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Al-Ahram Weekly 29 Apr. - 5 May 1999 Issue No. 427 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 29 Apr. - 5 May 1999 Issue No. 427
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Focus Special Travel Sports People Features Living Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Trapped on the Titanic?
By Hoda Tawfik
The new NATO that will guard the doors of the West as we move into the 21st century was born last week with the announcement of a new strategic concept that opens the way to the use of military force far beyond the borders of its 19 member states.
US President Bill Clinton with members of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council at the NATO summit in Washington. The group met to discuss events inYugoslavia (photo AFP)
All those states were there in Washington to witness the birth, including the seven Balkan front line states bordering Yugoslavia. Every European nation had sent its representative to the mega-summit, NATO and non-NATO members alike. Only Russia's chair was empty.
The three-day summit had been intended as a celebration of NATO's 50th anniversary, but the Alliance has been caught short by the air campaign against Yugoslavia, an engagement which seems increasingly open-ended, with no date marked on the calendar for a graceful exit.
The summit pledged to continue to strengthen the air campaign until NATO should prevail in Kosovo. They stressed that there was a united front in favour of pursuing the war against Yugoslavia, and they wound the proceedings by announcing a new strategic concept for the 21st century, one which gives NATO a military mandate "to contribute to effective conflict prevention, and to engage actively in crisis management, including crisis response operations", to quote the summit document.
One of the key provisions of this new-look NATO is that alliance members must be prepared to "act outside the NATO treaty area, on a case by case basis, to defend their vital interests".
But the question of how far NATO's mandate should extend beyond collective defence was left deliberately vague. US President Bill Clinton, asked what would constitute practically legitimate NATO action beyond the borders of the grouping, and how far geographically NATO was prepared to go, gave a fuzzy answer: "I don't think it's a geographical issue," he told reporters. "I think that what we tried to do was to say that there are some things which can occur in Europe in non-member nations that can affect the security and stability of all of Europe including NATO members." Now, the question facing NATO is will the military action in Kosovo turn out to be the precedent for the Alliance's new strategy?
Questioned along these lines, Clinton replied "I am pleased that our strategic concept specifically endorses actions such as those we are undertaking in Kosovo."
The negotiations that led to the new strategy had to overcome certain crucial disagreements about NATO's future role and mandate. The United States, with support from the UK, has lobbied for increased Alliance focus on new risks posed by the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction and by terrorism. The North Atlantic Treaty authorises the Allies to cooperate on threats to Allied interests, but still leaves plenty of room for differences about how far NATO cooperation should extend beyond defence against attacks.
The European Allies all accept that the new threats identified by the United States are serious and merit their attention. They concurred with the US decision to use force against Serbia (because of its activities in Kosovo) without a specific UN mandate to do so. But most of the European member states have been reluctant to cooperate in any given peace enforcement or counter-proliferation operation, or to make such cooperation more or less automatic. They see their willingness to act against Serbia, without a UN mandate, as an exception, not as a new rule. France made it clear that issues should still be addressed on a case by case basis, and this form of words was adopted as a compromise in order to obtain unanimous backing for the summit document.
There is a similar difference over the issue of NATO's geographic area of responsibility. The United States stressed that there should be no formal geographic limits placed on the relevance of NATO cooperation. Most European Allies, however, do not want NATO to be seen as a "global alliance". The debate on these issues produced another verbal compromise, that closes no doors on what NATO can do, but also makes no firm commitments.
The crisis of the campaign against Yugoslavia dominated the three-day summit. It is obvious that the United States fought hard to keep the issue away from the United Nations and the Security Council so as to avoid the possibility of a Russian or a Chinese veto. "Only if Russia gets on board with NATO conditions and participates in the NATO-dominated international peace force, would the United States accept to seek a Security Council resolution to form the international military force to intervene in Kosovo in a permissive climate," opined National Security Adviser Sandy Berger.
Certainly, the ongoing crisis in Kosovo and the uncertain peace in nearby Bosnia hang like ominous clouds over every international meeting at this time. As the situation in Kosovo has demonstrated, the end of the Balkan story has not yet been written. Developments in the region could have as substantial an impact on perceptions of NATO's utility in the near term as all the long-term plans and promises the NATO countries made in Washington.
Organised fifty years ago to meet any Soviet threat to Western Europe, NATO has never had to engage its troops in a conflict on the continent of Europe. But today the Allies are waging war in the Balkans, and the consequences of that engagement will define the future of the Alliance. At this moment NATO may have a blueprint far beyond the millennium, but it has no grand strategic concept for the end game with Yugoslavia. NATO's future could well come to hinge on the outcome of this gradually escalating war.
Speaking in Washington, Clinton warned the Yugoslav president that any aggression against the Balkan front-line states would be treated as an aggression against NATO: "If Belgrade challenges its neighbours as a result of the presence of NATO, we will respond." The leaders of Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Slovenia all spoke in favour of a NATO victory over the Serb army of Slobodan Milosevic. But there are some tough questions left for NATO to answer as it moves deeper into the greatest challenge of its existence to date. Can the Alliance muster the will to win the war? And if so, at what price beyond that which the refugees who have fled the province are already paying?
