The North Atlantic Treaty Organization appears set to embrace a radically new military posture and strategy that would profoundly alter the shape and mission of the world's most significant military alliance, according to NATO officials here and government officials in a half-dozen European capitals.
In a series of interviews, these officials said the planned changes -- on the agenda of a NATO summit in Prague beginning Nov. 21 -- could remake the alliance more significantly than the other major item on the agenda, the admission of seven new members from Eastern Europe. A consensus on their entry was reached last summer, but invitations will be issued officially only during the Prague meeting.
Most dramatically, the NATO heads of government could announce creation of a multi-national rapid deployment force of about 21,000 troops that would allow NATO to operate quickly and effectively against new enemies far from Europe, the area NATO was formed to protect against the Soviet Union 53 years ago. NATO members may also announce commitments to acquire new aircraft and equipment that would make this an effective force and allow it to deploy on a week's notice.
"We're deconstructing the old NATO to build a new one to meet the threat of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction," said Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to the alliance.
Burns is one of a group of NATO officials pressing for changes they believe will preserve its importance . That means being willing and able to confront threats to the security of NATO members wherever they arise -- very likely far from Europe. NATO's board of directors, the North Atlantic Council, quietly negotiated a new agreement to this effect earlier this year, which NATO foreign ministers ratified -- without attracting any publicity -- at a meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland, last spring.
After years of debate over whether NATO should operate "out of area," meaning out of Europe, the foreign ministers agreed that "NATO must be able to field forces that can move quickly to wherever they are needed" so the alliance can "more effectively respond collectively to any threat of aggression against a member state." This was an important step toward the new NATO rapid deployment force idea.
"It was done by stealth, but everyone was conscious of its significance," said a West European ambassador to NATO who asked to remain anonymous. "No one wanted it to become a controversial political matter at home." The accord was overshadowed by the announcement on the same day of a new agreement with Russia making it a kind of associate member through a new NATO-Russia joint council.
Officials from numerous nations involved in preparations for the Prague meeting expressed optimism that their intense but little-noticed diplomacy over the last year has produced broad agreement on the fundamental changes. The next step must be approved in Prague by the political leaders, who will consider an unusually ambitious agenda for such a meeting.
In addition to the anticipated admission of seven members and formation of a rapid deployment force, the officials said they foresee an announcement that groups of NATO members will jointly agree to lease U.S.-made tanker aircraft for in-flight refueling and long-range strategic air transports to carry troops to far-flung battlefields. Germany is key to the decision on leasing C-17 transports -- Berlin would take the lead, and pay the most, in this arrangement -- but the German government has not made a final decision, according to NATO diplomats.
Leaders at the Prague summit may also agree to acquire a fleet of JSTAR aircraft, which carry advanced electronics to track targets on the ground, to provide intelligence for NATO military operations. NATO diplomats are trying to reach final agreement on a plan for joint response to any nation's use of weapons of mass destruction -- biological, chemical or nuclear. Members may commit to fielding additional special forces troops, and to acquiring improved communications equipment to allow secure exchanges among NATO member forces. And they will announce plans to reduce the number of NATO commands and headquarters, and reorient the remaining ones to new tasks.
These initiatives have all been prompted by the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and the subsequent realization that the old NATO, a collective security organization designed to protect Western Europe against Soviet invasion, was at risk of becoming totally irrelevant in a world in which terrorism has become the principal strategic threat.
The decade-long dispute over whether the alliance should operate out-of-area has "fallen away," said Benoit D'Aboville, France's ambassador to NATO -- "fallen away with the twin towers." The French, long skeptical about collaboration with NATO outside Europe -- and often inside, too -- have changed their minds. "We think NATO is moving in the right direction," D'Aboville said in an interview here.
"NATO's credibility," said George Robertson, secretary general of the alliance, "comes from its capability." The Prague summit, he said, should give the alliance the tools it needs to remain relevant in a changed world.
NATO officials acknowledged that the agreements announced in Prague will be statements of intention. Actual implementation will have to be worked out over time and funded by member governments, and it will take several years to put new capabilities into action. Even with new capabilities, NATO will take action only when all its members agree to do so -- its traditional mode of operating by consensus. A military action against Iraq could provide an early test of sentiment for operations well beyond Europe.
On Sept. 12, 2001, NATO's European members had the exhilarating experience of reaching consensus on the need to invoke Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, the heart of the alliance. It calls on all members to respond to an attack on any member as if they had been attacked themselves. Article 5 was written to guarantee a U.S. military response to any Soviet offensive against Western Europe, so its invocation after a terrorist attack on the United States was both unexpected and sensational.
But then, nothing happened. The United States sought and received assistance from individual NATO members for the war in Afghanistan, but never formally responded to NATO's offer to help.
This led to "a kind of mutual remorse," said Robert Kupiecki, a diplomat in the Polish mission to NATO. "It left some bruises and some resentment," said Robertson. U.S. diplomats have apologized to NATO officials for the failure to respond more enthusiastically to the invocation of Article 5, according to several ambassadors here -- though civilian officials at the Pentagon did not join the apologies, said one envoy.
Anxiety about the Bush administration's true intentions toward the alliance is an undercurrent in NATO's current deliberations, according to several ambassadors here. "The real question is, what does the United States want from NATO?" said one ambassador, who entertained the possibility that the Bush administration really didn't want much. For their part, some U.S. officials, particularly at the Pentagon, have questioned whether an alliance governed by consensus will ever have the will or capability to take urgent military action.
Among NATO officials, "relevance" is a new catchword. For example, John McCallum, Canada's defense minister, said in an interview that a capable rapid reaction force under NATO command "guarantees relevance for NATO in the post-September 11 world."
The idea for this force of about 21,000 soldiers, to be contributed to by as many NATO countries as are willing, has caught on with surprising speed since the United States first floated the proposal through diplomatic channels last spring. Based in part on the enthusiastic response, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld formally suggested the force at a NATO defense ministers' meeting in Warsaw in September.
The force would be based on "niche contributions" from member states, including some of the weakest and least technologically advanced, according to architects of the plan.
For example, one official said, the Czech Republic could contribute its specialists on biological and chemical warfare; Romanians could contribute a specially trained mountain battalion, or military police.
These troops would be dedicated to a new NATO command, and would remain on call for rotations of six months, when they might be called into action on very short notice, and be able to sustain themselves in the field for a month. They would train together for joint operations and would be equipped with new technology to give them maximum flexibility and effectiveness.
The idea of niche contributions is popular not least because countries can make them without increasing defense spending, something most NATO members seem unprepared to do. The United States spends about 3.5 percent of gross domestic product on defense, but many European nations spend less than 2 percent, and show no appetite for more. Specialization gives every country a chance to contribute from its existing military. "Not every ally can do everything," Burns said in a speech in Berlin last week, "but every ally, whether big or small, can contribute something."
"Niche contributions are what's going to make or break this organization," said Karel Kovanda, the Czech ambassador to NATO, because this concept gives every member a chance to do something important for the alliance. "It gives what you might call self-respect to the smaller nations."
Niche contributions can be made, officials said, by all seven countries set to be invited to join at Prague: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
Last week, U.S. officials said, senior Pentagon officials raised last-minute doubts about the readiness of Bulgaria, Latvia and Slovenia to become part of NATO, but at a Cabinet meeting on Friday, Rumsfeld joined others in a unanimous recommendation to President Bush that all seven be invited to join.
NATO officials said that a rapid deployment force, though a fundamental departure for the alliance, is a logical extension of its activities in the last seven years, since NATO launched air attacks against Serbian positions in Bosnia in May 1995. That operation, on territory outside the boundaries of any NATO country, was unprecedented. It was followed by the 1999 bombing campaign in Kosovo, then a brief but effective effort to disarm rebels in Macedonia in 2001. Robertson recounted proudly that 4,800 troops from 12 NATO countries assembled in Macedonia in five days to receive weapons from rebels who had agreed to disarm.
At the time NATO was founded in 1949, the heart of the alliance was the pledge of each member to come to the defense of the others. In the past, adding a batch of new members would have meant being ready to defend a lot of new territory. Today, said a senior Bush administration official, "bigger can be better," not riskier or more expensive, "because the goal of territorial defense of Europe is no longer relevant."
Among the reasons for expansion is to extend stability and democracy in Europe. Gebhardt von Moltke, the German ambassador to NATO, said bringing in still-struggling new democracies such as Romania and Bulgaria will give the older NATO countries "more influence over their developing the way we want them to than by keeping them on the margins."
The former communist countries that are or soon will be NATO members constitute a new class of allies -- those who craved membership as evidence that they belong in the West. The first to be admitted -- Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic -- were not brought in to strengthen the alliance, but to push the perimeter of democratic Europe eastward. "From the military point of view," acknowledged Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, Poland's foreign minister, in a recent interview in Warsaw, "we were not the best-prepared candidates."
But these three have proved to be enthusiastic members, especially eager to please the United States, which backed their admission. The next seven will be similarly staunch NATO enthusiasts and supporters of the United States, according to NATO officials and representatives of those countries. "The balance in the alliance might shift" in favor of "a more robust NATO" more closely aligned with U.S. policy, said one senior American official.
The backstage diplomacy that laid the groundwork for the Prague summit and for a new NATO has been conducted by a small group of officials here and in the capitals of NATO members. A few elected politicians -- Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) , for example -- have followed these events and spoken up to support them. But remaking NATO has gotten very little attention from parliaments or news media in the NATO countries.
"Our parliaments and people at home have not realized what's going on," said von Moltke, the German envoy. "Things are evolving so fast -- we all feel we are in a different environment."
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