NATO after Kosovo: NATO's victory over Serbia leaves the alliance with many unanswered questions.
Grayson, George W.
George W. Grayson NATO AFTER KOSOVO Adjusting the balance of power T he most successful peacekeeping military al liance in history, the North Atlantic Treaty Or ganization (NATO), emerged from...
...George W. Grayson teaches in the department of government at The College of William and Mary...
...Moreover, no reason exists to gratuitously offend Russia on the eve of the Russian and American presidential elections...
...The idea of converting Europe's lower-paid, albeit expensive-to-train, conscript armies into lean, mean professional machines is equally daunting...
...Needless to say, official Washington considers Kosovo a resounding victory, particularly because not a single pilot died in combat...
...He wanted to "go downtown" on the first night of hostilities, striking at Belgrade's electricity, telephone, command-and-control sites, and Slobodan Milosevic's bunker...
...No military alliance can be built on such ephemeral foundations...
...Although the bill is to be shared among thirty countries, such expenditures—$7.5 billion for rehabilitation alone—dim prospects that the Europeans will significantly reconfigure their militaries...
...But on balance, NATO's new members proved to be useful additions...
...Most telling, perhaps, was how a new awareness of the current balance of power made itself felt during the Kosovo engagement...
...diplomat told me...
...Observers who pooh-poohed the potential of air power are eating humble pie...
...That order was opposed by Washington and London and countermanded by NATO...
...Yet another financial obstacle to military modernization is that the Europeans are bearing—at Washington's insistence—the brunt of the peacekeeping and reconstruction costs in Kosovo...
...The magnified influence of East European and Baltic ethnic lobbies in states rich with electoral votes guarantees that U.S...
...All of these concerns will be exacerbated should NATO expand...
...Robertson's terrific," said Europe-watcher Peter Bird Swiers...
...While the plan to compensate Moscow for dismantling weapons of mass destruction survived the Kosovo hostilities, initiatives like Y2K cooperation and the NATO-Russia Joint Permanent Council will have to be rejuvenated...
...These reductions will only widen the gap between technologically sophisticated U.S...
...Poland comported itself as a staunch ally...
...The document recommended "common approaches" to doctrine, training, and operational procedures...
...military and conventional European armed forces, and it advances the fiction that professional soldiers can achieve their objectives by pressing buttons from afar rather than directly engaging the enemy...
...But small steps forward are possible...
...Meanwhile, Baltic-Americans have a full-court press on in the U.S...
...Any such advocacy should spring not from interest-group politics at home, but from an explicit geostrategic rationale that augments the security of the United States and its NATO allies...
...This was especially evident in the way in which General Clark's term was shortened as SACEUR in July...
...Solana will remain in Brussels as the European Union's military and foreign-policy czar...
...The U.K.'s extraordinarily intelligent, self-deprecating, and diplomatic defense secretary, George Robertson, will replace the astute Spaniard Javier Solana as NATO's secretary general...
...Commonweal 1 2 October 8,1999...
...As noted by Edward N. Luttwak, such a reliance on modern technology offers the illusion of a kind of postheroic war, fought without casualties or much sacrifice...
...The faces of European leaders are as red as beets, for the Americans supplied virtually all the high-tech, razzle-dazzle hardware to wage war on their continent," one U.S...
...It allows Milosevic-style ethnic cleansing to proceed, it further widens the chasm between the high-tech U.S...
...This bit of highly personal politics deprives NATO of badly needed continuity in the aftermath of the fighting, while also leaving the impression that Washington prefers "yes men...
...European policy mavens are now on a similar diet—not so much because of qualms about the air war, but because Uncle Sam dominated every aspect of the fighting...
...chief executive—who will take office just fifteen months before the 2002 NATO summit—may seek to establish his foreign policy bona fides by backing alliance expansion...
...Senate...
...Tax increases for military preparedness are out of the question in countries that now devote 47 to 57 percent of their GDPs to government programs...
...The ham-handed removal of Clark sparked concerns that the United States would diminish its involvement in Europe and gave further impetus to the notion that Washington was committed to fighting wars from the air without risking troops on the ground...
...Despite acute differences on war aims, tactics, and strategy, the nineteen-member pact held together...
...Cohen got even with Clark by preemptively abbreviating Clark's tour while the general was on an official visit to Lithuania...
...Had the alliance unraveled or lost in Kosovo, the chances of adding new nations would have been slight...
...Even Bulgaria is seeking to integrate itself into the alliance, as was made clear by its refusal (along with Romania and Hungary) to authorize Moscow to fly over its territory to reinforce the two hundred Russian military at the Pristina airport...
...Opposition from Washington and several allies aside, General Wesley Clark, the American Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (SACEUR), was reportedly determined to introduce ground forces by late summer had the Serbs not called a halt...
...The Americans furnished 65 to 80 percent of the aircraft and precision ordnance unleashed in the initiative, according to analyst Michael Ignatieff...
...Similar worries about the domestic politics of the alliance's newest members—Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic—also proved exaggerated...
...Economic limitations are first on the list...
...presidential hopefuls will not slam the door on any potential member...
...Even before the Serbian capitulation, Tony Blair, Lionel Jospin, and Gerhard Schroder—respectively, of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany—emphasized the importance of Europe loosening Uncle Sam's apron strings...
...In fact, soon after the Serbian exodus from Kosovo, both the French and German governments announced substantial cuts in military outlays...
...Despite NATO's success against Serbia, a reliance on pricey laser-guided ordnance and other Buck Rogers devices has several troubling consequences...
...Among other welcome developments was that Germany's Social Democratic-Green government dispatched German troops abroad for the first time since World War II, and did so with a public approval rating of 62 percent...
...And in early June, Clark had given an order to block the Russian seizure of the Pristina airport...
...The political dust from Kosovo must settle...
...forces and their European counterparts...
...Clark frequently crossed swords with Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen and the Joint Chiefs of Staff...
...George W. Grayson NATO AFTER KOSOVO Adjusting the balance of power T he most successful peacekeeping military al liance in history, the North Atlantic Treaty Or ganization (NATO), emerged from the seventy- eight-day Kosovo conflict both buoyed by its triumph over Serbia and facing tough questions about its future operations and make-up...
...In this position, he will be able to work with Robertson to encourage the Europeans to devise their own "defense identity," while preserving NATO's transatlantic character...
...In addition, Washington provided the intelligence capability on which the alliance relied, as well as twenty-four Apache AH-64 helicopters—complemented by a five-thousand-strong Task Force Hawk—which, although never dispatched from Albania, demonstrated a readiness to mount an invasion...
...Still, France is already plumping for the admission of Romania, Italy for Slovenia, and Poland for Lithuania...
...President Bill Clinton is leaving the question of new NATO members to his successor...
...Still, the likelihood of further enlargement before the 2002 NATO conclave appears unlikely...
...This was true especially in light of the disproportionate military contribution of the United States...
...His Strange Bedfellows: NATO Marches East has been published recently by the University Press of America...
...In the meantime, sharpened tensions between China and Taiwan or Korea and Japan or the bloodbath in East Timor could shift America's focus away from Europe...
...Spending on social programs for aging populations will invariably trump revitalizing the armed forces...
...His remarks at an April 27 news conference ignited reports that, if air combat failed, he would favor the dispatch of ground troops—a proposal that caused heartburn in the risk-averse White House and Pentagon...
...It is not clear, however, that this new consciousness will crystallize into specific programs...
...The Clinton administration's weaknesses, especially its preference for short-term fixes over grand designs in international affairs, also introduce a note of uncertainty into NATO's future...
...Nor is it clear, for that matter, when, or if, the Clinton administration will abandon its much-criticized ad hoc approach to Europe and formulate a long-term strategy...
...Eighty-five percent of the peacekeepers, who will eventually number fifty thousand men and women, will be Europeans...
...This was true also, if to a lesser extent, with Hungary, while the Czech Republic allowed NATO to use its airspace, even as it criticized the alliance's actions...
...Several factors militate against the Commonweal 1 1 October 8,1999 Europeans' transforming such lofty rhetoric into actual policy...
...Also clouding the future is whether the recently enlarged alliance will continue to accept new members from Eastern Europe and the Baltics...
...Still, the next U.S...
...The alliance's "Defense Capabilities Initiative," signed at NATO's fiftieth anniversary summit in April, warned that "potential threats to alliance security are more likely to result from regional conflicts, ethnic strife, or other crises beyond alliance territory, as well as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery...
...Whatever the future holds, NATO's performance in Kosovo deserves praise...
...He's pro-American, pro-Europe, and promodernization...
...American technological and strategic prowess has heightened awareness in London, Paris, Berlin, and other capitals that the Europeans should play a greater role in ensuring their own security...
Vol. 126 • October 1999 • No. 17
