Posted on 27-11-2002

NATO Globalised
Brian Kenety

PRAGUE, Nov 22 (IPS) - NATO's two-day summit ended Friday with a decision
to drop its former reluctance to act "out of area". The Western defence
alliance also signalled its readiness to strike against terrorist and
"rogue states". NATO secretary-general Lord George Robertson said that NATO
would remain "the embodiment of trans-Atlantic security". NATO members
agreed also to fight terrorism by cementing stronger ties with former
Soviet republics.

After admitting seven new members Thursday, NATO leaders devoted the final
day of the summit to talks with leaders from the 27 members of the
Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EPAC) on joint strategies to combat
terrorism and halt the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
EPAC members include nations seeking to join NATO such as Croatia and
Albania, traditionally neutral countries like Sweden and Finland, and
former Soviet states such as Kazakhstan.

The allies agreed to create a 20,000-member rapid response force to deal
with terrorist threats to members. The force would be available for
deployment at seven days notice. Drawn from top air, land and naval units
from Europe and North America, it will be up and running from 2004.

Central to the new military strategy is the Prague Capabilities Commitments
- a set of "capabilities pledges" intended to improve the alliance's
military preparedness and close the military gap between the United States
and its European allies.

"Linked fundamentally to capabilities is NATO's capacity to deal with new
threats, such as terrorism and weapons of mass destruction," Robertson said
Friday. "No one is immune from these dangers, and the alliance has a major
role to play in defeating them. NATO leaders have, therefore, put the seal
on a comprehensive package, which will dramatically improve our ability to
do so."

European members pledged to modernise their armed forces to narrow the gap
in firepower with the U.S. NATO members will consider major investments,
including stockpiling precision-guided weapons, developing electronic
jamming equipment to knock out enemy radar or communications, and agreeing
a new ground surveillance system.

European members have failed to honour pledges made at the last summit in
1999 to increase defence spending. The Prague Capabilities Commitments seek
to make good that shortfall.

"NATO's presidents and prime ministers have each made a firm political
commitment - the Prague Capabilities Commitment - to deliver specific
essential military enhancement from heavy transport aircraft through air
tankers to precision-guided weapons and protection against chemical and
biological weapons," Robertson said. "These are decisions, not just
declarations."

There are now eight priority categories: strategic airlift; air-to-air
refuelling; deployable command-and-control and communications systems;
deployable combat support; defence against attacks from nuclear, biological
and chemical weapons; precision-guided weapons; and NATO ground surveillance.

The NATO secretary-general said the summit had agreed on areas where the
European allies need most urgently to improve their capabilities. Several
NATO countries announced they would increase defence expenditure, including
France, Portugal, Norway, and new members such as the Czech Republic,
Hungary, and Poland.

Bush left the Prague meeting early Friday for a meeting with Russian
President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg. He will seek to reassure Moscow
that NATO's historic expansion is no threat to the alliance's former Cold
War adversary.

Three former Soviet territories, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania were made
NATO members at the Prague summit along with Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia
and Slovenia. "The remarkable thing about this is that it has been done in
a framework that allowed not just the entry of the seven new states into
NATO but the reconciliation of NATO with Russia in the new Russia-NATO
Council," said the U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

The view from Moscow is somewhat more sceptical. The government daily
Rossiyskaya Gazeta said Friday: "The idea of turning the alliance into a
world gendarme... to allow the Americans to attain global supremacy is
opposed not just by Paris and Berlin, NATO's main European 'players', but
also, with certain provisos, by London."