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Who's Hanging Tough in NATO?

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  • Who's Hanging Tough in NATO?

    Who's Hanging Tough in NATO?
    by Vladimir Socor

    The Moscow Times
    June 3, 2004 Thursday

    For all the problems and challenges it now faces, NATO can celebrate
    a triumph in Istanbul at its upcoming summit. Seven countries from
    the Baltic to the Black Sea have completed the accession procedures
    and will for the first time attend NATO's summit as members. This --
    along with the previous accession round by three Central European
    countries -- represents the alliance's greatest strategic, political
    and moral victory in its 55-year history. It is, moreover, the right
    basis for building NATO's future -- because its essential missions
    will henceforth focus on theaters to the east of its new perimeter,
    beyond the Black Sea.

    Predictions that the enlargement would turn NATO into an ineffective
    political body akin to the Organization for Security and Cooperation
    in Europe have been laid to rest by the performance of the new member
    countries. Their entry contributes significantly to the alliance's
    political cohesion even as this asset shows signs of fraying on the
    older, western flank.

    If anything, the OSCE's culture of compromise and consensus with
    those opposed to Western values seems right now to be seeping in
    via older allies. How else to explain the suggestion from several
    Western European governments that NATO needs to make a special
    effort and invite President Vladimir Putin in order to ensure a
    "successful summit"?

    In truth, the alliance's seven-country enlargement, and the about as
    many countries that will confirm their membership aspirations at the
    summit, give the real measure of the alliance's permanent viability
    and appeal. Can anyone argue that NATO really needs a photo op with
    the restorer of Russian autocracy as a demonstration of its success?

    Some, apparently, argue that it does, as seen from NATO
    Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer's efforts to secure Putin's
    presence at the Istanbul summit. The NATO leader made that invitation
    publicly in Moscow on April 8 and has repeated it several times
    since then; most recently in his May 17 speech in Brussels, saying:
    "I hope that the conditions will be right for him to come to Istanbul."

    We don't know what these conditions would be; but we do know that
    Putin is playing hard to get. He says he's considering the invitation,
    but that his advisers tell him he shouldn't go. Translation: The
    conditions are not right and should be improved.

    Putin's conditions include: continuing tolerance of Russia's breaches
    of the 1999-adapted Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe and
    associated commitments on the alliance's southern flank; and --
    those breaches notwithstanding -- an allied move toward ratification
    of that same treaty so as to place the three Baltic states under
    its restrictions.

    Approved at the OSCE's 1999 Istanbul summit, the adapted CFE treaty
    and the documents known as the Istanbul Commitments form twin parts
    of a single package. From Istanbul 1999 to Istanbul 2004, what is the
    balance sheet on implementation? To make a long, technical story short,
    the following stipulations remain unimplemented to date:

    Setting a firm and realistic date (three years would amply suffice)
    on the closure of Russia's Batumi and Akhalkalaki military bases
    in Georgia.

    Closing the Gudauta base in Georgia, which Russia was required to close
    back in 2001. Since then, Russia has been offered the alternative
    option of handing Gudauta to a UN observer mission in Georgia's
    secessionist region of Abkhazia.

    Withdrawing all Russian troops from Moldova's Transdnestr region --
    a move that Russia was required unconditionally to complete in 2002.

    Liquidating the stocks of Russian-supplied combat hardware
    ("unaccounted-for treaty-limited equipment") deployed with Abkhazian
    and Transdnestr forces, as well as with Armenian forces beyond Nagorny
    Karabakh, inside Azerbaijan proper.

    The verification provisions in both the CFE treaty and the Istanbul
    Commitments are also being breached, and the treaty's hallowed
    principle of host-country consent (no country may station its forces
    on another country's territory without freely given consent) is simply
    being flouted here on the southern flank.

    The treaty is meant to be legally binding once it enters into force;
    the commitments are defined as "politically binding," whatever
    that means. To Moscow, by all evidence, neither set of documents is
    binding -- unless the West makes clear that commitments are binding
    by definition.

    Russian diplomacy wants NATO to:

    Give up the linkage between ratification of the CFE treaty and
    fulfillment of the Istanbul Commitments.

    Accept Russian promises to fulfill some of those outstanding
    commitments some time in the future, in lieu of actual fulfillment,
    and even give up on implementation in some cases.

    Several Western European governments have signaled an inclination to
    go along with such a scenario. Some have asked Georgia and Moldova
    to consent to Russian retention of Gudauta and of the "peacekeeping
    troops" in Transdnestr (this would bestow host-country consent on
    those foreign forces).

    When NATO's secretary-general and the OSCE's chairman-in-office state
    publicly that Russia should remove its arsenals from Moldova without
    mentioning the commitment to withdraw its troops, Moscow reads this
    as a message that it can keep troops in place.

    Whether at the summit or in some other NATO forum, the alliance cannot
    avoid addressing the issue of peacekeeping and conflict resolution on
    its own vital strategic perimeter. Thirteen years after the end of
    the Soviet Union, peacekeeping in this region remains, in practice,
    Moscow's monopoly, which only serves to freeze the political
    settlements of the conflicts.

    Two years ago, NATO and the United States seemed set to engage jointly
    with Russia in peace-support operations and conflict-resolution
    efforts in Moldova, Georgia and the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. These
    intentions figured prominently in the joint communiques in May 2002
    of the U.S.-Russia and NATO-Russia summits. However, nothing further
    has been heard about these intentions since those summits.

    To be sure, U.S. forces and resources are now overextended worldwide.
    But there is a strong case to be made for European allies taking the
    lead in peace-support operations and conflict settlement in the Black
    Sea-South Caucasus region, Europe's doorstep.

    European NATO allies complain of a shortfall in deployable forces
    against a vast backdrop of static forces in the homelands. In any case,
    peacekeeping and conflict resolution in this region need be neither
    large-scale, nor predominantly military. On the contrary, they should
    be compact and should emphasize the civilian aspect of peace support.

    The United States, NATO and the European Union have strategic
    and democratic motivation, as well as the means, to initiate a
    transformation of peacekeeping and conflict resolution at this
    crossroads, where the access routes to the greater Middle East and
    the energy transit routes to Europe intersect. This must become a
    Euro-Atlantic priority. The NATO summit agenda would be incomplete
    if it did not address, or at least set the stage for addressing soon,
    this imperative.

    Vladimir Socor is a senior fellow of the Washington-based Jamestown
    Foundation, publishers of the Eurasia Daily Monitor. This comment is
    reprinted from Friday's edition of The Wall Street Journal.
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