EU Referendum

Showing posts with label NATO. Show all posts

EU+afghan[i-EU+afghan]The EU, via Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt, whose country holds the rotating presidency, has been very quick to condemn Friday's disastrous air strike, reported to have killed over 50 people, after a US F-15E was called in by German forces near the northern city of Kunduz to destroy two fuel tankers hijacked by the Taleban.

Estimates vary, but up to two dozen may have been civilians unrelated to the insurgents, who had gathered around the tankers, helping to move them after they had become stuck on a small island in the middle of the Kunduz River. Others may have been there simply to help themselves to free fuel.

The alacrity with which the EU has acted may have something to do with allegations in the Washington Post that the German tactical team did not follow Nato/ISAF procedures before authorising the strike.

It is the German involvement, however, that may be particularly sensitive as this contingent – perhaps more than any other – is most closely associated with the EU. Its Army vehicles often sport the EU's "ring of stars" (picture), and Germany is fronting the EU Police Mission in Afghanistan.

With the close identification between the EU and German forces, there is a very real danger that the peace-loving EU is now seen as the killer of peace-loving Afghani citizens who had so innocently gathered at two in the morning to attend upon the stricken tankers.

Needless to say, the German forces have not covered themselves in glory, refusing to attend the scene until the following afternoon – after the dead bodies and other evidence had long been cleared from the site. And neither did they impress General McChrystal who, defying German suggestions that the area was too dangerous, drove to the bombing site to carry out his own investigation and hold a press conference.

Latterly, we are told that the British government has given up hope of any more Nato (i.e., EU) help in Afghanistan. Given their current performance, however, few will express any great disappointment, as – apart from a very few honourable exceptions – their "assistance" is proving more of a liability than an asset.

COMMENT THREAD

Mi-26+056[i-Mi-26+056]One of the most bizarre episodes most recently carried on this blog was the news of the Mi-26 crash in Sangin last month, not only for the dubious history of the operator, but also for the fact that the MSM did not touch the story.

However, there was a brief flurry of interest when later that month an Mi-8 crashed at Kandahar airbase, killing 18, but there was absolutely nothing written about the operator, Vertikal-T, which also has a very dubious history.

As to the British use of these helicopters, it is assumed, inter alia that these rather dubious operators were employed for their willingness to take risks and, especially, for their cheapness. However, it has also been admitted that the MoD does not deal directly with these operators but hires the helicopters through an intermediate company, Skylink, yet another operator with an extremely dubious history.

But what now emerges from unlikely source is the actual cost of these helicopters. This comes from a private background briefing note being used by MoD press officers for when they talk to the media about helicopters, where it is revealed that the contract "provides 340 hrs at a cost of around £3.9M per month" (figures the defence secretary would never give to Parliament).

More on Defence of the Realm.

Later today I shall try to write about what might or might not have happened in Georgia yesterday and the whole row about Russian diplomats and NATO. For the moment, it is worth noting that NATO exercises in Georgia are going ahead without the participation of four countries: Armenia, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Serbia.

Moldova has the odd problem or two of its own at the moment and the other three, presumably, do not want to antagonize Russia.

One hates to be rude about supposed allies but one cannot help asking whether the absence of those particular ones is of any importance. Far more important is the fact that the exercises are being carried out at Georgia’s Vaziani military base, where they took place in mid-July of last year, three weeks before the Russo-Georgian war.

COMMENT THREAD

Cartoons[i-Cartoons]... President Obama backing Turkey's membership of the EU will be seen as unwonted interference in European affairs. After all, whenever President Bush made statements of that kind, there was outrage in the land.

Then again, there seems to be no outrage or sneering contempt at the fact that the self-same ultra-brilliant President Obama thinks that they speak Austrian in Austria. Somebody should tell the highly internationally minded statesman that the language they speak in that country is German. [You have to scroll right down to the last question but one since most of the questions at the top were from American rather than European journalists.]

Fausta reports that there are likely to be some bad feeling in the Czech Republic though, presumably, President Klaus will not be given an iPod with President Obama's speeches.

We shall have more of what has come out of the NATO Summit and the various negotiations behind the scenes. For the moment let us just report that Turkey has dropped her objection to the Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who will be the next Secretary-General of NATO. (In Denmark he will be succeeded in the prime ministerial position by the Finance Minister, Loekke Rasmussen. Makes it relatively easy for bloggers to have prime ministers of the same surname succeeding each other.)

According to the BBC in language that reminds one of teenage girls talking about pop stars, it was the "charm and intervention of President Obama" that secured Turkey's approval. However, there are persistent rumours that the first thing the new SecGen of NATO will have to apologize for those cartoons in Istanbul. The BBC story hints at it without specifying whether it was President Obama who insisted on it. There is more on that on Hot Air.

This will really help the anti-Islamist cause whether in the West or in Turkey itself. And to think that we used to think Anders Fogh Rasmussen to be one of the few honourable leaders in Western Europe.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin who is, understandably, unhappy at the idea of an apology for those cartoons, links to the Reuters story that quotes Former Prime Minister and NATO SecGen elect Rasmussen "falling short of the full apology expected by Turkey".

Actually, the story hints that the row over the cartoons was just the cover and the real meat of the argument was Turkey wanting to extract one or two other promises from President Obama.

The row over his appointment, which threatened the image of unity at NATO's 60th anniversary summit, was resolved after Obama guaranteed Turkish commanders would be present at the alliance's command and that one of Rasmussen's deputies would be a Turk.

There has always been a very practical side to Turkish politicians. One can but applaud.

NATO[i-NATO]Undoubtedly we shall be writing a great deal about NATO as it celebrates (if that is quite the right word) its 60th anniversary. Here is a small taster: a discussion on RFE/RL of the French Defence Minister's assertions that the organization should abandon its global role and return to its roots with one significant difference - it should not antagonize Russia.

The original aims of NATO, as some of our readers will recall, were to keep America in, Germany down and Russia out. France and Germany seem to have a very selective memory when it comes to those original ideas. One could argue that this rather incoherent attitude led almost directly from last year's summit in April in Brussels (here and here) led directly to the Russian invasion of Georgia in August.

While the discussion with comments from Washington experts is very interesting, we should like to hear from those people exactly what the new policy towards Russia should be. Specifically, it would be nice if Ted Galen Carpenter explained why he thinks that it was the Bush Administration that caused the rise of Putin and what the Obama Administration can do to counteract that, without, we hope, simply rolling over and letting Russia play the big bully in the playground?

COMMENT THREAD

Sarkozy_Medvedev[i-Sarkozy_Medvedev]It seems incredible but President Sarkozy still seems to think that he has some kind of a role to play in the crisis in the Caucasus. He keeps running around, accepting Russian peace offers and cease-fire deals and then finding that there is not the slightest intention on the Russian side of fulfilling the obligations that they themselves propose. I must say, it is not entirely clear why the Russians keep playing this game unless, as some analysts have been suggesting, there are splits among the various leaders, military and civilian and, above all, between former President, now Prime Minister, Putin and his teddy bear.

Reuters entitles the news item "Russia starts Georgia pullout" but this is a little misleading. Russia is not starting anything of the kind; she is merely promising to do so.

Russian troops will pull back from Georgia's heartland by the end of this week, the Kremlin said on Tuesday, but NATO said it was freezing contacts with Moscow until all Russian forces were out of the country.

This reminds one of the very popular Russian word, which has flummoxed many a Western businessman: сейчас (seychas). Its direct meaning is this minute (or this hour if you wish to be pedantic) but, in actual fact, it conveys a sense of urgency that is just inferior to the Spanish mañana. Yes, yes, yes, we're going, we're going.

So the soft power of the EU has failed and President Sarkozy's readiness to go along with whatever President Medvedev told him has achieved nothing. To be fair, as Joel J. Sparayregen has pointed out on American Thinker, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a Russian expert in her academic days, has faltered at first as well. Unlike President Sarkozy, she has acknowledged it and American demands have become tougher as has NATO's stance, though there is no mention of Georgia becoming a member in the near future. On the other hand, if the near future includes Russian troops on Georgian soil, that might be quite a wise precaution.

The near and mid-term future will, it seems, include missiles positioned in South Ossetia and, possibly, Abkhazia, pointing at Georgia, in order to protect the Russian citizens of those two regions. Since they are now unlikely to be anything but part of Russia, the protections seems excessive.

Almost certainly Russia will institute one of her economic blockades of Georgia. After all, we cannot have the latter being economically successful as that would humiliate Russia.

The latest prediction is that Russian forces will pull back to prearranged positions by August 22, just about the fortieth anniversary of the invasion of Czechoslovakia, but this will not mean simply going back to Russia and South Ossetia but staying in the "buffer zone", that is 14 kilometres beyond the border inside Georgia itself. It would appear that the French negotiators thought this was perfectly reasonable. Then again, did they have an option if nobody was prepared to use stronger methods? G8? Well, no, G7, I think.

CNN entitles its analysis rather whimsically “NATO grapples with angry bear”. In itself, the analysis tells us nothing new. America, Britain, most of the former Soviet colonies and, one assumes, Denmark and Canada are calling for tougher measures; France, Germany and Italy are cowering and chattering about keeping channels open. What that means is anybody’s guess. After all, nobody is suggesting never talking to Russia again.

It is unfortunate that CNN goes along with the analysis that Russia and her self-appointed supporters have managed to feed into the public discourse:

But western ministers, it seems, have only just taken aboard how angry a resurgent Russia, traditionally fearful of encirclement, has been about the U.S. missile defense plan with installations in Poland and the Czech Republic, about the steady eastward march of NATO and the EU, and about the West's ready endorsement of Kosovo's breakaway from Russia's allies in Serbia.

Largely this is tosh. The missile defence plan is no threat to Russia and the former Soviet colonies became members of NATO because they were afraid of the bear. In other words, they are not surprised by the latest developments because they have always expected something like this.

There has never been the slightest indication that Russia cared much about Serbia as the Serbs have vociferously complained about and Kosovo is of little importance to them. The plan to use South Ossetia to threaten and invade Georgia has been maturing for, at least, five years when those Russian passports were first handed out.

Somehow, the myth of the resurgent, angry and humiliated Russia seems to have taken hold. I am in the process of writing a long posting on the subject so shall hold my fire till then but I may add that if Russia is afraid of encirclement then the country she is most fearful of is China.

When it comes to invasion from the east, Monty’s saying of the three rules of war do not apply. Mostly, these have been successful and Russia knows it. A little reported recent development was a border agreement signed between the two countries on July 21, which is returning 174 sq km of territory to China.

The areas to be returned - the Yinlong Island (Tarabarov Island) and half of the Heixiazi Island (Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island) - are territories the former Soviet Union occupied during a 1929 border skirmish.

They are located at the confluence of the Heilongjiang and Wusulijiang rivers that serve as a natural border between the two countries.

Following years of negotiations, the two sides signed an agreement for the return of the areas in October 2004 when Vladimir Putin, then Russian President visited Beijing.

After that, the two neighbors spent three years of negotiations on delineation.

Curiously enough, this was not much reported in Russia, either.

The Eurasian Daily Monitor, which has been following the growing crisis in Georgia long before most of the Western media and politicians realized there was anything to follow (as it happens we have written about it a few times ourselves, here for instance) gives a more detailed analysis of the non-withdrawal and the rings President Medvedev has been running round President Sarkozy.

COMMENT THREAD

Putin+007[i-Putin+007]On this blog we have always maintained that former President, now Prime Minister, Putin and his teddy bear (mishka), President Medvedev tend to be less than adroit when it comes to foreign adventures, whether attempts to bully and blackmail or, as has now happened, actual military invasion (and no, I do not mean South Ossetia, which has been under Russian occupation for something like ten years).

Chancellor Merkel, who led the nay-sayers during the last NATO Summit in Sofia, and thus may be said to have helped to precipitate the crisis in the Caucasus, has now changed her mind. She is reported by AP as saying that Georgia is strongly on track to becoming a member of NATO, which is not entirely logical but there you are.

Her comments, as reported by AP are not precisely accurate. It is not an EU ceasefire we are talking about but a Russian one that they keep offering but never quite keeping to. The EU has not precisely covered itself with glory. Also, the state of the Georgian military is not entirely clear. There are several opinions, some maintaining that the Russians did not have a totally easy ride.

Meanwhile, thanks to Glenn Reynolds on Instapundit, we learn that

Ukraine has agreed to take part in a missile defence system designed by the United States to protect Western countries. The government in Kiev defended its decision for military co-operation with the West, saying Russia cancelled a bilateral treaty with Ukraine earlier this year.

No doubt, this will be interpreted by all the Kremlin-lovers, since they cannot be described as Russia-lovers, as a "humilation" for Russia.

Whatever one calls it, this is not precisely what Mr Putin had intended, one assumes. Some things have changed in the last forty years. Time for Russia's rulers to understand that.

COMMENT THREAD

natoflag[i-natoflag]We have already written about one rather unfortunate aspect of the Bucharest NATO summit, Germany and France acting as proxies for Russia in internal discussions. I still find it astonishing that so many British commentators (Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Anatole Kaletsky via the excellent CharlesCrawford.biz spring to mind) found it necessary to applaud the situation and to emphasise how important it is that Russia’s worries should be taken into account.

When they say Russia, they mean the Kremlin and as Edward Lucas has pointed out in his book “The New Cold War”, the Kremlin menaces both the West and Russia itself. Pandering either to their foot-stamping bullying or to their whining victim mentality does not help Russia or the Russians. It helps the Kremlin and the siloviki in it to consolidate their power.

From the immediate point of view of Western Europe, Britain and NATO the worrying aspect is, as Mr Lucas points out in his book and in the many talks he has given on the subject, Russia’s ability to use her gas supply and her bullying tactics to divide and rule. We have now reached the stage that in matters of international politics some members of NATO and, let us recall, of the EU respond with the question “how high” when President (soon to be Prime Minister) Putin says “jump”.

Mr Lucas thinks that the answer is a stronger EU who will stand up to Russia on matters of energy security, that not being NATO’s remit. He advanced this theory again in very strong terms in a talk-cum-discussion that took place at a club for journalists on Tuesday.

Unfortunately, for Mr Lucas’s theory, in my opinion, and I did suggest this to him as well, his own examples belie it. Clearly, Germany, backed by France, possibly Spain and certainly the Benelux countries would like nothing more than putting pressure on the East European and Baltic countries in order to stop them complaining about Russian bullying and demands.

Equally clearly if the EU does manage to have a single voice on these matters, it is much more likely to be the voice of those “pragmatic” countries together with one or two others who have decided to succumb to Russian pressure. The only reason why Europe does stand up to Russia when that country’s leadership tries to throw its weight around, mostly to produce a sense of isolation and siege mentality among the people, is that the uppity Balts and East Europeans refuse to become part of a single European voice.

It would appear that NATO is now entering a similar phase. After the great Franco-German triumph of acting as proxies for Mr Putin came the more official statements that told a slightly different story of President Bush being closer to getting what the United States wanted than Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy, not to mention Prime Minister Zapatero may have realized.

This is not the first time that matters panned out in that way. As we wrote last November in connection with a projected trip to Washington by Chancellor Merkel, whose purpose was to sort out President Bush on Iran:

It seems unlikely that she will succeed. President Bush has a track record of seemingly agreeing with his European “instructors” and then doing exactly what he thinks is right. Remember the much-vaunted Merkel victory over climate change? When the dust settled (well, there is rather a lot of it what with global warming and all) it became obvious that the agreement was really along the lines the United States had advocated for some time.

Putin_NATO[i-Putin_NATO]We predict that Chancellor Merkel and her husband will come back, basking in the success of her mission, only to find that she had been once again diddled by the “Texas cowboy”.

And so it came to pass. Who can even recall what that conversation was about?

In the same posting we asked where Britain with her then relatively new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was in all the negotiations President Bush was conducting. We might ask the same question now. Where does Prime Minister Brown stand on all the issues that split NATO in Bucharest a few days ago?

Meanwhile, Vladimir Socor of the highly regarded Jamestown Foundation has been parsing the outcome of the summit, with special regard to what it might mean to Ukraine and Georgia. He came up with an interesting analysis.

While postponing a decision on a Membership Action Plan (MAP) for those two countries, a plan, incidentally that does not mean membership but a long process towards it, as Russia’s proxies failed to make clear, the Alliance did commit itself clearly to “to the political and strategic goal of Ukrainian and Georgian membership in the Alliance”.

This is what the official statement said:

NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO. Both nations have made valuable contributions to Alliance operations. We welcome the democratic reforms in Ukraine and Georgia and look forward to free and fair parliamentary elections in Georgia in May. MAP is the next step for Ukraine and Georgia on their direct way to membership. Today we make clear that we support these countries’ applications for MAP.

Therefore we will now begin at a high political level to address the questions still outstanding, pertaining to their MAP applications. We have asked Foreign Ministers to make a first assessment of progress at their December 2008 meeting. Foreign Ministers have the authority to decide on the MAP applications of Ukraine and Georgia.

There is no timetable for the membership application, much less fulfilment but there would have been no suggestion of a timetable with MAP anyway. For all of that, we have a definite commitment and a plan whereby the MAP application can be decided without another summit. The Foreign Ministers can do so by themselves, though it is likely that the German and French ones will continue holding out at the December 2008 meeting.

As Vladimir Socor points out this is the first time NATO has announced a political commitment to the future membership of two countries. This is not, one assumes, what Chancellor Merkel, President Sarkozy and their followers wanted. At present it looks like a victory for the supporters of Georgia’s and Ukraine’s membership and another blow to European solidarity with Russia losing another diplomatic round as a result of serious miscalculations on President Putin's part.

The following day Mr Socor returned to the subject. In it he pointed out that once again the new members paid a crucial part by refusing to align themselves with Old Europe:

Aligned with the United States, Canada and two small West European countries, the new members formed the critical mass that opened NATO’s door to Ukraine and Georgia.

The article gives further details of the way the countries lined up:

The new member countries’ informal alignment on this issue is a natural follow-up to the Vilnius Ten process, in which these countries had earlier joined forces as aspirants to NATO membership. Launched in 1999, the Vilnius Ten process culminated in the accession of seven countries to NATO as full members in 2004 (the Baltic states, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria). The group of earlier entrants--Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary--was closely involved with the Vilnius Ten all along. Two more participants in that process, Croatia and Albania, were invited to commence accession procedures at the Bucharest summit.

The new member countries regard Ukraine’s and Georgia’s future as a matter of vital interest to themselves and to NATO. In the run-up to the summit they signed, alongside Canada (the United States remained in the background), a joint declaration urging approval of Ukrainian and Georgian MAPs in Bucharest. Only the Socialist-led Hungarian government, engaged in a mini-Ostpolitik of its own, dropped out of that group and joined the anti-MAP countries at the summit.

Denmark was set to sign the pro-MAP declaration ahead of the summit, but the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs persuaded its Danish counterpart to delay that gesture. Danish political leaders, however, prevailed; and the country joined the pro-MAP countries at the summit, as did Iceland. Against this backdrop, the work of U.S. President George W. Bush throughout the summit made the decisive difference for opening the door to Ukraine and Georgia.

So we ask again, where is Britain in all this? After all, this is an important issue. Maybe not as important as Britain’s role in Basra but quite high up. There is the question of NATO and its future role; the problem of Russia, how to deal with her aggressvie bullying and whether she will be able to put pressure on NATO members; the problem of stability and security in Eastern Europe and the Caspian. Do we, as a country, have a view?

Not really, it would seem.

Britain remained on the sidelines throughout the presummit and summit debate. Prime Minister Gordon Brown told Bush that his government was for the MAPs in principle, but would not pursue the issue. Moreover, “We are agnostic--if there is a consensus, we would agree, but we don’t support pushing for it now.”

Well, that’s just the way one expects the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to behave. Who would have thought that one might feel nostalgic for Tony Blair, who, at least, had some view on what he would like to see happening on the international scene. He was frequently muddled and found it hard to sort his thoughts out but he was aware of the fact that there were problems out there and they needed sorting.

For the first time in a very long period we have a Prime Minister who has absolutely no knowledge or understanding of foreign affairs. None at all.

While we are on the subject, where is our Parliament? Where is Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition? Is this not the sort of subject that should be debated? This is not EU competence so it should be taken seriously by our politicians and more seriously by our media, though to be fair the Times did say in its editorial on April 4

In this debate, one voice has been notably, embarrassingly, absent. Gordon Brown, attempting to sit on the fence, has missed a huge opportunity.

But the editorial came to no particular conclusions either except to assume, once again, that the United States and President Bush somehow are in need of British advice and guidance.

So the saga of NATO’s relationship with Russia and the countries around her will be played out without British participation and, it would seem, despite much of Old Europe taking a somewhat pusillanimous position.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski has already stated “that he wants Poland to maintain its veto over EU talks with Russia regarding a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement unless major West European EU states agree to put Ukraine and Georgia on a clear path to NATO membership”.

While State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Konstantin Kosachyov is quoted as hoping that other EU member states will not back this “senseless” proposal, the chances are that Russia will not be able to manipulate the whole of the EU through its proxies as it has not been able to manipulate NATO precisely because these organizations do not speak with one voice.

NATO+01[i-NATO+01]… and throw our allies to the Russians’ tender mercies. This NATO Summit has been a tad opaque and the precise agreements are still to be made clear. But the supporters of authoritarian Russia, sometimes disguised as opponents of world government but actually opponents of the West, can rejoice. Under German and French pressure NATO has thrown Ukraine and Georgia to the bear. President Bush’s attempts to put them on track to future and very distant membership of NATO has failed, though he is not, apparently giving up.

Germany, who is slowly putting itself completely into Russia’s hands by getting more and more of its gas and oil from that country, supported by France, whose supposedly pro-American president has reverted to type, managed to derail the process with support from other West European countries.

In effect, this is breaking NATO’s rule that no outside country can have a say in its composition. It is also ignoring the very real contribution that Georgia has made to the war on terror.

As AP rightly puts it, this was a big victory for President Putin, who is not precisely our ally and was achieved by a miracle of double-talk on the part of the German and French leaders.

While Russia has been selling arms to Iran Georgia has sent over 2,000 troops to Iraq. Stationed mostly in the Wasit province in the south-east, the force’s “main task is to stop weapons smuggled over the Iranian border from furnishing the arsenal of the insurgency”. Errm, one would expect to hear a bit more about that from the British around Basra.

No doubt this will be seen as a victory for those who are sane and sensible and do not want to see Russia unfriendly to the West. My own suspicion is that it will make absolutely no difference. Russia will now demand something else – perhaps pressure on the Baltic States – and will give nothing in return.

Suppose that country continues to be unfriendly? So what? What do we get out of friendship with Russia, anyway?

Nobody is suggesting a break in diplomatic relations. War is not on the cards, especially not with the Russian military machine in need of heavy overhauling.

Business relations are likely to go on souring because of the cavalier way with which the Russian government treats contracts with foreign investors.

That leaves gas. This needs a separate posting (another one) but the truth is that Russia as a purveyor of gas needs Western Europe as customer as much as Western Europe needs it. What will Gazprom do with the gas if it stops selling it? Drink it?

Sell it to China, I hear people say. Hmmm. Maybe. Sometime. In the future. When there is a pipeline. And if Russia produces enough oil and gas to satisfy the domestic market, fulfil existing contracts and open up new markets.

Combining state ownership with an authoritarian government has resulted in self-censorship, favor-based promotions rather than competence-based promotions, and power struggles between competing clans that are holding back progress on a range of projects in exploration, production, transportation and refining, the analyst said.

Reflecting that, only one new gas field - the Zapolyarnoye field, which came on stream in 2001 - has entered production since the 1980s, while various energy transportation projects are behind schedule, including the East Siberia-Pacific oil pipeline - now set to open a year later than planned, at the end of 2009.

This paralysis coincides with rising doubts about the sustainability of Russian production - running at close to 10 million barrels a day of oil and 850 billion cubic meters, or 30 trillion cubic feet, of gas in 2007, compared with 6 million barrels a day and less than 600 billion cubic meters in the 1990s.

Another country that has not been particularly pro-Western but is always demanding favours is Greece. Right now, it is demanding that Macedonia not be admitted to NATO until it changes its name because its refusal to do so shows that it has designs on parts of Greece. Nobody but the Greek political establishment has managed to notice this fact but the foot-stamping was enough for NATO not to invite Macedonia to become a member as Albania and Croatia have been, until it sorts out the problem of the name with Greece.

One could argue, and probably this blog would do so that taking in various countries who cannot contribute much to NATO and whose security services are dubious is not the best idea. But this decision should not be taken because Greece throws another wobbly.

Still, one victory was achieved and it is surprising that all those who tremble at Russia’s displeasure have agreed to it. Perhaps, President Bush can manage the odd diplomatic agreement.

President Bush won NATO's endorsement Thursday for his plan to build a missile defense system in Europe over Russian objections. The proposal also advanced with Czech officials announcing an agreement to install a missile tracking site for the system in their country.

There will be further news from this summit but I cannot wait to hear Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy extol the Europeans standing up to the United States as being the birth of a common foreign policy. If they can remember, that is, what famous victory they achieved.

alexander_the_great[i-alexander_the_great]Well, actually, this is not for children either because the average child is considerably more sensible and mature than certain politicians. Yes, I am talking about the Balkans again, though not about Kosovo so everybody can go back to sleep again.

There is a sort of a joke about political, social and academic meetings to do with Balkan countries and regions that all you have to say is “Macedonia. What do you think?” to start a fracas that may well lead to fisticuffs.

As part of the break-up of Yugoslavia, as created in 1918 as opposed to the one that was around for a few years after 1998 (no, this is still not about Kosovo), Macedonia became an independent republic. Or, to be quite precise, it became independent of the other Yugoslav republics, specifically, of Serbia.

As it happens, the Yugoslav wars did not affect Macedonia heavily, despite the fact that it had voted for independence in 1991 until the very end when there was a spot of trouble with Albanians, particularly refugees from Kosovo. (Woops, I did mention it after all.)

That seems to have been sorted out by NATO in 2001 and Macedonia’s existence as an independent state would have carried on with little attention being paid to it from the rest of the world (that does not include other Balkan nations, their politicians and, above all, their academics) but for one fact.

Greece announced that it cannot acknowledge that there could be such a country as Macedonia as it was properly a northern province of Greece. Alexander of Macedonia, they said grandly, did not speak a Slavic language. No, he did not but he did not speak modern Greek either. (This is quite a useful summary of the convoluted ancient history of that area.)

By 2005 the country was officially a candidate for European Union membership under the name the Greeks have been insisting on, which is Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia or FYROM. Understandably, that name was abandoned by all but EU officials and Greek politicians and the country is known as Macedonia by everyone else.

Now the subject has come up again as Macedonia, together with Albania and Croatia are due to be invited to apply for NATO membership. As it happens I think that full membership is probably not the most sensible idea for those countries, as they are unlikely to contribute much. But then, how much does Greece contribute?

In any case, Greece is objecting to Macedonia being included because of the name. The argument is now somewhat different. Gone are the references to Alexander the Great of Philip of Macedon. Welcome modern Greece as the perennial victim.

Athens objects to its neighbour taking the name of a northern Greek region. It says the name implies a territorial claim on the region, which Macedonia denies.

The Greek Foreign Minister, Dora Bakoyannis, made a rather convoluted statement:

Unfortunately the policy followed by the government of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in its relations with Greece, particularly as concerns its intransigent stance and its actions of an irredentist and nationalist logic, do not allow Greece to take the same positive stance as in the case of Croatia and Albania.

A UN envoy is trying to find a compromise solution. Sending the Greek Foreign Minister to clear out the art cupboard and not come back until she is ready to shake hands sounds like quite a good idea.

CND+march.02[i-CND+march.02]It looks a little as if the adolescents may find themselves without parental aid and support sooner than they thought. Not that the Americans are withdrawing from the European commitments they faithfully kept to throughout the Cold War. Deary me, no. They are merely realigning their installations.

According to the Department of Defense press release

With the U.S. European Command’s force structure realignment and transformation, it was determined that RAF West Ruislip and RAF Daws Hill are no longer required.

These will now be returned to the host nation though what it will do with them is anybody’s guess. Perhaps turn them into global warming theme parks.

One would guess that there will be quite a lot of force structure realignment and transformation in Europe in the next few years up to and including a complete disappearance of the force, which will no longer be with us.

It is true that in the teeth of smug opposition, Prime Minister Blair wants Britain to be part of the new Missile Defence System and several of the East European countries have also expressed strong interest, despite the inevitable and rather synthetic Russian anger. But Angela Merkel has been rather busy in her latest round of travels (she still finds it rather hard to stay at home for more than a week or so) trying to get European countries to oppose it.

No Missile Defence System and lots of force structure realignment. Well, it won’t hurt the European countries to realize that choices have to be made. It’s called growing up.

COMMENT THREAD

Ilves[i-Ilves]Small European nations, such as the three Baltic states, cannot easily sustain the cost of maintaining a dual defence arrangement with Nato and the European Union.

So said Estonian President Toomas Ilves (pictured), at a press conference in Helsinki with Finnish President Tarja Halonen, both leaders agreeing that the best solution for nations like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is for the EU to increase collaboration with Nato and establish a joint approach to European defence systems.

This is according to Defense News which has Ilves complaining that, while large European countries might be able to afford a dual system, the smaller ones cannot. Estonia, for instance, is both a Nato member and a nation within the EU. "In defence terms," he says, "this demands we dedicate time and resources to our Nato role and EU defence systems. This is costly for small nations. The vital dimension is that the EU and NATO must collaborate more closely."

This blows apart any claim that the EU defence identity is complementary to Nato, simply providing an alternative political framework for deploying the same military forces in areas where there is no Nato interest.

Hence does the Estonian president complain that it makes no sense for Europe to have two powerful parallel organisations that have "little contact with each other." He believes it would be much better "if small European nations could co-ordinate their defence arrangements with a single European defence organisation, rather than having to budget for two parallel organisations."

"National defence costs are rising at a time when European nations are being called upon to support Nato's international crisis missions and contribute to the EU's rapid response forces," added the Finnish president. "The issue of dual defence arrangements is one that needs to be examined."

This is, of course, precisely the issue to which we have been drawing attention for some time, so it is helpful to get formal acknowledgement that Nato EU members are having to finance what amounts to two separate defence polities.

This has been evident in the British struggle to support the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, while also building up the incompatible equipment and structures needed to meet the specifications for the European Rapid Reaction Force.

One area where Ilves is wrong, though, is in believing that large European countries can necessarily afford a dual system. The UK cannot afford huge white elephants like the Eurofighter, and it cannot afford two carrier groups and the Army's FRES programme, and support two wards, all on the current defence budget.

Our government has to admit that this, and – if it is going to maintain its commitments to Iraq and Afghanistan – cut back its support for building a European defence identity. Otherwise, it must put much more money into the defence budget and come clean with the British public, identifying the additional expenditures as part of the price of further European integration.

COMMENT THREAD

Liam+Fox[i-Liam+Fox]“Stop the Overstretch in the Armed Forces”, says the headline on the official Conservative website in that rather unappealing green they have taken to using. Dr Fox, Tory spokesman on defence, has been attacking the Labour government for overstretching and underfunding our forces.

So far so good, though he does not seem to have any concrete suggestions as to what the Conservatives might do about this state of affairs but then, it is hard to give definite undertakings or precise figures at this stage of the electoral cycle.

Dr Fox also has a go at NATO allies who do not pull their weight.

He also criticised other NATO governments for not pulling their weight in operations, and called for powers to suspend them if they fail to contribute as promised. Accusing Germany, Italy and Spain of "not fully playing their role" in bolstering Alliance forces in Afghanistan, he said: "We may require more troops but I don't see why that has to be British troops. We are more than shouldering our load."

That is the end of the piece on Conservatives.com and one has to go to the Yorkshire Post to find out what else did the bouncy little lad say.

"Where we have Nato operations taking place, the country that carries out any specific mission is the one that pays for it.

"When I was in Poland and Hungary in the last few weeks, I was complaining to them that they have come into Nato, pocketed the security guarantee and have cut the defence spending.

"We will seek, when we come to Government, to reach an agreement with our Nato partners to be able to suspend Nato members who do not spend the levels of funding that we agreed.

"It is not acceptable that British taxpayers and British armed forces should carry the burden of those who are members of Nato who want the collective security guarantee but are not going to pay for it."

This, dear readers, is known technically as tosh.

First of all, there is no such thing as an agreed level of funding in NATO. We have all seen Jaap De Hoop Scheffer, the SecGen of NATO travel round the capitals with a begging bowl in his hands to increase troop levels here or there, notably Afghanistan.

Secondly, the one country that did respond to the latest appeal for the aforementioned country was Poland, who also has troops in Iraq, as does Hungary. Does Dr Fox not know this? His hosts in those countries must have been superlatively polite not to point certain facts out.

COMMENT THREAD