Alliance breaks new ground

Date: 23/11/1995

By Elizabeth Wise

AS it prepares to move a peace implementation force into the former Yugoslavia, NATO is taking a step into new territory, both geographical and historical.

The alliance that observers feared was sliding into oblivion just a year ago is taking a new turn. “It was an organisation in search of an aim,” said one observer. “Now it is making a come-back through Bosnia.”

With a peace accord finally agreed, the NATO troops expected to head for Bosnia within weeks will be the most visible sign of change, but not the most fundamental.

More important still, the next decade will probably see a NATO whose members include former Soviet states, whose officials are more visible - and visibly politicians rather than officers - and whose tasks are no longer strictly military.

Far-reaching changes have already been made at NATO headquarters in Brussels. “It's undergone a major transformation,” commented one American official. “The only thing that looks the same is the building.”

As the long-drawn out process of choosing a successor to former NATO Secretary-General Willy Claes continues, reforms of NATO's military organisation are already underway to make it leaner and more economical .

Rather than keeping a standing army, the alliance is selecting forces that can be moved quickly into place as building blocks for an operation. Officials are calling for similar reforms and spending cuts in the civilian sector.

It is the alliance's opening to the east that has brought the biggest changes. More than a quarter of its operating budget is now devoted to eastern Europe. Through the Partnership for Peace (PFP) established in January 1994, NATO works with 26 countries of eastern, western and southern Europe that were previously out of its domain. Official visits to the east, security seminars and troop training in Central Europe are all proof that NATO's task of ensuring European security has been redefined to include much more territory.

More radical still is the fact that NATO members now share security information with those states. Since NATO states promised to exchange defence plans with PFP partners, work has been less secretive overall, officials say. “The strategic concepts of NATO are now unclassified documents,” said one. Others say the alliance's new task of teaching eastern Europeans about democratic control of the military is a purely political one.

Juggling eastern governments' requests for membership and Moscow's complaints about enlargement, the alliance is becoming more political. “The political side of NATO will become increasingly important, as will the demand for political control of the military,” said a senior Danish official.

Even France, outside NATO's integrated military structure since Charles De Gaulle announced his country's withdrawal in 1966, is inching closer. Apparently losing interest in the Western European Union (WEU), Paris is focusing on NATO as the real machine for defence and even peacekeeping. They want “more political control over the military machine”, observed a Western diplomat. Another said French Defence Minister Charles Millon may even break with tradition by coming to a NATO defence ministers meeting on 29-30 November.

With its peace implementation plans, NATO is also attracting neutral states that want to be involved in peacekeeping. Sweden is getting closer to NATO military officials through the EU's Bosnia mediator Carl Bildt - and Sweden, Finland and Austria participate in PFP meetings.

NATO states implied last year that they would leave peacekeeping to smaller groups of alliance members by pledging work on a Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) which would allow European governments to use NATO assets without US involvement. European officials have criticised NATO for not finalising plans for the CJTF, but American officials say they are working on it.

NATO's future tasks have not yet been outlined and opinions differ as to whether the move into Bosnia should set a precedent. The peace implementation operation could signal that NATO is moving into the domain of peacekeeping, until now a UN role. The UN may contract out peacekeeping, so NATO could take the job. But many hope NATO troops will not don blue helmets. “I'm not sure we'd want to do this again,” said one official.

The Bosnia deployment also leaves open the possibility of moving into conflicts in other parts of the world, for instance another Gulf War. That idea too has prompted much debate.

“Bosnia may be 'out of area' but it is still in our garden,” one diplomat said, making the point that NATO is staying - and should stay - in Europe. It is Europe, rather than NATO, that is changing, some say, emphasising that while NATO's transformation has been radical, it has not happened suddenly. NATO has always been charged with protecting Europe's security, and that is what it is doing, they say.

But the alliance has been changing since the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) was created in late 1991. It was designed to bring nine Central and Eastern European states into regular consultation with NATO's 16 members. When the former Soviet states joined a few months later, NATO had gone farther than the then European Community to reach out eastwards. Although European Agreements with Poland and Hungary were signed in 1991, it was not until the EU summit in Copenhagen in June 1993 that the Union said eastern states could one day join the Union.

In choosing a new secretary-general, alliance members will effectively be making policy statements on Bosnia and on NATO enlargement. US President Bill Clinton needs someone who can convince Congress that engaging in Bosnia will not be a military, economic and political risk. And NATO members, who have not yet pronounced their vision of an enlarged alliance, will have to agree on a candidate who is capable of carrying out NATO operations as far as the Russian border.