Russia has steadily reduced the quantity of its forces in
Kaliningrad; the cuts should continue there in the interest
of regional stability, which equally requires that Russian
force levels remain stable in the Pskov region next to
Estonia and Latvia.
The three Baltic states urgently need air
policing. They have no air forces of their own, and have
wisely followed allied advice to refrain from acquiring
"toy air forces." Policing of their air spaces can only be
a NATO collective solution, possible within the alliance's
integrated airbase system and using allied planes.
In sum, whenever the CFE Treaty comes into
force and the Baltic states embark on the treaty accession
process, it must not be allowed to constrain NATO's
collective defense capabilities in this region and those of
the Balts themselves. Russia seeks constraining provisions
both in the CFE framework and outside its scope, professing
to see threats on its border if the Baltic states are
adequately defended.
This type of logic has already been disproved
in the first round of NATO enlargement, which -- as Moscow
now agrees -- has clearly increased, not decreased,
stability and overall security in Central-Eastern Europe.
Those invalidated arguments of the past can not serve as a
basis for putting the Baltic states in some sort of a
disadvantaged category with respect to allied force levels,
whether under the CFE Treaty or outside its scope.
BELGRADE'S NEW GOVERNMENT SHOULD STAY THE COURSE
International Herald Tribune, 12 Mar 04, by Richard G.
Lugar *
* Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, is chairman of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
More than two months after extremist parties made a strong
showing in parliamentary elections, Serbia finally has in
place a new government, a coalition of reform-minded,
democratic parties. Led by Vojislav Kostunica, a former
Yugoslav president, that government can turn toward Europe
and the West, or it can go back to an ideology reminiscent
of Slobodan Milosevic and deeper isolation from the rest of
Europe.
The decision should be clear. The Dec. 28 elections showed
that the majority of Serbs, 60 percent, voted for
democratic parties. The ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical
Party fell well short of a majority, even though it won the
most seats in the republic's Parliament (Serbia is the
dominant part of what's left of Yugoslavia, now called
Serbia and Montenegro). A move in the right direction would
set the country on a path to membership in the European
Union, NATO's Partnership for Peace, and the World Trade
Organization.
The United States has an important stake in the outcome. An
integrated, modern Serbia would end a threat to stability
in Europe, and no longer be a potential source of drugs,
weapons and ethnic violence requiring NATO troops in the
region.
The most important area of cooperation for Serbia to pursue
is the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia in The Hague, which is trying Milosevic and
others accused of war crime in the Balkans. Prime Minister
Kostunica, a long time opponent of the UN court, got off on
the wrong foot when he announced after he was appointed
that extraditing indicted war criminals to the tribunal
would not be his top priority. We and the Europeans have
made it clear that cooperation with the tribunal is
absolutely essential for U.S. aid to continue and for
Serbia to become a full partner in the community of
democratic nations.
The new government can build on the solid steps taken by
the last government. The former administration began
reforms of the military, and cracked down on the gangsters
who have undermined Serbia's politics and economy. Most
notably, it arrested and put on trial the men accused of
assassinating the former prime minister Zoran Djindjic,
whose forward-looking government sent Milosevic to The
Hague.
We have greeted these positive developments with positive
moves of our own. Last year President George W. Bush
removed the remaining barriers to U.S.-Serbian economic
cooperation by revoking the last vestiges of Milosevic-era
sanctions, unblocking the assets of the former Yugoslavia,
and restoring normal trade relations with Serbia and
Montenegro.
The United States has already pledged that it will support
Serbia's membership in NATO's Partnership for Peace once it
does two things: arrest and send to The Hague Ratko Mladic,
the former Serb general accused, among other deeds, of
directing the slaughter of some 7,000 Muslims in
Srebrenica, and drop its lawsuit against NATO allies in the
International Court of Justice.
Serbia can also remove other roadblocks to its integration
into the Euro-Atlantic system. One is its continued state
of denial about the situation in Kosovo, which has been
governed by the United Nations with a NATO-led security
force since the 1999 NATO bombing campaign ended the ethnic
cleansing of Kosovar Albanians.
We want to help Kosovo create a society where Serbs and
Albanians can live in peace, with equal protection under
law and equal opportunity. NATO did not drive the Milosevic
killers out of Kosovo to see that country fall victim to
any nationalism.
Last November, Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman
traveled to Kosovo with a new plan to help the province
become a democratic, multi-ethnic society. A critical
component is dialogue with Belgrade, and while it now
appears that this dialogue will proceed, leaders of the
local Serbian minority in Kosovo refuse to cooperate fully
with the U.N. on other important areas of reform.The Serbs
must understand that this only hurts them in the long run,
because the resolution of the Kosovo issue, including
Kosovo's future status, is part of the larger strategy for
getting back into Europe.The United States has demonstrated
by words and deeds that we want to engage with Serbia as
partners, encourage more reforms and help the country
realize a Euro-Atlantic future. If Serbia can demonstrate
that it, too, wants to put the dark portions of its past
behind it - specifically by cooperating with the
international criminal tribunal - then I can recommend that
at the end of March the secretary of state allow the flow
of $100 million in U.S. assistance to continue.
The door to Europe is open. Serbia must decide whether to
walk through it.
AN ALLIANCE AGAINST THE TRAFFIC IN HUMANS
International Herald Tribune, by R. Nicholas Burns and Kai
Eide *
* R. Nicholas Burns is the U.S. ambassador to NATO. Kai
Eide is the Norwegian ambassador to NATO.
The great foreign policy challenges of our time are
transnational problems requiring concerted multilateral
action if they are to be defeated. While globalization
affords us many benefits, its dark side has spawned a range
of ills from weapons proliferation to terrorism to
narcotics. Few problems are more acute, more devastating to
the individuals involved, and yet more within our power to
help eradicate, than the brutal crime of trafficking in
humans.
A modern-day slave trade, trafficking in human beings
strips people of their basic human dignity, fuels
corruption and organized crime, and jeopardizes individual
and public health. The United States estimates that each
year, as many as 800,000 men, women and children are
bought, sold, transported across national borders and held
against their wills for sexual exploitation or forced
labor.
Human trafficking affects the United States, Norway and all
allies and partner countries across the NATO alliance. It
has the potential to weaken and destabilize fragile
emerging democracies, especially in southeastern Europe.
While individual countries within NATO have acted to stop
this dark and shameful crime, there is currently no
alliance-wide policy to coordinate the efforts of the 46
countries in the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, whose
reach stretches from Canada to Central Asia. NATO has a
special responsibility to ensure that our forces do not
contribute to this problem.
On Thursday, the U.S. and Norwegian missions to NATO, in
cooperation with the Center for Strategic and International
Studies, will host the first ever NATO conference on
trafficking in persons. Since last October, the United
States and Norway have launched a discussion about the
problem of human trafficking - particularly of women and
children - in the Balkans and across all areas of NATO's
operations. We want NATO to decide by April on a policy to
help counter this crime. The conference is the first step
in advancing the policy debate within the alliance.
The United States and Norway take this issue very
seriously, and our two governments are committed to
eradicating the human trafficking problem. President George
W. Bush signed a National Security Presidential Directive
on Feb. 25, 2003 reaffirming U.S. commitment to combating
such trafficking and setting a zero-tolerance policy for
all U.S. military personnel, including peacekeeping troops
in the Balkans.
On Jan. 30, 2004, Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz signed a
Defense Department memorandum stating that trafficking in
persons "is incompatible with military core values and will
not be facilitated in any way." That memo was sent to all
military service secretaries, the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs, combatant commanders and Defense Department
inspectors and legal specialists.
The Norwegian government, too, has been actively involved
in calling attention to the sourge of trafficking in
persons and taking steps to end it. A year ago, Norway
adopted a Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Women and
Children, to be implemented from 2003 to 2005 with a budget
of about 1.3 million euros. The Norwegian government also
has adopted Ethical Guidelines for Government Employees
prohibiting the purchase and acceptance of sexual services.
Norwegian military authorities enforce a zero tolerance
policy on purchase of sexual services for all military
personnel serving abroad.
Thursday in Brussels, we are bringing together experts on
the global problem of trafficking in order to focus on the
dimensions of the problem and its effects on NATO
operations and to decide on an appropriate NATO policy
against trafficking. NATO's peacekeeping operations promote
security and stability, and part of that task requires the
alliance to take steps to protect the helpless in its areas
of operation. During our conference we will work to develop
a policy all allies and partners can support and one that
follows the best objective guidelines we can establish.
The United States and Norway advocate that nations take
measures - including reviewing national predeployment
training - to ensure that their peacekeepers in NATO-led
operations do not contribute to the problem of trafficked
persons. At a minimum, we encourage alliance members and
partners to take the following steps to address the
trafficking problem as it affects military operations:
Educate military personnel overseas about the human
trafficking issue.
Increase the efforts of commanders and military police
worldwide to pursue evidence of trafficking in persons in
clubs and other places frequented by NATO military
personnel, placing offending establishments off-limits and
providing support to host-country authorities investigating
trafficking, within their authority to do so.
Incorporate provisions in overseas civilian service
contracts that prohibit contract employees from knowingly
participating in any activities that support or promote
trafficking in persons and impose suitable penalties on
contractors who fail to monitor their employees' conduct.
Devise ways to evaluate such efforts as part of ongoing
reviews by inspectors general.
Hosting a conference, even one as important as this, is a
good beginning, but it is certainly not the end. Mere talk
does not save innocent victims from the modern day slavery
and exploitation of human trafficking. Only effective
concerted multilateral action - the very type of action
NATO is best at - can do that.
U.S. ALLY AND EUROPEAN STATESMAN? BLAIR'S GAMBLE
International Herald Tribune, 11 Mar 04, by Reginald Dale
* Reginald Dale is editor in chief of the policy quarterly
European Affairs and a media fellow of the Hoover
Institution at Stanford University
Efforts by Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain to form a
triumvirate with France and Germany to run the European
Union have been greeted in Washington with what one analyst
calls "a deafening silence." But that does not indicate
lack of interest. On the contrary, the success or failure
of Blair's efforts could have a determining influence on
U.S. relations with the European Union for months and years
ahead.
By keeping quiet, despite considerable misgivings, U.S.
officials are effectively giving the benefit of the doubt
to Blair, Washington's closest ally, as he seeks to rebuild
bridges with France and Germany that were destroyed before
the Iraq war. Privately, however, Washington policy makers
are seething with emotions ranging from anxiety to anger
over Blair's initiative.
The anger is felt largely by conservatives, who regard
Blair's embrace of Paris and Berlin as a betrayal of his
friendship with America. Although President Jacques Chirac
of France and Chancellor Gerhard Schroder of Germany have
at least cosmetically patched up relations with President
George W. Bush, Paris and Berlin are still rightly seen in
Washington as the two European capitals most strongly
opposed to U.S. concepts of how the world should be
organized in the 21st century.
The anxious, though, outnumber the angry. They are more
inclined to cut Blair some slack for his services to the
United States and support his apparent efforts to draw
France and Germany closer to an Atlanticist, NATO-oriented
world outlook. But they worry that, instead, Blair will
find himself dragged toward the more Eurocentric, less
pro-American stance that Chirac and Schroder still
fundamentally favor.
Successive U.S. administrations have regarded Britain as a
key to maintaining U.S. interests in Europe because of its
influence in promoting free trade and liberal economic
policies inside the European Union. That remains true. Now
Britain is even more important to Washington as the
European Union struggles to extend its international
economic power to include foreign policy and defense and
expands its membership deep into Eastern Europe. The future
direction of the European Union is thus becoming
increasingly vital for American worldwide interests, at a
time when the administration in Washington is more hostile
than its predecessors to the traditional EU vision of a
politically integrated Europe -- a vision shared by France
and Germany, but not by Britain.
It would be wrong, however, to conclude that Blair is
espousing the triumvirate simply to promote the
decentralized, open-market and Atlanticist Europe desired
by the United States. On the contrary, with an election
likely next spring, he has strong domestic reasons for
distancing himself from Washington and countering harmful
charges that he is Bush's "poodle."
One of Blair's longest-standing ambitions has been to
acquire the mantle of a European statesman, and now is a
particularly good time to seek it -- not only because the
cumbersome, enlarged 25-nation EU will need some kind of
top-level steering group, but also because defense is
currently the hottest new area for deepening European
cooperation, and defense happens to be Britain's strongest
suit.
There is nevertheless much puzzlement in Washington over
why Blair should be courting the widely discredited
French-German partnership rather than claiming leadership
of a much broader coalition of like-minded EU countries,
such as Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Denmark, and
most, if not all of the new Central and East European
members, all of which are closer to Britain in their
economic and strategic philosophies.
Much can go wrong with Blair's French-German gambit. Chirac
has already haughtily indicated that Britain cannot expect
equal status with Germany in France's affections, and the
three countries have contradictory visions of Europe's
future. Unlike Britain, France and Germany lag badly in the
Union's drive for economic reform, and their recent resort
to bullying tactics in EU decision-making has upset their
partners.
It may be that the triumvirate will prove viable only in
defense and foreign policy -- the very fields that most
interest Washington. But neither the Bush administration's
worst fears nor its best hopes are likely to be fulfilled.
Blair will not be lured into an anti-American Europe, nor
will he succeed in creating a pro-American one.
U.S. officials who consider him "our guy" are likely to be
disappointed. Blair characteristically wants to be friends
with everybody and avoid definitive choices. He wants to be
both a European statesman and America's truest ally. The
risk he runs by ganging up with Paris and Berlin is that he
may end up as neither.
ODD COUPLE MUST STEER CLEAR OF CRISES
WITH LATVIA ON THE VERGE OF JOINING THE EU AND NATO, ITS
PRESIDENT AND NEW PRIME MINISTER FACE A TOUGH JOB.
The Irish Times, 11 Mar 04, by Daniel McLaughlin
The earnest eco-warrior and the elegant psychology
professor make an odd political couple as Latvia's prime
minister and president.
On the recommendation of President Vaira Vike-Freiberga,
Latvia's parliament approved Mr Indulis Emsis as Europe's
first Green Party premier this week, breaking an
embarrassing political impasse in the weeks before the
country enters NATO and the European Union.
The painful talks that gave birth to Mr Emsis' minority
government were symptomatic of the tumultuous political
climate in Latvia, where 10 governments have collapsed in
the 13 years since independence was regained from Moscow.
Mr Emsis (52), bespectacled and with a thick moustache, is
a quiet consolidator and is charged with soothing a
fractious parliament and easing Latvia through the next few
historic months.
Ms Vike-Freiberga (66) is the eloquent, international face
of her nation. She exudes a calm assurance that is welcome
to Latvia's 2.3 million people, who could easily be
dismayed by the rapid turnover of governments.
Latvia is still growing into a mature democracy, the former
Montreal University lecturer said. Rather than develop a
stable political culture, Latvia had spent a decade trying
to escape the shadow of Soviet domination, a shadow that
will finally dissolve with entry into NATO next month and
the EU in May.
At home and abroad, she is widely praised for getting
Latvia this far, and for doing so in style.
One diplomat in the Latvian capital, Riga, noted her knack
of "charming the socks off middle-aged politicians".
Another said she was solely responsible for US President
George W. Bush knowing where the Baltic nation was.
For her part, the second World War refugee shows no false
modesty about her achievements in moving from political
novice to old hand in just six years.
"I think I've done a good job, frankly," she told The Irish
Times in old Riga's presidential palace.
"I had a decision to make: would I take early retirement,
work on my research, grow my African violets and have a
nice, quiet life and travel, or have this exciting life as
president of a country in absolute transition."
She was the head of a think-tank in Riga when, frustrated
by deadlock in talks over a new president, a group of
intellectuals nominated her as a compromise candidate in a
typically divisive Latvian leadership contest.
She scraped through the 1999 vote, parliament approving her
with only 53 of 100 votes. In the 2003 poll, she had no
opponents and took 88 of 96 votes cast. "There was a lot to
be done . . . so I had the privilege as president of
helping Latvia achieve goals that are unique in our
history," she said.
Ms Vike-Freiberga is well placed to chart the tumultuous
changes in Latvia's fortunes.
Born in 1937, her parents fled abroad as war engulfed
Europe, and first Soviet, then Nazi, then Soviet troops
again occupied Latvia and subjected its people to terror
and deportation to distant labour camps.
She eventually settled in Canada before returning to her
homeland in 1998.
At the 2002 NATO summit in Prague, she stunned assembled
leaders with an impassioned, off-the-cuff speech about the
misery of Moscow's rule and received an invitation to the
White House shortly afterwards.
She spoke with Mr Bush for almost an hour and her admirers
say she can charm an audience in fluent Latvian, English,
Spanish, French or German.
Few doubt her political savvy or conviction, though, and
she is quick to criticise Mr Einar Repse's decision to
resign as premier just months before NATO and EU entry.
"Heaven only knows" what motivated the timing of it, she
said. "If he had managed to do the job for 15 months I
think he could have lasted another two, frankly." She said
she nominated Green Party deputy Mr Indulis Emsis - whom
parliament approved as prime minister on Tuesday - because
he was not involved in the squabbles that scuttled the last
government.
"I was looking for someone with no preconceived ideas or
objections or ideas of exclusion... Mr Emsis's party
remained neutral and he is a sensible man."
Speaking after his nomination by Ms Vike-Freiberga, the
diffident Mr Emsis told The Irish Times that he would face
a constant juggling act to keep his government together and
push its plans through parliament.
Mr Emsis, who is renowned for his work protecting Latvia's
coastline and historic castles, said his cabinet could
evolve into a majority government capable of more than just
guiding Latvia smoothly through EU and NATO entry.
As prime minister, Mr Emsis will be the EU's most senior
Green and he said his appointment was a chance to show the
continent what an ecologist could do in power.
"We need to find a compromise between sustainable
development and the environment - that's what the world is
looking for with things like the Kyoto Protocol. And maybe
we can be a model to show how to unite those aims."
Many people in Latvia doubt he has the political clout or
force of personality to keep his government together, and
fear the country could be plunged back into uncertainty
before on the eve of EU and NATO accession.
But Mr Emsis draws confidence from his a formidable ally in
the presidential palace.
"The president is very understanding and our visions of
Latvia's future are very similar," he said. "We will do our
best to stop this political crisis becoming a national
crisis."
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