New/Old Pentagon Boss Rumsfeld Faces a Fractious NATO

New/Old Pentagon Boss Rumsfeld Faces a Fractious NATO

NewsMax.com Wires
Friday, Feb. 2, 2001

WASHINGTON – When Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld meets with his European counterparts in Munich on Saturday, he will find a continent with very different security concerns than 25 years ago, when he toured the region as President Ford's Pentagon chief.

The Soviet Union, the biggest threat to Europe in the 1970s and the reason for NATO's creation, is no more. Today, Europe is worried about conflict in the Balkans and a controversial U.S. effort to develop a missile defense.

''The NATO of 1975 is not the same as the NATO of 2001,'' says Ivo Daalder, a European expert on President Clinton's National Security Council. ''It's a very different beast.''

And a more contentious one, Rumsfeld is likely to discover. Western Europeans are dead-set against President Bush's proposal to build a system that would protect the United States from a missile attack, because they fear it will make them more vulnerable.

Another source of friction is the decision of the European Union (EU) to form its own military to handle crises that NATO won't touch. The move has sparked U.S. worries that an all-European army might further undermine a half-century of trans-Atlantic unity already frayed by European fears that Bush will withdraw U.S. forces from Kosovo and Bosnia.

Although the United States still dominates NATO, Europe is ''much less willing to subordinate itself to U.S. demands,'' says James Goldgeier, a NATO expert at George Washington University in Washington. ''It is not the junior partner anymore.''

Rumsfeld's meetings with European leaders and defense ministers, the first by a Bush Cabinet member, are expected be polite but pointed. The key disputes:

Missile defense. U.S. officials say a missile-defense system would intercept warheads launched by outlaw states such as Iraq. Europeans say it would antagonize Russia and China, which worry about a new U.S. military advantage, and leave Europe to fend for itself. Bush has pledged to develop a broad system that would protect Europe, too, but that has not assuaged the allies.

At his Senate confirmation hearing last month, Rumsfeld called the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, which bans missile defenses, ''ancient history.'' The Europeans disagree. They say scrapping the treaty would undermine global security and rile Russia, which also says a missile defense would violate the ABM treaty.

''In our opinion, NMD [national missile defense] cannot fail to relaunch the arms race in the world,'' French President Jacques Chirac said this week.

Even so, at his first briefing with Pentagon reporters last week, Rumsfeld previewed the blunt message he will carry to Munich: ''The president has not been ambiguous about this. He says he intends to deploy a defense capability for the country.''

European army. Rumsfeld told senators at his confirmation hearing that ''anything that damages the NATO cohesion would be unwise.'' He was referring to the EU's rapid-reaction force, a 60,000-member army planned for 2003 that would handle regional crises that NATO might steer clear of because of U.S. opposition.

U.S. officials have long urged NATO allies to shoulder more of the burden for Europe's security. But that message went unheeded until the Kosovo war, when U.S. forces overshadowed Europe's armies. American pilots flew most of the airstrikes against Serbia, and the Pentagon supplied the lion's share of precision-guided weapons, communications and logistics.

Since then, Europeans have viewed the creation of their own defense force as a natural next step in the continent's move toward economic and political unification. It is unclear how the new force will relate to NATO. France has pushed to make decisions separate from NATO. Britain and Germany have insisted that the rapid-reaction troops remain part of the alliance.

The dispute suggests a budding rivalry between NATO and an all-European force. One European official says the United States can't have it both ways: insisting that Europe upgrade its militaries while complaining that such moves might be divisive.

British Maj. Gen. Graham Messervy-Whiting, who heads the new European military staff, confirmed U.S. concerns this week when he said that once his force beefs up its capabilities, ''there will have to be a critical conversation between the European Union and NATO over who takes on what.''

Rumsfeld will seek assurances that the new force doesn't lead to a breakup of NATO.

Peacekeeping. The defense secretary will continue fence-mending that began during the presidential campaign when Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, who has the same job in the White House, suggested that U.S. troops should leave the Balkans. Bush aides were quickly dispatched to qualm European jitters. Rumsfeld plans to emphasize that the United States will not withdraw any of its 11,000 troops from Kosovo or Bosnia without consulting allies. U.S. troops make up 15 percent of the peacekeepers in Kosovo.

Secretary of State Colin Powell amplified the U.S. commitment in the Balkans during a meeting with Macedonian and Romanian leaders. Powell told them that U.S. policy in the region is under review but there is no plan to ''cut and run'' from peacekeeping duties, according to the State Department.

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