DATE=12/15/1999
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=YEARENDER: NATO CHALLENGES
NUMBER=5-45010
BYLINE=ANDRE DE NESNERA
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:

INTRO:  This past year, the North Atlantic Treaty 
Organization - or NATO - waged a war, elected a new 
secretary-general and celebrated half a century of 
existence.  In this report, National Security 
Correspondent Andre de Nesnera looks at the main 
developments surrounding NATO in the past 12 months 
and some of the challenges facing the alliance in the 
months ahead.

TEXT:  During most of 1999, NATO was at the forefront 
of international news.

For 78 days, NATO planes hit targets in the Yugoslav 
province of Kosovo - the western alliance's first 
offensive military campaign against a sovereign state.  
NATO's goal was to end what western officials 
described as Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's 
ethnic cleansing campaign against the Kosovar 
Albanians.

This past year, the western alliance also expanded its 
membership from 16 to 19 nations, taking in three 
former Warsaw Pact states: Poland, Hungary and the 
Czech Republic.  NATO marked its 50th anniversary by 
holding a summit meeting in Washington D-C and elected 
former British Defense Secretary George Robertson as 
its new Secretary-General, replacing Javier Solana - 
who became Europe's first high representative for 
Security and Foreign Policy.

Paul Beaver - senior analyst with the British 
publication "Jane's Defense Weekly" - says Mr. 
Robertson is the perfect choice for NATO's top job 
because he is accepted by all sides and is seen as a 
tough and pragmatic operator.

            /// BEAVER ACT ///

      He has, after all, had to suffer 25 years of the 
      Scottish Labor Party in the United Kingdom - 
      perhaps the most fractious and fractured 
      political party in Britain - and he has got 
      through that with flying colors.  He has got 
      through Kosovo so well. He has struck up a very 
      good relationship with Bill Cohen, the U-S 
      defense secretary, with his French opposite 
      number, with his German opposite number, with 
      his Italian opposite number.  They all respect 
      him.

            /// END ACT ///

Western military analysts say Mr. Robertson faces 
tough challenges at NATO's helm.  One of his tasks in 
the months ahead is to mend relations with Russia 
following the Kosovo campaign.  Moscow strongly 
criticized NATO's military operation in the Yugoslav 
province and broke off high-level contacts with the 
western alliance as a result of the bombing.  Russian 
officials have also been very critical of NATO's 
expansion eastward, seeing it as a direct threat to 
the country's security.

In a recent V-O-A interview, Secretary Robertson made 
clear he will work hard to ease tensions between NATO 
and Russia stemming from Kosovo and enlargement.

            /// ROBERTSON ACT ///

      Russia's concerns are based in many ways on 
      misconceptions about NATO's role.  NATO is not 
      interested in offensive capabilities.  It is a 
      defense organization and always has been.  And 
      therefore, by bringing in these new countries 
      into membership of the Atlantic Alliance, we 
      stabilize many of the areas around Russia's 
      borders.  We have given a degree of certainty 
      and predictability to Russia's relations with 
      its neighbors.  So I will seek to reassure 
      Russia that NATO enlargement has got benefits 
      for Russia in terms of that stability it will 
      produce.  And I hope eventually they will see 
      there is reason in that, just as I believe they 
      have come to see that the last round of 
      enlargement did not produce any of the fears 
      they had anticipated.

            /// END ACT ///

Mr. Robertson says invitations to join NATO's next 
round of expansion will probably be issued during the 
alliance's summit meeting in 2002.

Analysts say in addition to Russia and enlargement, 
the western alliance faces other challenges in the 
years ahead.  NATO expert George Perkovich says one of 
those involves the exact role to be played by Europe 
and the United States in an ever-expanding alliance.

            /// PERKOVICH ACT ///

      There is a tension growing between the United 
      States and France and Germany and other key NATO 
      actors - and that tension is around the U-S 
      effort, sometimes, to unilaterally dictate world 
      politics and policies and a growing resistance 
      and resentment toward that from the (European) 
      continent.  So how that plays in NATO will be 
      very interesting.  That is of a piece with the 
      American frustration with the European allies 
      for not spending enough money on defense and not 
      having defense forces that are compatible enough 
      with the U-S, to the point where the U-S feels 
      it has to do all the military work.  And so 
      between those two sets of issues, there is a lot 
      of potential for tension and disharmony over the 
      coming years.

            /// END ACT ///

In the V-O-A interview, Secretary Robertson made clear 
Europe must bear more of the military burden - in his 
words - to rebalance NATO and make the alliance much 
more effective than it is today. (Signed)

NEB/ADEN/JP




15-Dec-1999 14:49 PM EDT (15-Dec-1999 1949 UTC)
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Source: Voice of America
.