Outgoing Russian President Vladimir Putin has defended plans to roll tanks and missiles through Moscow at the end of the week, declaring that the display is not intended to “threaten anyone.” It is the first time in many years Moscow’s Victory Day parade will include armaments.
Newsweek International reports on France’s success in using small combat units to partner with different international military alliances.
“A year into his first term, in fact, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is using his warm relations with Washington and his military’s strong record fighting in Africa and the Balkans to help re-establish France publicly and formally as a leading player in NATO, more than four decades after President Charles de Gaulle pulled out of the alliance’s integrated command and kicked its offices out of Paris. At the same time, he’s working to put France at the fore of a separate European Union defense force and extend its influence eastward to the Persian Gulf and South Asia. And if France really wants to project itself on the world stage this way, well, it couldn’t happen at a better time. U.S. forces are stretched thin, and there are only a handful of other armies with the training, the bases, the organization and, most important, the political will to kill and die in far corners of the planet to keep local wars from emerging into global threats. The shortlist includes the Brits-and the French, and that’s about it.”
A new report from the Rand Corporation looks at Turkey as a strategic ally of the United States of America in its security operations across the Middle East. It says a shifting focus in Turkish interests should command the attention of U.S. policymakers.
“Turkey has long been an important U.S. ally, but especially with the end of the Cold War, the relationship has been changing. Divergences between U.S. and Turkish interests have grown, in part because of Turkey’s relationships with its neighbors and the tension between its Western identity and its Middle Eastern orientation. Further, relations with the European Union have also deteriorated of late. As a result, Ankara has come to feel that it can no longer rely on its traditional allies, and Turkey is likely to be a more difficult and less predictable partner in the future. While Turkey will continue to want good ties to the United States, it is likely to be drawn more heavily into the Middle East by the Kurdish issue and Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Consequently, the tension between Turkey’s Western identity and Middle Eastern orientation is likely to grow even more.”
On the second day of the NATO summit in Bucharest, French President Nicolas Sarkozy indicated he intends to have France rejoin NATO’s military command, which it quit in 1966 under Général De Gaulle, and said he will make a formal decision by the end of the year. Nicolas Sarkozy also said France was prepared to deploy some 800 troops to eastern Afghanistan.
“The next few years will be crucial to determining which direction European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) goes. Some factors will favor further growth and development.
First, the Lisbon ‘reform’ treaty should soon be ratified, introducing important new innovations to the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and, more importantly, putting to rest the intra-EU quarrel that has impeded progress for the last five years.
Second, the divisions that arose over the Iraq War are fading, both Europe and the United States and within Europe itself. This should facilitate a more reasoned discussion of Europe’s role in global security.
Third, with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars continuing and a major presidential campaign underway, the United States has entered a period in which openness to independent European efforts is apt to increase, provided that these efforts are viewed as generally positive for the transatlantic relationship.
Fourth, the French presidency of the EU, which begins in June 2008, is very likely to attempt to push ESDP forward into a new phase.”
For 50 years: Elvis Presley Induction into the US Army
Elvis Presley showing his army sergeant stripes in 1960 while performing his military service in Friedberg, Germany.
Elvis Aaron Presley entered the United States Army at Memphis, Tennessee, on March 24, 1958, and then spent three days at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. He left active duty at Fort Dix, New Jersey, on March 5, 1960, and received his discharge from the Army Reserve on March 23, 1964.
During his active military career Elvis Presley served as a member of two different armor battalions. Between March 28 and September 17, 1958, he belonged to Company A, 2d Medium Tank Battalion, 37th Armor, stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. During this assignment he completed basic and advanced military training.
Presley’s overseas service took place in Germany from October 1, 1958, until March 2, 1960, as a member of the 1st Medium Tank Battalion, 32d Armor. For the first five days of that period he belonged to Company D of the battalion, and thereafter to the battalion’s Headquarters Company at Friedberg.
While in Germany Elvis Presley wore the shoulder sleeve insignia of the 3d Armored Division.
Here you will find an invitation to the US Army War College 19th Annual Strategy Conference “Rebalancing the Instruments of National Power“.
Panelists from RAND, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the US Institute of Peace, the Institute for Defense Analysis, Central Command, the Council on Foreign Relations, National Defense University, Georgetown University, Dickinson College, the U.S. military departments, the U.S. Department of State and USAID, and the Department of Commerce will help us identify the issues and stimulate what promises to be a lively discussion.
We welcome you to join us this year from April 8-10, 2008.
Online registration closes on Thursday, April 5th, 2008.
Very Respectfully,
Rebecca Bremer
Academic Engagement
Strategic Studies Institute
US Army War College
Phone: (717) 245-3133
“Das Kosovo anzuerkennen, birgt eine ganze Reihe geopolitischer Probleme. So ist etwa die territoriale Einheit diverser Staaten von Spanien bis zum Irak bedroht, deren ethnische Minderheiten sich in ihrem Unabhängigkeitsstreben bestätigt sehen. Vor allem aber droht eine weitere Spaltung der EU.”
A paper from the Swiss Center for Security Studies notes broad institutional changes the EU’s Treaty of Lisbon would require of the EU’s security network, if the treaty is passed.
A policy brief written by Nicolas Véron, an expert on accounting, financial regulation and capital markets, also looks at the Treaty of Lisbon, but with respect to Europe’s financial hubs and what impact it will have on European growth.
Kosovo’s declaration of independence on February 17, 2008, presents a significant diplomatic challenge for Europe and the United States. Some within the European Union worry that recognizing Kosovo’s independence will undermine Serbian progress toward deepening democratic rule, destabilize the historically volatile Balkans, and empower separatist groups elsewhere.
Other EU powers, however, appear to agree with the Bush administration that recognizing Kosovo as an independent state is necessary if the region is to make progress toward integration with the rest of Europe, and that it is justified given past Serbian misrule and aggression toward Kosovo.
On February 15, 2008, John R. Bolton, former U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, discussed at The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) the issues surrounding Kosovo’s declaration with Bruce P. Jackson, the president of the Project on Transitional Democracies and a former member of the International Commission on the Balkans.
EU leaders said they are confident that the Serbian province of Kosovo will remain calm following a widely anticipated declaration of independence this coming weekend.
Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated threats made earlier this week in Ukraine that he would aim Russian missiles at neighboring countries if they allow the United States to use their territory to install a missile defense system.
A new report from the U.S.-funded Congressional Research Service examines U.S. relations with Serbia and questions the possible political fallout of Kosovo’s secession.
Germany’s Spiegel magazine writes that the divide boils down to this: “While the United States, Great Britain, Canada and the Netherlands have placed their bets on the war against the Taliban and no longer want to bear this burden alone, countries like Germany are convinced that their reconstruction mission is working.”
Germany and France have been most criticized for their refusal to send more troops, but the Toronto Star reports that France may help Canada in Afghanistan.
A recent report by the Atlantic Council, chaired by retired General James Jones, former NATO supreme allied commander, outlines what it says are enormous difficulties in pacifying and reconstructing Afghanistan.
TheAssociated Press (AP) reports that just days after the election of Serbian President Boris Tadic, Serbia’s coalition government is on the verge of collapse over a European Union plan to send a mission to the province of Kosovo, which is poised to declare independence.
Boris Tadic won Serbia’s presidential election yesterday, scraping by with just over 50 percent of the vote over a nationalist candidate.
The BBC says questions loom about what Serbia will do if its province of Kosovo declares independence. Further, while Tadic will make joining the European Union a priority, internal political dynamics will complicate the bid.
„Deutschland ist, trotz der Shoa, heute neben den USA der beste Partner Israels. Nun engagiert sich Deutschland sehr stark im Nahost-Friedensprozess. Wir haben sehr unterstützt, dass sowohl das Kanzleramt als auch das Außenministerium über alle Schritte sehr früh informiert waren. Es war wichtig und hilfreich, dass Außenminister Steinmeier auf der Konferenz in Annapolis Deutschland repräsentiert hat. [...]
Das bilaterale Gespräch sollte die internationale Gemeinschaft uns und den Palästinensern überlassen. Aber es ist sehr wichtig, dass die internationale Gemeinschaft der palästinensischen Wirtschaft auf die Beine hilft. Wir müssen die Infrastruktur für einen demokratisch organisierten Staat schaffen. Deutschland spielt dabei eine große Rolle.”
„Ich kenne die deutsche Tradition, Dialoge zu führen - aus dem Willen heraus, es zumindest probiert zu haben. Aber die Debatte, ob der Besuch richtig war oder nicht, hat sich doch eigentlich erledigt. Denn es ist seither nichts passiert, es gibt keinen Erfolg.”
Abschließend nahm der Botschafter noch zu der Frage Stellung, ob Israels Sicherheit durch eine NATO-Mitgliedschaft verstärkt werden würde:
„Darüber gibt es eine Diskussion in Israel. Meine persönliche Meinung ist ja. Andere argumentieren, dass eine NATO-Mitgliedschaft unsere Handlungsfähigkeit gefährlich einschränken würde. Außerdem muss man sehen, wie hoch der Blutzoll der israelischen Bevölkerung nach 60 Jahren Konflikten bereits ist. Einer Regierung dürfte die Erklärung nicht leicht fallen, wieso israelische Soldaten nun auch noch in anderen Krisenherden eingesetzt werden sollen. Aber ich vermute, am Ende wird es eine NATO-Mitgliedschaft geben.”
The European Union announced it is ready to send a “stability mission” to Kosovo to replace the United Nations mission currently established there should the Serbian province declare itself independent.
A recent briefing paper by the Centre for European Reform examines what steps can be taken to shore up EU-NATO relations, arguing that recent steps by France could improve coordination.
A good many observers are noting the recent improvement in transatlantic ties, attributing it to the election of pro-American leaders in Germany and France, the fading of Iraq as a divisive issue, the mellowing of the Bush administration or some combination of the three. This belief is comforting, but it is bound to end in disappointment.
US-European relations are not about to become as good or as significant as they were in decades past. Some of the reasons for this are familiar: social differences, including an unequal emphasis on religion and differing views on abortion rights and the death penalty; lingering anti-Americanism resulting from the Iraq war, perceived US neglect of the Palestinian issue and both Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo; and generational and demographic changes on both sides of the ocean. Fewer Europeans regard Americans as their liberators; fewer Americans view Europeans as their ancestors.
But there is another reason for the likelihood that the transatlantic alliance will count for less, one that reflects not so much what is going on in either Europe or the US as changes in the world as a whole. Alliances require predictability: of threat, outlook and obligations. But it is precisely this characteristic that is likely to be in short supply in a world defined by shifting threats, differing perceptions and societies with widely divergent readiness to maintain and use military force. The 21st-century world is far more dynamic and fluid than the relatively stable and predictable period of the cold war.
This is in no way meant to defend or advocate unilateralism. But it is a recognition that many in Europe disagree with some US objectives, with how the US goes about realising them, or both. As a result, the US often will be unable to count on the support of its traditional allies.
Also weakening Europe’s centrality to US foreign policy is that its capacity for global intervention is diminishing, especially in the military field. That is true even for occasions in which it does find itself inclined to act with, or in support of, the US. Afghanistan is becoming a case in point. The strengthening of European Union foreign policy institutions will help but will not be enough to reverse this trend.
Instead, we now face a future of “selective co-operation“. We are entering an era of foreign policy and international relations where countries are neither automatically predictable adversaries nor allies. They may be active partners on one issue on one day and largely inactive observers on another issue the next. Or they may carry out alternative or opposing policies. All of this is reminiscent of Lord Palmerston’s dictum: a nation has neither permanent friends nor permanent enemies - just permanent interests.
The result is that transatlantic co-operation will be less predictable and more selective. Interestingly, some of this was foreseen by those who founded Nato. There is the binding Article V commitment, in which each Nato member agrees that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all. And there is the optional Article IV commitment, in which the members agree to consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the members is threatened. Although Article V was invoked in the aftermath of 9/11, the strategic reality is that we are living in an Article IV world of discretionary commitments, where coalitions of the willing will be more common and consequential than long-standing alliances.
But there is a silver lining. Opposition from former adversaries is also not assured. Indeed, one-time opponents may become limited partners. Take, for example, the assistance given by China in putting pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear programme. Beijing, in this case - not Nato - was and is the most important partner for Washington in its efforts to denuclearise North Korea. This does not, however, mean China is on the verge of becoming a US ally on other issues.
This assessment is not limited to transatlantic ties. The same will hold for US ties with, say, Japan, South Korea or Australia. In the case of Japan, what will limit the depth of the relationship will be the lack of political consensus in Japan favouring a robust role for that country in the region and the world. South Korea will be preoccupied by events on its peninsula. Australia will be selective in its willingness to partner the US, as the recent decision by the new prime minister to reduce its role in Iraq underscores.
Such uncertainty will make the practice of foreign policy more not less difficult. It will place a premium on consultation and coalition-building. The task will be to expand co-operation wherever and whenever possible - and not to allow inevitable disagreements to spill over and prevent co-operation where countries do in fact agree. It will be difficult to accomplish this, but it will be necessary if we are to manage the threats inherent in globalisation rather than have them manage us.
About the author: Richard Nathan Haass is president of the Council on Foreign Relations, a position he has held since July 2003. The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher dedicated to being a resource for its members, government officials, business executives, journalists, educators and students, civic and religious leaders, and other interested citizens in order to help them better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries.
Haass is the author or editor of ten books on American foreign policy. His most recent book, The Opportunity: America’s Moment to Alter History’s Course, was published by Public Affairs. He is also the author of one book on management: The Bureaucratic Entrepreneur: How to Be Effective in Any Unruly Organization.
From January 2001 to June 2003, Richard Haass was director of policy planning for the Department of State, where he was a principal adviser to Secretary of State Colin Powell. Confirmed by the U.S. Senate to hold the rank of ambassador, Haass also served as U.S. coordinator for policy toward the future of Afghanistan and was the lead U.S. government official in support of the Northern Ireland peace process. For his efforts, he received the State Department’s Distinguished Honor Award.
Ambassador Haass has extensive additional government experience. From 1989 to 1993, he was special assistant to President George Bush and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs on the staff of the National Security Council. In 1991, Haass was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal for his contributions to the development and articulation of U.S. policy during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Previously, he served in the Departments of State (1981-85) and Defense (1979-80) and was a legislative aide in the U.S. Senate.
Haass also was vice president and director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution, the Sol M. Linowitz visiting professor of international studies at Hamilton College, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a lecturer in public policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. A Rhodes Scholar, Haass holds a BA from Oberlin College and the Master and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Oxford University. He has received honorary doctorates from Hamilton College, Franklin & Marshall College, and Georgetown University.
Richard Haass was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1951. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children.
This piece is drawn from ‘The Palmerstonian Moment’, appearing in the January/February 2008 issue of The National Interest.
Reprinted with kindly permission of The Council on Foreign Relations.
UN Security Council negotiations over the future of the Serbian province of Kosovo broke down yesterday, ending a last-ditch effort to secure a diplomatic resolution to Kosovo’s status.
U.S. Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad said the parties have reached “irreconcilable positions” and the “current situation is unsustainable.” Serbia’s president warned that it could trigger a “serious crisis” if Kosovo unilaterally declares independence.
Kosovo is expected to declare independence this month. Russia says this could trigger instability in other nearby breakaway regions.
Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, the architect of the Dayton Accords that ended the Bosnia war, says Russia’s uncooperative attitude in Kosovo combined with western inaction could sparked renewed conflict.
Interviewee: Richard C. Holbrooke, Vice Chairman, Perseus LLC
Interviewer: Bernard Gwertzman, The Council on Foreign Relations
New York, December 5, 2007
On December 10, 2007, the three-man group-U.S. envoy Frank Wisner, Russian representative Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko and EU envoy Wolfgang Ischinger-that the United Nations set up last summer to bring about a negotiated solution between Kosovo and Serbia ends its work in failure. It’s widely expected that Kosovo, the autonomous province of Serbia, will soon announce its independence. Do you have any idea when that may happen?
To the best of my knowledge, the Kosovo Albanian leaders, who were elected last month, will make a unilateral declaration of independence about a month or so after December 10.
And they will ask all countries of the world to recognize them, as well as the United Nations?
Yes.
Now the European Union, at the moment, from what I can tell, has about five member states that are nervous about recognizing an independent Kosovo.
The United States, Britain, France, and Germany have already said they will recognize Kosovo. Most of the EU, but not all, will recognize them. Some will recognize them on a slightly slower time frame than others. Russia will not recognize them. Other countries will be up for grabs. There will be a lot of pressure in both directions. And I’m assuming the Islamic states will recognize them.
This will leave the new country of Kosovo in somewhat of an awkward position. UN membership will not be possible as long as the Russians are prepared to veto their admission, and the Russians have indicated that will be their policy. The EU will have to find ways of giving them economic assistance, even when not all EU members recognize them. Most importantly, a new basis for the continuation of international security forces-the sixteen thousand NATO forces that are now there-must be found. If those forces were to leave, the chances of violence would be even greater.
How many Serbs still live in Kosovo?
There is no accurate census, but the best estimates are that there are about two million Albanians, and somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 Serbs left. But I stress, those are estimates.
Serbs have a majority in the most northern part of Kosovo that borders on Serbia.
Around the town of Mitrovica in the north is a predominantly Serb population and then there are Serb communities scattered throughout other parts of Kosovo. It is my assumption that Serbian-populated districts, which did not participate in the recent elections at all, will announce that they do not accept the fact that they are part of a newly declared independent state of Kosovo. They’ll say, “No, we’re still part of Serbia.” So you’ll have another one of these breakaway conflicts, which have dotted Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in the last fifteen years, such as in Nagorno-Karabakh [a de facto independent republic within Azerbaijan but claimed by Armenia], South Ossetia [a rebellious part of Georgia backed by Russia], Abkhazia [an independent republic within Georgia that is not recognized by any state but backed by Russia] and Trans-Dniester [a breakaway part of Moldova also backed by Russia]. I suspect these Serbian areas in Kosovo will fall into that category.
Talk a bit about the situation in Belgrade. The Serbian government is supposedly pro-Western, right? And they’ve been talking about trying to get in the EU.
Calling the Serbian government in Belgrade pro-Western is a bit of a stretch. They are intensely nationalistic, particularly Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica. He is a real nationalist. Former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic was a fake nationalist. He’s the real deal. He has a mystical attachment to Kosovo as the birthplace of the Serb people. Some of the greatest religious monuments in Europe are these ancient Serb monasteries that are all over Kosovo-twelfth-, thirteenth-, fourteenth-century monasteries. So the Serbs have been there a long time, but over time this area has become overwhelmingly Albanian.
The Serbs suppressed the Albanians and denied them their political rights, particularly under Milosevic, but ever since 1912, Serbs have been the minority rulers of Kosovo and now the situation is about to be reversed in the most dramatic manner imaginable.
Will the Serbs in the north make some declaration to definitely be part of Serbia itself?
It’s very possible that the northern districts will do the same thing which the Serb portions of Bosnia did in 1992, when the Bosnian Muslims declared Bosnia an independent country. You’ll recall that the Bosnian Serbs refused to accept it, and instead started the terrible civil war, which was so costly.
The difference between Kosovo in 2007 and Bosnia in 1992, however, is twofold: One, the overwhelming majority of the people in Kosovo-over 90 percent are Albanian, where as in Bosnia there was a relatively even balance between the three groups, Bosnians, Serbs and Croats. Secondly, there just isn’t the appetite anymore for the kind of all-out, brutal, genocidal war, which took place in that area for so long.
Still, there’s a real threat of violence as this escalates, and for that reason I have called, in my recent column in the Washington Post, for the United States and NATO to put additional troops into both Kosovo and Bosnia as quickly as possible. Not an enormous amount of troops, because those aren’t available anyway, but enough to let both sides know that a slide back into violence is not acceptable to the international community.
NATO is stretched to the hilt with its troop obligations in Afghanistan right now.
They’re stretched very thin, but they have troops. And I’m just talking about a couple of companies, a battalion or so, and it doesn’t have to be primarily American. We have two choices here: You send troops in beforehand, to prevent the violence, or you rush troops in after it breaks out and the social fabric has been further torn apart.
We always talk about “preventative diplomacy.” The Council on Foreign Relations has a Center for Preventive Action. Everyone talks about it, but no one ever does anything about it. Here is a classic case where a few troops now might prevent the need for more troops later, and we have to try to get some additional troops in fast. I am very pessimistic that the suggestion I just made for more troops will be acted on, because of the problem you just raised: Iraq, Afghanistan. Also the passivity of the European Union, the mistakes that the U.S. government has made in the last few years, and the opportunistic actions of the Russians have been a poisonous combination.
On the Russian side, has the United States pressed President Vladimir Putin on this at all?
Not adequately. It’s been discussed at lower levels, but President Bush has not brought it up with Putin in a firm, determined way that would indicate to Moscow that this really matters. And the U.S.-Russia relationship is not a very good one anyway. This administration misjudged Putin from the beginning. In effect this administration gave Putin complimentary words, which he didn’t deserve. And he ju
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