NATO contents · regular spring meetings in Budapest, Hungary, on 29 and 30 May. Discussions focused on current ten-sions in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,* develop-ments

NATOPublished under the authority of theSecretary General, this magazine isintended to contribute to a constructivediscussion of Atlantic issues. Articles,therefore, do not necessarily representofficial opinion or policy of membergovernments or NATO.

EDITOR : Christopher BennettASSISTANT EDITOR : Vicki NielsenPRODUCTION ASSISTANT: Felicity BreezeLAYOUT : NATO Graphics Studio

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NATO review2 Summer 2001

contentsNATOreview

ON THE COVER

NATO peacekeeper welcomesreturning Kosovo Albanianrefugee home.

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FOCUS ON NATO

4Alliance news in brief.

THE PEACEKEEPING CHALLENGE

6Peacekeeping past and presentEspen Barth Eide examines theevolution of peacekeeping since theCold War.

9Combining combat readinessand compassionChristopher Bellamy argues thatpeacekeeping is anything but anactivity for wimps.

12Lessons learnedDavid Lightburn compares howNATO and the United Nations areapplying lessons learned in theBalkans.

DEBATE

16Can soldiers be peacekeepersand warriors?BILL NASH VS JOHN HILLEN

Should combat troops be commit-ted to peacekeeping operations?Will this dull their war-fightingskills?

REVIEW

21Instant historyJamie Shea reviews five bookswhich have already appeared onNATO’s Kosovo campaign.

INTERVIEW

24General Sir Rupert Smith:DSACEUR

Summer 2001 NATO review 3

edito

rial The latest issue of the new-look NATO Review has

again generated a large mailbag, including requests for aletters’ page. In response, this feature will be added in afuture edition. This time, the central theme is peacekeep-ing, an area in which the Alliance has become increasinglyinvolved in recent years. Espen Barth Eide, state secretaryin the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs,examines the evolution of peacekeeping since the ColdWar. Christopher Bellamy, professor of military scienceand doctrine at Cranfield University, argues that peace-keeping is anything but an activity for wimps. And DavidLightburn of the Pearson Peacekeeping Center compareshow NATO and the United Nations are applying lessonslearned in the Balkans. In the debate, Bill Nash, director ofthe Council on Foreign Relations’ Center for PreventiveAction, and John Hillen, a security consultant to USPresident George W. Bush’s election campaign, discusswhether soldiers can be both peacekeepers and warriors.This subject is revisited in the interview, in which, amongother subjects, General Sir Rupert Smith, DeputySupreme Allied Commander Europe, gives his views onthe appropriate tasks for soldiers in peacekeeping opera-tions. In the book review, Jamie Shea, director of NATO’sOffice of Information and Press, reviews five books whichhave already appeared on the Alliance’s Kosovo campaign.Elsewhere, Bronislaw Komorowski, Poland’s defence min-ister, explains his country’s military reform programme.And Carlo Scognamiglio-Pasini, a former Italian defenceminister, explains Italy’s expanded role in Balkan peace-keeping operations. Finally, 25 years after the Committeeon Women in the NATO Forces was formally recognised,Vicki Nielsen, NATO Review assistant editor, examinesthe extent to which women have been integrated inNATO armies. Statistics illustrating the numbers ofwomen in NATO forces and peacekeeping operationsround out the issue.

Christopher Bennett

Volume 49Summer 2001

Vacancies at NATO

Nationals of NATO countries may apply for all posts on NATO’sInternational Staff. Details of vacancies, procedures andapplication forms are available on the NATO web site at:

http://www.nato.int/structur/recruit/index.htm

SPECIAL

26Increasing Italy’s inputCarlo Scognamiglio-Pasini explainsItaly’s expanded role in Balkanpeacekeeping operations.

28Reforming Poland’s militaryBronislaw Komorowski explainsPoland’s military reform pro-gramme.

MILITARY MATTERS

30Women in uniformVicki Nielsen examines the integra-tion of women in NATO armedforces.

STATISTICS

34Women in NATO forces

Peacekeeping operations

On 20 June, NATO Ambassadorsagreed in principle to a request byPresident Boris Trajkovski of the former Yugoslav Republic ofMacedonia* for NATO assistance todemilitarise ethnic Albanian extrem-ists, on condition that the parties pur-sue political dialogue successfullyand cease hostilities. Instructionswere given for an Operational Plan tobe drawn up on this basis.

NATO Secretary General LordRobertson visited Skopje, the formerYugoslav Republic of Macedonia* on14 June to meet President BorisTrajkovski and Prime Minister LjubcoGeorgievski and other key politicalfigures for talks about how to end theinsurgency of ethnic Albanianextremists.

Bush visit

NATO heads of state and govern-ment met at NATO on 13 June for aspecial session of the North AtlanticCouncil during the first official visit ofUS President George W. Bush toEurope. Discussions covered all keyissues on NATO’s agenda, includingmissile defence. On the question offuture enlargement, the Allies hopeand expect to be able to invite morecandidate countries to join NATO atthe Prague Summit in 2002.

The Military Committees of theEuropean Union and NATO met for-mally for the first time at NATO on 12June to exchange information onpractical issues related to the development of EU-NATO securitycooperation.

The Committee on Women in theNATO Forces celebrated its 25thanniversary at a meeting from 10 to15 June, which was exceptionallyheld in Rome, Italy, to mark theItalian Armed Forces’ first intake offemale recruits last year.

Defence ministers from NATO mem-ber and Partner countries gathered inBrussels, Belgium, for their six-monthly meetings on 7 and 8 June.Key items of discussion were thedevelopment of EU-NATO relations,implementation of the DefenceCapabilities Initiative, missile defenceand the crisis in the former YugoslavRepublic of Macedonia.*

Armenian President RobertKocharian came to NATO on 6 Juneto meet Lord Robertson. They dis-cussed Armenia’s continued partner-ship with NATO as well as the tensionwith Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Nearly 100 generals converged onSupreme Headquarters AlliedPowers Europe (SHAPE) for theannual conference organised bySupreme Allied Commander Europe(SACEUR) General Joseph W.Ralston on 5 and 6 June. Two keytopics were NATO’s 1999 StrategicConcept and its consequences forforces and capabilities, and anassessment of NATO’s Balkans oper-ations.

Fourteen NATO member and Partnercountries took part in Exercise Baltops2001, a peace-support operation in theBaltic Sea from 1 to 18 June.

On 1 and 2 June, Lord Robertson vis-ited Rome, Italy, to attend Italy’sannual military parade and to meetPresident Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, out-going Defence Minister SergioMattarella and Prime Minister desig-nate Silvio Berlusconi.

Ministers in BudapestForeign ministers from NATO andPartner countries gathered for theirregular spring meetings in Budapest,Hungary, on 29 and 30 May.Discussions focused on current ten-sions in the former YugoslavRepublic of Macedonia,* develop-ments in the Balkans, EU-NATO coop-eration and new challenges facing the

Alliance, as well as strengtheningNATO’s partnerships and theAlliance’s relations with Russia andUkraine.

Lord Robertson visited Dubrovnik,Croatia, on 31 May to address a con-ference on Key steps for Europeanintegration: promoting peace andprosperity in South East Europe.

The question of NATO enlargementdominated discussions at the five-day spring meeting of the NATOParliamentary Assembly, held inVilnius, Lithuania, between 27 and31 May.

In a statement on 24 May, LordRobertson strongly condemnedrecent actions by extremist groups inthe former Yugoslav Republic ofMacedonia,* particularly their con-tinued presence in several occupiedvillages and their attacks on govern-ment security forces.

Buffer zone opensThe phased return of Yugoslav andSerbian security forces to Sector Bof the Ground Safety Zone, thebuffer zone between Serbia andKosovo, began on 24 May.

The Council of the Atlantic TreatyAssociation (ATA) held its annualmeeting at NATO on 21 May and wasbriefed by Lord Robertson on keyissues on NATO’s agenda. TheEducation Committee of the ATAmet the following day to discuss hownational organisations can explainsecurity issues to younger audi-ences.

SACLANT meets SACEURThe Supreme Allied CommanderAtlantic, General William F. Kernan,paid his first visit to SHAPE on 16 and17 May 2001 to meet SACEURGeneral Joseph W. Ralston and hisstaff.

Lord Robertson met AlbanianPresident Rexhep Meidani, PrimeMinister Ilir Meta, Foreign MinisterPaskal Milo and Defence MinisterIshmail Lleshi in Tirana, Albania,where they discussed developmentsin the region and defence reform.

Croatian Prime Minister Ivica Racanmet Lord Robertson at NATO andaddressed NATO Ambassadors on 16May. They discussed Croatia’s contri-bution to regional stability as well asthe year-old government’s pro-gramme of political reform.

Between 15 and 26 May, seven NATOnations provided forces for DamselFair 2001, an exercise in KusadasiBay, off the coast of Turkey, aimed atexercising all aspects of mine-war-fare planning, execution and analysis.

NATO Chiefs of Staff held a series ofmeetings at NATO among themselvesand with Partner country counter-parts on 15 and 16 May. Key topicsincluded Balkan peacekeeping, thesituation in the former YugoslavRepublic of Macedonia,* developingEU-NATO relations, NATO’s forcestructure review and discussionsabout the procurement of an air-ground surveillance system.

Newly elected Moldovan PrimeMinister Vasile Tarlev met LordRobertson at NATO on 15 May. Heexpressed his country’s determina-tion to broaden and extend coopera-tion with NATO, particularly in thefield of peacekeeping.

Five NATO members and sevenPartner countries participated in


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Cooperative Tide 2001, an exercisein naval coastal warfare procedures,in Newport News, Virginia, USA,from 14 to 23 May.

Between 14 and 16 May, six NATOmembers and six Partner countriestook part in Cooperative Baltic Eye inthe Baltic Sea, an exercise aimed atdeveloping procedures for com-manding, controlling and coordinat-ing search-and-rescue resources.

During the night of 11 and 12 May,KFOR troops seized a large cache ofheavy weapons, which were destinedfor ethnic Albanian armed groupsoperating in the Presevo Valley.

Lord Robertson visited Barcelona,Spain, on 10 and 11 May, where headdressed a security and defenceconference, before travelling toMadrid for meetings with PrimeMinister José Maria Aznar, ForeignMinister Josep Piqué and DefenceMinister Federico Trillo-Figueroa.

In The Hague, the Netherlands, on9 May, Lord Robertson gave a speechat the Centre for European SecurityStudies and later met Dutch DefenceMinister Frank de Grave.

The first consultations on missiledefence took place at NATO on 8May, when a US delegation explainedthe new US administration’s positionto Lord Robertson and the NorthAtlantic Council (NAC).

EU-NATO double actIn the wake of repeated acts of vio-lence by ethnic Albanian extremistsagainst forces of the former YugoslavRepublic of Macedonia,* LordRobertson travelled to Skopje on 7May for meetings with PresidentBoris Trajkovski and other key fig-ures, which he attended together withEuropean Union High Representativefor Foreign and Security PolicyJavier Solana.

The Conference of NationalArmaments Directors met inBrussels, Belgium, for their biannualmeeting on 3 and 4 May to discussNATO policy issues and projects,including the implementation of theDefence Capabilities Initiative and theArmaments Review.

The 2001 NATO EconomicsColloquium took place in Bucharest,Romania, between 2 and 4 May andfocused on the interrelationshipbetween regional economic coopera-tion, security and stability, particular-ly in southeastern Europe, the south-ern Caucasus and Central Asia.

Lord Robertson condemned anattack by Albanian extremists onsecurity forces in the formerYugoslav Republic of Macedonia*near the city of Tetovo, on 28 April.

About 1,500 reservists from six NATOand Partner countries as well asArgentina trained in Bosnia andKosovo from 27 April to 10 May dur-ing two combined peacekeepingexercises, Adventure Express andDynamic Express 2001. Preliminarytraining took place in Albania withAlbanian troops before the reserveforces moved on to SFOR and KFORtheatres.

Kosovo partiesFollowing a visit by Serb governmentofficials to NATO on 25 April, UNSpecial Representative to KosovoHans Haekkerup and a delegation ofsenior political leaders representing

ethnic groups in Kosovo met LordRobertson and NATO Ambassadorson 26 April.

Israel signed a security agreementwith NATO on 24 April, the first of theseven countries participating inNATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue to doso.

Generals and senior officers in com-mand of Engineering Corps in NATOand Partner countries, discussed thefuture of military engineering at thetheir annual conference, held this year atthe French Army Engineering School inAngers, France, from 24 to 26 April.

Lord Robertson visited theNetherlands on 23 April, where, aftermeeting Foreign Minister Jozias vanAartsen, he opened the BusinessWeek Convention organised by theEconomic Faculty Association inRotterdam, and received theBusiness Week Award 2001 forachievements in world communica-tion.

On 15 April, KFOR soldiers assistedin the hand-over of five Serbhostages, who had been held by eth-nic Albanian extremists operating insouthern Serbia since March.

War crimes suspectdetainedSFOR troops detained DraganObrenovic, one of three BosnianSerbs indicted for the Srebrenicamassacre, on 15 April and transferredhim to the International War CrimesTribunal in The Hague.

Following a North Atlantic Councildecision on 10 April, Sector D of theGround Safety Zone separatingSerbia and Kosovo, was handed overto Yugoslav forces on 14 April.

Lord Robertson condemned thedeliberate targeting and killing of aRussian KFOR soldier in a shootingon 11 April in Kosovo.

Two British airmen died on 9 April ina helicopter crash in poor weather ina mountainous region of Kosovo nearthe border with the former YugoslavRepublic of Macedonia.*

Air force personnel from six NATOcountries participated in a logistics

exercise, Ample Train 2001, inGreece from 2 to 6 April, to practiseservicing and handling fighter air-craft.

KFOR command change

Norwegian General ThorsteinSkiaker took command of KFOR on 6April, succeeding Italian GeneralCarlo Cabigiosu.

On 6 April, Bulgaria’s parliament rati-fied an agreement with NATO, autho-rising the transit of Greek and TurkishNATO forces across Bulgarian terri-tory to reinforce the NATO-led peace-keeping operation in Kosovo.

NAC goes southLord Robertson and the 19 NATOAmbassadors visited the formerYugoslav Republic of Macedonia*and Kosovo on 3 and 4 April, stop-ping off on the way at the headquar-ters of Allied Forces Southern Europein Naples, Italy, which has commandauthority for SFOR and KFOR.

SHAPE commemorated its 50thanniversary on 2 April in a ceremonypresided by SACEUR GeneralRalston and Lord Robertson.

Lord Robertson paid a two-day visitto Warsaw, Poland, on 29 and 30March, where he met PresidentAleksander Kwasniewski, PrimeMinister Jerzy Buzek, the foreign anddefence ministers, and members ofthe upper and lower houses of parlia-ment.


For more information, see NATO Update at www.nato.int/docu/update/index.htm.

FOCUS ON NATO


Charter’s Chapter VI on the peaceful resolution of con-flicts. To a large extent, it served as a creative way of over-coming the problem of superpower rivalry, which all toooften left the Security Council deadlocked and prevented itfrom exercising its authority under Chapter VII on actionswith respect to threats to the peace.

In the early years, peacekeeping was literally aboutkeeping a specific peace. This was usually the result ofinternational mediation in an armed conflict, where war-ring parties had signed a cease-fire or peace agreement andwanted it to last, but did not trust the other side to live up toits word. The United Nations would be called in to patroland monitor the “buffer zone” between the two parties,who were reassured by the “neutral” and non-offensivenature of the organisation’s presence. While not all ColdWar peacekeeping operations were equally successful, thepresence of UN peacekeepers did help prevent a return tohostilities in some cases, where fighting might otherwisehave broken out again.

Espen Barth Eide is state secretary in the Royal NorwegianMinistry of Foreign Affairs.

P eacekeeping is no longer what it used to be. Theactors involved, the practices associated with it, eventhe concept itself have been transformed. In the

process, it has become a more complex, comprehensiveand dangerous activity. Moreover, the scale of the task, theresources involved and the skills required are such that allinstitutions involved, military and civilian, are seeking toadapt their working procedures to rise to the challenge. Thechange has been particularly prominent in Europe.

While peacekeeping has traditionally been carried outunder the auspices of the United Nations, it is not explicit-ly referred to in the UN Charter. The concept was effec-tively invented in the United Nations during the Cold Warby extending the interpretation of the powers in the

Peacekeeping past and presentEspen Barth Eide examines the way in which peacekeeping has evolved since the

end of the Cold War and the nature of the challenge today.

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High five: comprehensive peace-building has to go beyond the most immediate military and humanitarian concerns

Cold War security thinking focused on stability. The bestone could hope for was the maintenance of the status quo.On a macro level, this meant balance between the super-powers; on a micro level, that existing peace agreementswere kept. In this connection, containment became a buzz-word during this era. Given the alternative, an all-outbreakdown in the balance of power system and superpowerconfrontation, it could hardly have been otherwise.

Today, security thinking has moved on. Rather thanmaintaining the status quo, the keywords now are transi-tion, enlargement and integration — all dynamic ratherthan static concepts. The dynamics of change are affectingpeacekeeping, too. The classical task of serving as a “neu-tral” buffer between consenting parties has evolved intooperations geared towards managing political, economicand social change, often under difficult circumstances — atrend fuelled by the fact that most modern peacekeepingoperations are responses to intra-state, rather than inter-state, conflicts.

Operational planning and conflict-management strate-gies need to take into account the changing dynamics ofpeacekeeping. In many cases, it is neither possible nordesirable to seek to re-establish the situation that existedbefore the conflict. Instead, the parties need help to build anew society. Often, it is difficult to find clear, coherent andreliable partners with genuine control over their ownforces. Frequently, the situation is complicated by the pres-ence of warlords and conflict entrepreneurs, prepared toexploit myths and instigate violence to help seize or retainpower. Political and financial motives overlap, sometimesblurring the lines between politics and organised crime.Moreover, the key issues at stake in many current conflictsconcern the very nature of the state. Since such issues oftenremain unresolved at the end of open hostilities, the inter-national community finds itself called upon to reform dys-functional institutions, including the state administration,the legal system and even the local media.

Contemporary conflict management is complex. In addi-tion to the military aspect, many other activities havebecome integral parts of a peace-building operation. Onlya careful, well-planned and coordinated combination ofcivilian and military measures can create the conditions forlong-term, self-sustaining stability and peace. This need fora new approach to peacekeeping has led to debate about therespective roles of the United Nations and regional organi-sations in crisis management. This is especially the case inEurope, where several regional and sub-regional organisa-tions actively pursue different aspects of crisis manage-ment and the issues of cooperation and division of labourare particularly relevant.

The institutional strength and f inancial resources ofEurope made it a logical place to begin the process of reliev-ing the United Nations of some peacekeeping responsibili-ties. Europe is not inherently better at dealing with con-

flicts, nor have tried-and-tested models of peace-supportoperations been developed here that are easily transferableto other parts of the world. But Europe’s experience matters,not least because events in the Balkans and internationalresponses to them have been central to the development ofcontemporary doctrine on post-Cold War peace-supportoperations. Indeed, the Balkans have, in many ways,become Europe’s security-policy testing ground. Nearly allissues dominating the European security debate today —transatlantic relations, the future of NATO, the role of theEuropean Union and the United Nations, and relations withRussia — have a Balkan dimension.

The wars of Yugoslav dissolution and internationalresponses to them highlighted the shortcomings ofEurope’s security architecture at the end of the Cold War. Inthe absence of credible regional organisations ready orwilling to rise to the task, the United Nations deployed theoriginal UN Protection Force to Croatia in February 1992.Soon after, its mandate was extended to Bosnia andHerzegovina (Bosnia) and later, in 1993, to the formerYugoslav Republic of Macedonia.* What was originallyenvisaged as a six-month deployment lasted for four years.

The United Nations was the principal institution attempt-ing to broker an end to hostilities, keep the peace in regionswhere a cease-fire had been agreed and alleviate the suffer-ing of non-combatants in conflict areas between 1992 and1995. Over the years, NATO became more involved throughits various air and sea-based support operations and a closepartnership gradually developed between the two institu-tions. After the Dayton Agreement, the peace accord endingthe Bosnian War, came into force on 20 December 1995,military responsibility transferred to the NATO-ledImplementation Force (IFOR). This was the Alliance’s firstmilitary engagement on land and has contributed greatly toreshaping its identity. Indeed, in only a few years, NATO hastransformed itself to take on an almost entirely new role andbecome an increasingly effective instrument for militaryand political crisis management.

This adaptation and learning process is evident in theway in which peacekeeping in Bosnia under IFOR and theStabilisation Force (SFOR) has evolved and has fed intothe approach adopted when the Kosovo Force (KFOR)deployed in June 1999. Two remarkable trends can be seen.The first, is an expansion of the understanding of what con-stitutes the military’s mandate. In the early days of IFOR,the emphasis was on avoiding “mission creep”, or the ten-dency for a force to begin taking on tasks perceived ascivilian. Eventually, however, it became increasingly clearthat there could be no military success in isolation.

If the overall peace-building effort failed to produceconditions for a stable and lasting peace, this would be per-ceived as much as NATO’s failure as that of the civilianagencies. This helped forge closer links between the peace-keeping force and its many civilian counterparts.



Moreover, by the time KFOR deployed, the lesson had beenlearned and was reflected in the broad mandate given to theforce from the outset and in the good and flexible relation-ship that rapidly developed between KFOR and the UNInterim Administration Mission in Kosovo.

The second trend is the gradual Europeanisation ofNATO’s peacekeeping operations. UNPROFOR was large-ly European in composition, but also included considerablenumbers of soldiers from Third World countries. In thewake of the transition from UN to NATO control of thepeacekeeping mission, troops from most Third World con-tributors left. Meanwhile, US soldiers arrived, making upone third of the 60,000-strong IFOR, a ratio that has steadi-ly fallen in recent years. KFOR, on the other hand, wasunmistakably European from the beginning. In stark con-trast to the Kosovo air campaign, which was dominated bythe United States, the ratio between European and UStroops was 34,000 to 8,000, once the ground peacekeepingoperation had fully deployed. Moreover, while the SFORcommander has always been an American, the KFOR com-mander has always been a European.

Security and stability in the Balkans is aparamount issue for Europeans. It is there-fore natural that Europeans assume amajor share of the responsibility for thisoperation. This meets US calls for greaterburden-sharing within the Alliance andfor Europe to take on more responsibilityfor its own security. But, while the USpresence has been reduced, the continuedcommitment and active involvement ofthe United States to peace and stability inthe region remains essential both for finding lasting solu-tions in the Balkans and for Europe’s long-term stabilityand security.

Just as NATO has come a long way in adapting to thechallenges of contemporary peacekeeping, similar devel-opments can be found elsewhere. Today, it is accepted thatwhile military measures may be necessary to control vio-lent conflicts, they have to support, be supplemented byand closely coordinated with civilian instruments, if apeace-making mission is to be successful. This would nothave been so self-evident ten or even five years ago, whenit went against the grain of both traditional military andhumanitarian thinking. Then, traditionalists objected tosoldiers carrying out civilian tasks, and many non-govern-mental organisations did not want to “sully” their hands byworking with the military. The Balkan conflicts, however,have made it abundantly clear that purity of tasking in tra-ditional peacekeeping operations is a thing of the past.

The European Union has been working to build a mili-tary crisis-management capability and to improve itscivilian crisis-response structures in recent years. As aresult, this institution may be in a position to take the lead



more often in crisis management in the future. Indeed,Norway and other European countries that are not EU-members have committed themselves to close collabora-tion with the European Union in managing complexcrises because of the range of policy tools at the EuropeanUnion’s disposal. In addition to its military and civilianassets, the European Union can, for example, use thepromise of future membership, association and partner-ship agreements, and economic investment as leverage.

The United Nations has also begun an overhaul of itspeacekeeping operations in the wake of the publication ofthe Brahimi report last year. This report aims to revitalisethe way in which the United Nations becomes involved inand conducts peacekeeping operations. Moreover, the insti-tutional evolution of the European Union and NATO andthe increasingly close cooperation between the UnitedNations and regional organisations, both on the ground andat the political level, will no doubt contribute to the reformof UN peacekeeping triggered by Brahimi and help definethe United Nations’ role in the world today, at least in insti-tution-rich regions like Europe.

There are, of course, limits to the capac-ities of any individual organisation, be itthe European Union, NATO or the UnitedNations. As a result, institutions willalmost certainly have to continue workingtogether and forging closer links with eachother in response to future crises. Ongoingdiscussions between the European Unionand NATO reflect this point. Here, solu-tions to the thorny issue of EU access toNATO assets may materialise on the

ground, in response to the crisis in the former YugoslavRepublic of Macedonia* and the continued peace-buildingexercise in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Experience in the Balkans has shown that the prime taskin securing peace today is to assist in the long-term andcomplex political and social transformation of war-shat-tered societies. Comprehensive peace-building needs toaddress not only the most immediate military and humani-tarian concerns, but also the longer-term tasks of state-building, reforming the security sector, strengthening civilsociety and promoting social reintegration. While theregionalisation of peacekeeping has paid dividends, thereis no universal model governing the relationship betweenregional organisations and the United Nations. Moreover, itwould be wrong to assume that regional states and organi-sations are always the best placed to solve problems in theirregion. Rather, it is essential that peace-making around theworld draws on accumulated experience, competence andresources, that lessons learned in Kosovo could perhaps beapplied in East Timor and vice versa, and that global andregional organisations, humanitarian and developmentagencies, and governments and civil society in the coun-tries in question pull in the same direction. ■

The Balkans havebecome Europe’ssecurity-policy testing ground


The term peace-support operations embraces a widespectrum of tasks. They comprise traditional peacekeeping— where there is an agreed peace to keep; what the Britishused to call wider peacekeeping, where the environment ishighly volatile; peace-building — reconstructing societyafter conflict and returning it to normality; and peaceenforcement — the termination of a conflict by force.

Peace-support operations in complex emergency situations are joint — they involve all services; they arecombined — they involve many countries; and they aresomething else, a new adjective, integrated — involvingmany different agencies. These include armed forces,police, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), aid agencies, international organisations, government develop-ment agencies, private industry and other companies, andthe media.

All peace-support operations now take place under amedia spotlight. This phenomenon is rather like the weather — its reactions can generally be predicted, but notentirely. Moreover, in addition to reporting problems,media can play an important role in contributing to theirsolutions. Media are one of the key checks and balances inany democratic, market-based society and it is just suchsocieties that peace-building operations strive to create asthe best guarantee of peace. Assisting the development offree and independent media must therefore be a key element of peace-building.

General Sir Mike Jackson, the British officer who ledNATO forces into Kosovo in June 1999, recently likenedthis kind of multi-faceted operation to a piece of rope. Therope is made up of many strands, and its breaking strain isfar greater than the sum of all those individual strands. Theproblem is weaving the strands together and ensuring thatno one strand becomes notably thicker than the otherswhich would distort the rope, create strains within it anddamage anything it rubbed against.

The need for this integrated approach is recognised notonly in the field, but also at the highest levels of govern-ment. The UK government has recently instituted the“cross-cutting initiative”, where three departments — theMinistry of Defence, the Foreign and CommonwealthOffice and the Department for International Development

Christopher Bellamy is professor of military science and doc-trine at Cranfield University in the United Kingdom andauthor of several books, including Knights in White Armour:The New Art of War and Peace (Pimlico).

Many professional soldiers and professional armieshave taken to the peace-support operations con-ducted over the past decade with enthusiasm and

flexibility. Others remain reluctant to engage in them andstill more reluctant to throw themselves into working closely with other agencies and the local populations,believing that soldiers must be warriors, exclusively, andthat “peacekeeping is for wimps”.

Experience of recent operations in Bosnia andHerzegovina (Bosnia), Haiti, Kosovo and Sierra Leonesuggests that peacekeeping is anything but an activity forwimps. Indeed, some of the hardest, toughest fighting sol-diers in the world excel in peace-support operations and inhelping cope with what are usually called “complex emer-gencies”. Such operations require great flexibility andingenuity in responding to unexpected developments andalso need a strong human touch. Recent research carriedout at Cranfield University indicates that local populationshave most respect for peacekeepers who are also unmistak-ably professional soldiers, robust in their manner and well-equipped. However, if forces are too heavy-handed, orremain too remote from the local population out of concernfor “force protection”, they also lose respect — and effec-tiveness.

Most peace-support operations centre on complex emer-gencies — emergencies where human malice is combinedwith man-made or naturally induced hardship, or both.Armed forces are needed to create a secure environment inwhich peace can be rebuilt, but they are certainly not theonly, or even the principal, actors. Once peace is made,much of the immediate task has more in common with thework of police than that of soldiers. Yet for many reasons— the cost of paying police and the difficulty of deployingthem abroad for long periods — soldiers have to do the job.Longer-term tasks, including physical reconstruction, trac-ing prisoners and refugees, re-establishing healthcare,organising elections and punishing war criminals are theresponsibility of other organisations.

Combining combat readinessand compassion

Christopher Bellamy argues that the best peacekeepers are also the best war-fighters and peacekeeping is anything but an activity for wimps.

— all contribute to two budgets for conflict prevention onefor Africa and one for the rest of the world, underlining theintegrated nature of this task.

On the ground, meanwhile, one of the most intractableproblems is the cultural difference between NGOs andmilitary forces. Although ex-military people are well rep-resented in many NGOs, some NGOs come from a reli-gious, sometimes pacifist tradition and are naturally suspi-cious of the military. Conversely, some military personnelare wary of NGOs, sometimes seem exasperated by anapparent lack of coordination, and can be scathing —often unjustly — about the ability of NGO employees tolive in the field.

The introduction of UN forces into Croatia and thenBosnia in 1992 provided one model for integrated peace-support operations. The operation in Kosovo since 1999provides another, far more complicated one. The essentialreason for this is that in Kosovo – unlike Bosnia – there isno effective local government. It is, in effect, an interna-tional protectorate. Furthermore, there is, at present, nolong-term end-state. In effect, the “state” is the UN InterimAdministration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).Nevertheless, much good practice has evolved between thecivil and military organisations operating in Kosovo andmuch can be learned from this for future integrated opera-tions.

About 200 NGOs currently operate in Kosovo.Coordinating their activities could be likened to “herdingcats”. Each has its own specific area of interest and expert-ise. Attempts by the military authorities to control andcoordinate the work of NGOs are sometimes resented.Moreover, NGOs rely on their independence as a form ofsecurity. If they are seen to be too closely associated withan occupying military force, they risk becoming a target.

The first priority, therefore, is to break down the barriersto closer communication. In many cases, the use of differ-ent language and terminology further obscures understand-ing and this is compounded by different interpretations ofthe same terms of reference. In 1994, Norway hosted a con-ference involving some 45 countries and 25 NGOs, whichdeveloped guidelines for the use of military and civil-defence assets in disaster relief, the so-called “OsloGuidelines”. Although designed for the slightly simplerworld of natural-disaster relief, the guidelines have alsobeen used by the United Nations in complex emergencies,notably East Timor and Kosovo. The “Oslo Guidelines” arenow being reviewed by NATO’s Euro-Atlantic DisasterResponse Coordination Centre to see if it is possible to create a similar document for the use of military and civilassets in complex humanitarian emergencies. NATO is alsodeveloping a civil-military cooperation (CIMIC) doctrinethat could fulfil this purpose, although some NGOs mightbe suspicious of what might be considered a “NATO doctrine”.



Turning military Combined Joint Task Forces intoCombined Integrated Joint Task Forces, with NGOs onboard, is unlikely to be an acceptable solution, as it wouldmerely increase NGO fears of military dominance. In anypeacekeeping or peace-building operation the supremeauthority is likely to be some form of “HighRepresentative” authorised by the United Nations, and it isat that level that the work of the international military, civil,NGO and commercial actors and local authorities shouldbe woven together.

The diversity of the many actors can be a strength ratherthan a weakness. Although people naturally look for insti-tutional and doctrinal ways of coordinating organisationsand avoiding duplication, it is often personal relationshipsbetween people on the ground that really matter. It isbelieved that there is a pool of about 1,000 people shiftingbetween one emergency-response theatre and another. Ifthese people could be identified and trained together, thatmight further help coordination.

Communication between the military, internationalorganisations, NGOs, local authorities and the media isclearly crucial in running an integrated peace-supportoperation efficiently. In the age of the camcorder and theinternet, there is a particular need for 24-hour informationto prevent hostile governments and local interest groupsfrom conducting propaganda. The humanitarian reliefcommunity in Kosovo is already coordinating information.The Humanitarian Coordination Information Centre(HCIC) was developed in Kosovo to feed information to allorganisations and agencies. It provides a “who’s doingwhat, where, when” database, which is critical to efficient— and safe — operations. Military forces could becomemore involved in initiatives like the HCIC, perhaps throughtheir CIMIC arm.

Identifying who is best for the job is also important.Military forces are often the first agency to be deployedand can do many things on their own. The construction ofrefugee camps in the former Yugoslav Republic ofMacedonia* by British forces is a case in point. Someagencies in Kosovo have a clearly defined channel for com-munication with KFOR. However, immediately after theoccupation of Kosovo, NATO was seen as a party to theconflict and this necessitated a clear division between mil-itary and humanitarian tasks.

The experience of operations over the past decade sug-gests that forces only intended for peacekeeping and simi-lar duties — a gendarmerie — are not well respected by thepeople with whom they have to interact. The most effectiveare trained and equipped as professional soldiers, but nev-ertheless interact with the local population. The US forces,with their strong emphasis on force protection and intimi-dating appearance sometimes appear to go too far the otherway, and their remoteness from the locals may reduce theireffectiveness in the peacekeeping role.

An example of how the toughest professional troops alsoexcel at peacekeeping is provided by the Royal Marines,who have participated in the construction of many chil-dren’s playgrounds as part of an attempt to rebuild chil-dren’s lives and normality. One of the playgrounds was indanger of being vandalised by older youths. It was impos-sible to mount a continuous guard on the playground. Butthe marines, thinking laterally, came up with the idea ofputting in a “hot line”, so locals could call, anonymously, iftrouble looked imminent. The manoeuvrist approach worksin peacekeeping, as it does in war.

S o m e t i m e sinter-agency coop-eration does notwork as it should,with interestingresults. The NGO,War Child UK,specialises in,among otherthings, buildingplaygrounds forchildren. One ofthe first was builtat the school forthe deaf in Prizrenin Kosovo soonafter the Alliedforces’ arrival in1999. Recently,the German com-ponent of KFORdecided to make adonation to theschool and askedwhat the schoolneeded. Thereseems to havebeen a breakdownin communicationand the Germansarrived to build —a playground, onthe other side ofthe school. A tele-phone call or two, or knowledge of what differentNGOs did, might have prevented the duplication. So theschool now has two playgrounds. That is very popular withthe children but less so, perhaps, with the teachers whohave to supervise two playgrounds on opposite sides of theschool.

Peace-support and humanitarian operations are likely tobe a principal task of NATO armed forces for the next gen-eration. Indeed, past experience of post-conflict peace-building suggests that it will take at least a generation tocreate a sustainable end-state in Kosovo and other places. To

ensure the success of existing peace-support operations,armed forces with the ethos and physique of war-fightingsoldiers have to be recruited and trained. No-one else can berelied on if peacekeeping suddenly regresses into civil war,and studies have shown that no-one else gets the necessaryrespect from local people in the immediate aftermath of abloody conflict. But such soldiers, well-disciplined — andthat is the key — can be the best peacekeepers and take tothat task enthusiastically. A partially trained gendarmerie,or an army trained only for peacekeeping-type duties, isunlikely to be effective. The warrior ethos must remain, but

it must be imbuedwith flexibility andhumanity, and awillingness to mixwith the locals,even — as manygreat soldiers havedone — to “gonative”. It is possi-ble to combinecombat readinesswith compassion,and that is the chal-lenge for manyarmed forces in thefirst quarter of the21st century.

But soldiers willhave to compro-mise with aidagencies and otherNGOs, interna-tional organisa-tions and otherg o v e r n m e n tdepartments andlocal officials. Thescope of off icerand non-commis-sioned officer edu-cation must bewidened to enablethem to adapt toand cope with the

eccentricities of other organisations. This is being donewith staff courses, which are increasingly “joint”, routinelydevoting time to integrated operations and the work ofNGOs. However, other organisations f ind it harder toadapt. Few other government organisations, never mindNGOs, can afford to release staff for lengthy training andeducation courses as the military can. The priority forNGOs, rightly, where donors’ money is being used, is to getinto the field and save or rebuild lives as quickly and effi-ciently as possible. It, therefore, falls to the military to beespecially sensitive to NGO concerns and to develop theright relationship with them. ■



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Playground duty: some of the hardest, toughest fighting soldiers, such as the Royal Marines,excel in peace operations


Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi and the commissioning of areport on the future of UN peacekeeping. For NATO, theBalkans produced many “f irsts”: the f irst out-of-areadeployment; the first shots fired in anger; the first signifi-cant cooperation with other international organisations;and the Alliance’s first peacekeeping operation.

In summer 1992, the UN Secretary-General releasedAgenda for Peace, a document that categorised the variousphases of peacekeeping and generally recognised that tra-ditional peacekeeping was becoming far more complex,engaging many more actors than in the past. Later, in 1995following experiences in the Balkans, Cambodia, Rwandaand Somalia, the United Nations accepted that the situationwas even more challenging and complex and issued anupdated version of Agenda for Peace, increasing andadjusting the number of categories and accepting limita-tions for the organisation, especially where peace enforce-ment was concerned.

NATO had helped preserve peace in Europe during theCold War and, beginning in late 1991, sought to pursue

David Lightburn is an analyst at the Pearson PeacekeepingCenter in Nova Scotia, Canada. While at NATO between1992 and 2000, he helped to develop the Alliance’s involve-ment in peacekeeping.

T he early 1990s brought about dramatic change inthe manner in which the international communityperceived it should deal with security challenges.

The demand for peacekeeping grew as the Cold War endedand a number of latent and internal ethnic, territorial andreligious tensions boiled over into conflict. For the manyregional and international organisations engaged in theBalkans in the 1990s, the experience has been akin to onelarge experimental laboratory. The two organisations mostaffected by their involvement in the Balkans have beenNATO and the United Nations.

For the United Nations, the combination of difficultexperiences in the Balkans and the challenges and realitiesof missions in Rwanda, Somalia and most recently EastTimor led in 2000 to the creation of a panel under

Lessons learnedDavid Lightburn reviews NATO’s peacekeeping experience and compares how

the Alliance and the United Nations are applying lessons from the Balkans.

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Frontline education: NATO and the United Nations have learned very similar lessons from their experiences of peacekeeping in the Balkans

security through dialogue, cooperation and partnershipwith former adversaries. The 1991 Strategic Concept madeit clear that new security challenges would be multi-facetedin nature, multi-directional, and difficult to predict andassess. As this new strategy was being implemented, one ofthe steps agreed by Alliance foreign ministers in spring1992 was to “support, on a case-by-case basis, in accor-dance with our own procedures, peacekeeping activitiesunder the responsibility of the CSCE”. Later, in December1992, following Allied intervention in support of UNobjectives in the Adriatic, NATO foreign ministers agreedformally to extend the Alliance’s support in peacekeepingto the United Nations. Between 1992 and 1995, NATObecame progressively engaged in the air and at sea in sup-port of UN operations in the Balkans.

The Brahimi report, tabled in August 2000, acknowl-edges a major shift in the United Nations’ approach, fromone of neutral observer of immediate post-conflict scenar-ios to one of involvement in conflicts that have not yet runtheir course. The report also notes that the United Nationshas not altered its corporate culture or its ability to addressnew challenges. It calls for changes, including realistic andclear peacekeeping mandates, robust rules of engagementfor military forces, unity of effort, a clear and unified chainof command, and a shift in policing from monitoring tomore active engagement in restructuring the complete pub-lic security system. It also contains numerous recommen-dations concerning the United Nations’ ability to conceive,plan, mount and logistically support complex peace opera-tions.

At NATO, beginning as early as 1996, a number of les-sons-learned exercises have been undertaken. Overseeingimplementation of the Dayton Agreement in Bosnia andHerzegovina (Bosnia) produced a number of fundamentalpolitical and military lessons that were, in the main, even-tually applied in Kosovo almost four years later. There is agreat deal of common ground between the fundamentallessons learned by NATO and the key thrusts of theBrahimi report, which merit further attention.

Tight linkage between mandate, mission and capabil-ities: In planning to oversee implementation of the DaytonAgreement, NATO benefited from the experience of theUnited Nations in Bosnia in the early 1990s, in particularthe problems resulting from frequent changes in mandate,the lack of clear direction to UN military commanders, andthe general lack of support by member states to the man-dates that they had themselves agreed at UN headquartersin New York. Accordingly, NATO insisted on a tight link-age between the mandate set out in annex 1A, the militaryannex of the Dayton Agreement, the mission given by theNorth Atlantic Council to the Alliance military authoritiesand the capabilities of the Alliance and the commitment ofspecific forces and other resources to IFOR. Specifically,through key Allies, annex 1A was drafted to ensure thatNATO had the capability to do what was being asked of an

implementing military force. This included what is nowknown as a “silver bullet” clause, namely that the IFORcommander had the necessary and ultimate authority overthe military forces of the parties to the conflict. The mis-sion was crafted by the Alliance’s political authorities,based on sound and timely advice from NATO militaryauthorities. The result was a clear focus on annex 1Ato avoid problems encountered by previous UN forcesand ensure that the force would not be pulled in manydirections by civilian agencies all seeking support on theground: no “mission creep”. Finally, SupremeHeadquarters Allied Powers Europe organised a series offorce-planning conferences to ensure that the requisitecapabilities were in place.

Brahimi also made it clear that the United Nations’ mis-takes of the 1990s with respect to changing mandates, mis-sions and poorly resourced operations should not be repeat-ed. Specifically, the report calls for “clear, credible andachievable mandates” and recommends that before theSecurity Council agrees to implement a cease-fire or peaceaccord, the agreement needs to meet certain threshold con-ditions such as consistency with international human rightsstandards and feasibility of specified tasks and timelines.The report also proposes that the Security Council leaveany resolution in draft form until member states firmlycommit troops and other critical mission-support elements,including peace-building resources. This makes the linkagebetween mandate and resources. The report goes on to pro-pose fully engaging the UN secretariat by ensuring that theexperts in the secretariat tell the Security Council what itneeds to know, not what it wants to hear, and to engagetroop-contributors in the dialogue, with a view to gettingthe force commander’s mission right.

The need for unity of effort: Another fundamental lesson learned by NATO was the fact that the key to anyexit strategy, a preoccupation of some in the early days ofthe Bosnian peace process, was the success of other keycomponents of the Dayton Agreement. Following success-ful implementation of the military aspects of the peaceaccord, it was clear that maintaining a secure environmentfor civil implementation meant close cooperation with awide range of other participants in the peace process, includ-ing the Office of the High Representative, the Organisationfor Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and theUnited Nations. Accordingly, concerns over “mission creep”were gradually replaced by recognition that support to civilimplementation was essential. The realisation of the need forsuch cooperation calls for a significantly greater under-standing between the various military, civil, humanitarianand development organisations, understanding of each oth-ers’ cultures, policies, procedures, decision-making process-es, resource bases, capabilities, strengths and limitations.

The Brahimi report also acknowledges the need for part-nerships based on a better understanding of the variousactors. While it focuses on the internal UN system and the



need for “integrated missions” with “integrated headquar-ters”, it addresses the need for cooperation, hence funda-mental understanding, between those responsible for politi-cal analysis, military operations, civilian police, electoralassistance, human rights, development, humanitarian assis-tance, refugees and displaced persons, public information,logistics, finance and recruitment.

Harmonising objectives, concepts and plans: InOctober 1995, NATO attempted to understand the objec-tives, broad concepts and outline plans of other potentialcontributing organisations in regards to the then-emergingDayton Agreement, through staff-level visits. Virtually noorganisation was prepared for a timely deployment to Bosniaand, for most, the requirement was well beyond any previ-ously encountered effort. Moreover, some, such as theUnited Nations itself, were not parties to the Dayton negoti-ations and therefore had no warning time. As a result, therewas no exchange of concepts or outline plans and little realappreciation of objectives beyond the vagaries of the latterannexes of the Dayton Agreement.

Brahimi takes the concept of an integrated mission head-quarters and proposes that members be seconded to suchheadquarters from all parts of the UN system. As one follow-up to this, the United Nations’ Department ofPeacekeeping Operations (DPKO) is currently developing athree-phase training programme for these headquarters,including mission-specific preparations.

The need for a robust capability: Much of what theNATO-led force is now doing in Bosnia could be consideredclassic peacekeeping, but with a robust force that is capableof dealing with emergencies. IFOR and its successor SFORhave provided humanitarian assistance and have, on occa-sion, had to use force. SFOR has supported implementationof a wide range of civil aspects of the peace agreement andis now examining ways to ensure durable, longer-term sta-bility. In Kosovo, the Alliance was involved first in conflictprevention in cooperation with the OSCE, later in humani-tarian assistance and then in imposing a peace settlement,peace enforcement and providing support to civil implemen-tation. The principal lesson for Alliance planners is the needfor a strong and flexible force, with robust rules of engage-ment, capable of dealing with a variety of contingencies andemergencies. NATO’s Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF)concept has also been developed to strengthen the Alliance’sability to respond to future emergencies.

The Brahimi report also draws conclusions on the needfor a robust force posture and a sound peace-building strategy. The report implies that the United Nations mustnow be willing to take sides. When one party to a peaceagreement is clearly and incontrovertibly violating its terms,continued equal treatment of all parties risks undermining amission’s credibility and may amount to complicity withevil. Missions must, therefore, have the authority to useforce to confront violence and the ability and determination



to defeat offending parties. This implies larger, better-equipped and more costly forces, able to pose a deterrentthreat, in contrast to the symbolic and non-threatening pres-ence that has characterised traditional peacekeeping. Therecent UN reports on Rwanda and Srebrenica complementand support this conclusion. With respect to military forces,the UN Standby High Readiness Brigade, in some respectsthe United Nations’ equivalent in readiness terms of NATO’sCJTF, has already been tested in the conflict betweenEthiopia and Eritrea.

Integrating troop-contributors appropriately: NATOhas worked hard since IFOR’s deployment in Bosnia to findways of progressively including troop-contributing Partners,both in the planning and the decision-making processes. Inthe early days, a balance had to be struck for security reasonsbetween, on the one hand, consultations with Partners and,on the other, proper acknowledgement of the commitment ofnon-NATO troop-contributors. NATO also established ameans of evaluating non-NATO offers of forces, to ensure anadequate degree of preparedness to meet the challenges ofthe Balkans.

The Brahimi report emphasises the need for a greaterplace in planning and decision-making for troop-contributors. It, too, addresses the force-quality issue bysuggesting, as a standard practice, the creation and deploy-ment of UN assessment teams for both the training and theequipment of national contingents.

Ensuring public security in peacekeeping operations:Public security remains a key challenge for the internationalcommunity in both Bosnia and Kosovo. However, the situa-tions are clearly different, since law and order is the respon-sibility of local police in Bosnia and of the United Nations inKosovo. In Bosnia, the Alliance learned that, due to the inad-equacies of local police, the NATO-led force needed a capa-bility to react to breakdowns in law and order, since soldiersare not adequately trained to do police tasks. Accordingly,NATO created a multinational specialised unit of cara-binieri, gendarmes and other special police, operating undermilitary command. In Kosovo, recognising the pressingneed for the military to undertake law-and-order responsibil-ities before UN police had properly arrived, most contin-gents deployed with additional military or special policecapability and/or troops trained for the task.

The Brahimi report also concludes that this issue is criti-cal, citing a need for national pools of civilian police officersto be available for deployment on UN missions. It urgesregional training arrangements and encourages the creationof a standby pool of some 100 police to reinforce UN plan-ning staffs at the time of an emerging crisis.

New crisis-management procedures and structures:Early in the planning process for IFOR, NATO realised thatits existing crisis-management procedures could not beapplied in their totality to the requirements of the Bosnian

peacekeeping situation. While fundamental aspects such asthe development of military advice and political decision-making remained valid, the day-to-day support for theSecretary General and the North Atlantic Council was vested in a small multi-functional group of experts, theBosnia Task Force, later renamed the Balkans Task Force.The group included political, military, humanitarian, legal,media and other experts as required. A special NATO politi-cal-military committee was also established to providenational input and consideration of the issues.

One of the main thrusts of the Brahimi report is its con-clusion that significant reorganisation of the UN system isneeded, especially at its New York headquarters. Structural,procedural and resource issues are addressed, as is the mat-ter of financial authority and accountability. In addition toproposals on mandates and the Security Council, the reportproposes that peace-building be handled by the PoliticalAffairs Department; an information and strategic analysisentity be created; mission leadership and an integrated staffbe created early in the planning process; certain fundingauthority be given to those planning and implementing amission; the military standby arrangements concept beextended to civilian police, judges, lawyers, human rightsexperts and other specialists; and staff levels be increased,especially in DPKO.

The importance of training, education and prepared-ness: Both NATO and the United Nations fully recognisethe need for well-trained, informed and properly equippedcivilian and military organisations and individual staff inthe demanding security and humanitarian environments ofthe Balkans and similar complex missions. NATO-led military forces spent a great deal of time preparing for theirdeployment into both Balkan theatres and, as noted previously, in assessing additional contributions offered bynon-NATO countries. The emphasis on peacekeeping in theAlliance’s Partnership for Peace programme paid early dividends as many Partners stepped forward and con-tributed forces. Alliance concepts, doctrine and proceduresnow take full account of the experience aquired in theBalkans, particularly concerning cooperating and coordi-nating with civilian organisations in the peace process.

Brahimi calls both for national efforts at better preparinggroups, individual staff or specialists and for collectiveefforts under UN guidance. The report specifically focuses

on preparations of an integrated mission headquarters, civilian police and other civilian specialists, and stronglyrecommends an evaluation mechanism.

For its part, NATO is already applying these lessons andcapturing them in policy and doctrine in a number of ways:through the many years of its military forces training andoperating together; by a focus on peacekeeping in thePartnership for Peace; in the Alliance’s special programmesof cooperation with Russia and Ukraine and in itsMediterranean Dialogue process; and in NATO’s developingrelations with the various militaries in the Balkan region. TheAlliance is addressing fundamental international cooperationthrough enhanced communication with the European Union,OSCE and UNHCR. It also has a permanent liaison officer atUN headquarters in New York and has occasionally deployedliaison officers to the UHHCR in Geneva. NATO also main-tains close relations with the heads of missions of interna-tional organisations in Bosnia and Kosovo, and NATO mili-tary doctrine now fully recognises the civilian dimensions ofcomplex peacekeeping operations.

The Brahimi report has already served to draw official andpublic attention to the peacekeeping shortcomings of the1990s in a constructive and effective manner. It addresses arange of practical issues such as decision-making, rapiddeployment, planning and support. Additional issues areaddressed concerning civilian implementation, whichattempt to minimise the current ad hoc nature of some peace-keeping missions. Now it remains for member states to worktogether with the relevant UN off icials to continue toenhance UN peacekeeping capabilities.

If one last conclusion can be extrapolated from bothNATO and UN experiences, it is that the concept of robustpeacekeeping needs to be extended to the civilian sector. Itis clear from the experience in Bosnia and Kosovo, that theinternational community needs to establish early authorityand credibility. This cannot be done by military forcesalone. The principal international organisations need tomove in far more quickly, with far greater efficiency andeffectiveness, using all of the authority available withintheir respective mandates. Once this group of organisationsis able to demonstrate a clearer sense of purpose and agreater unity of effort to local officials and public, it may beeasier to achieve cooperation and support and, ultimately, asuccessful mission. ■



THE NATO SCIENCE PROGRAMME“Bringing scientists together for progress and peace”

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Full details can be found on the NATO web site: http://www.nato.int/science

debate

Can soldiers be peacekeepers and warriors?

Yes:Bill Nash is a retired US major

general and director of theCouncil on Foreign Relations’Center for Preventive Action,

who was formerly UN regionaladministrator in northern

Kosovo and commander of thefirst US division to deploy in

the Balkans.

No:John Hillen is the chiefoperating officer of IslandECN Inc and a former USArmy officer who has publishedwidely on international security and was a consultantto the Bush campaign duringthe last US presidential election.

Dear John,

We have needed this discussionabout war-fighting and peacekeepingfor some time and I am pleased wehave finally found the time. I f irsthad to come to grips with the rela-tionship between peacekeeping, war-f ighting readiness and associatedissues as my division prepared to goto Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia)in autumn 1995. The success weenjoyed in Bosnia and upon ourreturn to Germany a year later con-vinced me that our approach topeacekeeping was largely responsiblefor not only mission success, but alsofor our rapid recovery to a prioriwar-f ighting readiness standards.I have three major points.

As commander of the 1stArmoured Division, I was deter-mined to ensure that my forces wouldnot be compromised in the way thatthe UN force preceding us had been.We therefore, took on a war-fighter’sattitude as we approached the mis-sion in Bosnia. The standard, as stated in the f irst sentence of mycommander’s intent, was that wewould, at all times, present ourselvesas “tough, disciplined, competent,

professional” soldiers. In the first 60days of the mission, I must have usedthat expression 50 times a day onaverage. And I think it worked. Thisis the first key to maintaining a war-fighting capacity while on a peace-keeping mission.

With that appropriate mind-set, wethen concentrated on “doing thingsright” and on integrating training intoour day-to-day operations. By theformer, I mean we instilled andenforced the routine field-craft skillsand troop-leading procedures ineveryday operations. Daily mainte-nance work, pre-combat checks andrehearsals were standard. Juniorleaders became proficient in givingoperations orders and in ensuringtheir outf it’s ability to execute theday’s mission. Staff coordination,horizontally and vertically, was car-ried out daily with painstaking atten-tion to detail.

With respect to training, we established garrison-type training briefings and programming within90 days of arriving in theatre. Webuilt ranges and training facilitiesand fired all our weapons on a rou-tine basis in Bosnia, and our tank and

Bradley crews used Hungarianranges on a rotation basis of onecompany a week. We even set up tankand Bradley proficiency courses forlaser-training systems in conjunctionwith our observation points, whichwe used to monitor the militarymovements of local forces. We wanted them to see us practising forcombat.

The third key was a re-deploymentand post-deployment training planfor our return to Germany. How wegot home and what we did in theimmediate months after our returnhad a signif icant impact on howquickly we were ready to go again —for any mission. Our re-deploymentplan called for spending four to sixdays in our intermediate staging basein Hungary. There, we did everythingfrom issuing new uniforms and turn-ing in excess equipment, parts andvehicles, through medical and dentalchecks, to f iring exercises for ourtank and infantry platoons. The timein Hungary saved our soldiers weeksof effort back at home station.

Our training plan after our returnbegan with a well-deserved leaveperiod for the soldiers. This invest-


ment of approximately 45 days perbattalion directly contributed to anextremely positive attitude on thepart of the soldiers and their familiesfor the work that was ahead of us.This quality-of-life issue cannot beoverlooked, as we seek ways to dealwith the military requirements oftoday and tomorrow.

Our training plan focused on thoseskills we had not worked on inBosnia, such as deep attack andcounter-reconnaissance planning andexecution. Overall, we found that theimprovements gained in diff icult battle staff and command skills whilein Bosnia far outweighed any lossesin specific war-fighting tasks whiledeployed for peacekeeping. Indeed,one senior commander commentedafter our Fort Leavenworth BattleCommand Training Program exer-cise, which took place about 90 daysafter the division arrived home, that,in many ways, the 1st ArmouredDivision was better trained afterBosnia than some of the divisionsreturning from Desert Storm.Regardless, there is no doubt in mymind that we were a much more capa-ble, f ighting division after Bosniathan we were when we went there.

As we look to overall lessons fromthis experience, I must note twoimportant facts. First, almost theentire division deployed together toBosnia. We were therefore able tomaintain unit integrity far more thatany unit since the 1995 and 1996period. The benefits of unit cohesionto long-term readiness are most sig-nificant, maybe critical. The secondfact, sad to say, is that by the end of

summer 1997, the division had expe-rienced between 70 and 80 per centturnover in generals, colonels andlieutenant-colonels to include allbrigade commanders. That is no wayto maintain readiness.

Well, John, I’m interested in yourviews and I’ve held back a littleammunition for the expected counter-attack.

Yours,Bill

Dear Bill,

First of all, let me say I’m thrilledto debate these important issues witha man for whom I have so muchrespect — as a warrior, a diplomat anda thoughtful foreign-policy analyst.

I am no enemy of peacekeeping orother peace-support operations. Infact, in my book on the history of UNpeacekeeping, I analysed almost 50different missions and came toappreciate the enormous challengesof these endeavours as well as theircontribution to international peaceand security. And, like you, while inuniform I fought in wars and servedin peacekeeping missions, so I’veseen both sides of the coin.

Moreover, and it may surprisesome, I think US forces should beinvolved in multinational peacekeep-ing. But for me, and for the work Idid with the Bush presidential cam-paign, the question turns on the scaleof the US commitment to peacekeep-ing operations and the opportunitycosts inherent in those commitments.

My opposition is to the long-termand protracted commitment of UScombat troops to multinationalpeacekeeping. I think the UnitedStates should be involved over thelong term with support troops orreservists, and I think front-line UScombat forces can play a key role

only for short periods of time. Frommy perspective, National SecurityAdviser Condolezza Rice’s famousline about the illogic of 82ndAirborne paratroopers (one of my oldunits) taking schoolchildren to classis rooted in three broad argumentsthat I hope to examine in greaterdetail throughout this debate.

First, there is the geopolitical argu-ment about what role the UnitedStates military should play — vis-à-vis its allies and partners — in inter-national security affairs. My argu-ment that “superpowers don’t dowindows” recognises that sincealmost all international security mis-sions in which the United States isinvolved are cooperative and “team-based”, an important role for theleader of the team is to match rolesand responsibilities to interests andcapabilities. Given the enormousgulf in military capabilities betweenthe United States and its EuropeanAllies in particular, I believe thatNATO best serves its many differentsecurity roles (not just peacekeepingin Europe) by playing to the corecompetencies of its members. For theUnited States — and the UnitedStates alone — that is large-scalewar-fighting. For every other Ally, itis much smaller missions and mostlypeace-support operations.

Second, there is the practicalimpact of protracted US peacekeep-ing efforts on the rest of US militarystrategy. Unlike most NATO Allies,the United States has demanding


JOHN HILLEN

My opposition is to thelong-term, protractedcommitment of UScombat troops to

multinationalpeacekeeping

BILL NASHversusJOHN HILLEN

We took on a war-fighter’s attitude as

we approached themission in Bosnia

BILL NASH

security commitments throughout theworld. While the United Kingdomcommits war-fighting forces to alliedmissions such as the continued deter-rence of Iraq, for the most part theUnited States is alone in guaranteeingthat no hostile power can dominateEast Asia or the Gulf region.Moreover, missions like these requirehighly trained combat troops and thefull suite of American air, naval, andground power — fully committed andtrained around the clock for thestresses and challenges of war (whichusually come with no notice!).

I would also offer that these are themissions in which the United States —and the Alliance — cannot afford tofail. As my book on UN peacekeep-ing showed, a great power can affordto muck up, muddle through, or evenfail in a peacekeeping mission with-out a lasting impact on the interna-tional security system. However, ifthe United States and its Allies lose oreven draw in a signif icant conflict

(such as the Gulf War), the entirestructure of the international arenacan be shifted and changed for theworse. Even in this politically correctage, we must admit that some mis-sions simply matter more than others.

Your initial comments mainlyaddress the third factor, whether USsoldiers can be trained to do peace-keeping and war-f ighting equallywell and almost interchangeably. Myfriend Professor Charles Moskos isnoted for the line that: “Peacekeepingis not a soldier’s job, but only a sol-dier can do it.” That seems to capturethe conundrum very well. There is nodoubt that well-trained and disci-plined soldiers can, with the rightkind of transitional training, makevery good peacekeepers. But I havemy suspicions (and some evidence)about the ability of soldiers deeplyinvolved in peacekeeping to then turnaround with little or no notice and beat the top of their game in the com-plex and sophisticated business ofthree-dimensional war-fighting.

I will go into this in greater detaillater in the debate, but the point I’dmake now is that your absolutelyheroic and admirable training effortsin Bosnia were geared towards thisvery phenomenon — one that isstretching US forces very thin. Thisis the need to have our peacekeepersready at the drop of a hat to transitionimmediately to war-fighting. Studieson this have been done by variousgovernment agencies and researchinstitutes and they all point to the factthat — simply because no institutioncan be equally good at two very dif-ferent tasks — there is some degra-dation of combat capabilities amonglong-term peacekeepers.

The question for us here is: howmuch of the degradation risk is worthtaking for the United States?

Yours,John

Dear John,

I will address your three points inreverse order. I agree that there canbe “some degradation of combatcapabilities among long-term peace-keepers”. But the same unit does notstay long term. Tours are normallysix to twelve months and that is nota particularly long time. Even withan additional three to six months ofpreparatory training, the effects arenot overly debilitating. The keypoint is that what is gained in anoperational environment more thancompensates for the specific skilllevels that may be degraded, andthose skills are generally more easi-ly and quickly recovered. The USmilitary have far more readinessproblems from other sources thanfrom the relatively small impactresulting from peacekeeping mis-sions.

But the long-term issues relatedto interventions that you raise needto be addressed. Here, we are talkingnot so much about peacekeeping asabout peace-building. I believe thiseffort goes beyond the competenciesof and proper role for military forcesand enters the realm of civilianimplementation in peace operations.The absence of civilian capabilitiesdiverts the military and engagesthem in activities beyond what isappropriate. Until the civilian com-ponent of these peace operationsreceives the same relative priority inpersonnel and resource allocation asthe military component, we willnever achieve our foreign-policygoals. In my judgement, we spendfar too much time talking about themilitary issues and too littleanalysing the political, economic,social and broader security prob-lems that must be resolved to finishthe task started by our intervention.

As to your f irst point, I wouldmake a few observations. The com-ment about “windows” is clever, but



What is gained in anoperational

environment more thancompensates for the

specific skill levels thatmay be degraded, and

those skills aregenerally more easily

recoveredBILL NASH

not helpful. Leaders must alwaysshare the deprivations and risks,political and physical, with their followers. Matching competencieswith missions is logical, but consensus must be built rather thandemanded. We must never forget thedifference between leadership andautocracy.

Yours,Bill

Dear Bill,

We seem to diverge not on princi-ple but on subjective issues of scale.For instance, we agree that long-termpeacekeeping by combat units neces-sarily degrades combat capabilitiesbut disagree on where and whendegradation becomes debilitating.Similarly, we agree that NATO Allieshave different interests and capabili-ties but disagree on the extent towhich the United States should repli-cate the capabilities of its Allies insmaller missions of collective securi-ty. Let me explain my position onboth these fronts.

We never know when the degrada-tion of combat capabilities is debili-tating until it is too late. In May1950, when the Korean peninsulawas at peace, the fact that the combattraining of US occupation forces inJapan and Korea was not razor-sharpdid not seem debilitating. A monthlater, however, on 25 June, the NorthKorean invasion and the subsequentrouting of US occupation forceschanged attitudes in a hurry.

Many events that could require aUS force ready for combat couldcome as a surprise. There may not betime to recover from peacekeepingmissions and train up for combat. Letus be frank. No Ally has the globalresponsibilities of the United States,which could be called on to respondimmediately to serious security con-tingencies. It would be foolish to risk

the lives of US soldiers due to dimin-ished combat readiness and sacrificethe unique and decisive capabilitiesof the US military simply to replicatethe talents of our Allies in peace-keeping missions that are ultimatelyless important to world security.

This leads us to the second pointof disagreement: the role the UnitedStates should play as NATO’s leaderin these smaller missions. Even in adiplomatic atmosphere that insists onthe veneer of egalitarianism, theUnited States should not pretend thatleadership is simply doing whateveryone else is doing. It is true thatleaders must share risks and burdensbut, as our European Allies them-selves lament, they are increasinglyincapable of sharing the risks andburdens in missions that profoundlyaffect global security.

We have all grown very Balkan-centric these days but someone inNATO has to keep an eye on the restof the globe. That someone is obvi-ously the United States. Why use acombat unit that may have to respondwithin days to a situation like theinvasion of Kuwait in 1990 (as the82nd Airborne did) for jobs that anyother Ally could do with paramilitaryreservists? That might be good thera-py for the Alliance but would be badsecurity for the world. The Allianceis not an end in itself, it is merely themeans to greater security in Europeand elsewhere. We should thereforethink twice before elevating short-term solidarity over long-term secu-rity.

I am all for US military participa-tion in NATO-led peacekeeping mis-sions but against the long-term andprotracted deployment of US combatforces in such missions. Historyshows that we could all live to regretthat.

Yours, John

Dear John,

It would seem that we have indeedfound convergence, if not agreement,on the question at hand: soldiers canbe peacekeepers and warriors. Youjust don’t want US soldiers to do itfor very long.

You are too much of an historian touse May 1950 as evidence thatpeacekeeping in 2001 is bad forAmerican combat readiness. The twoplus US Army divisions that weredeployed early to Korea in June 1950were the products of nearly five yearsof occupation duty in Japan wheretheir manning, equipping and train-ing were anything except combatfocused. It was a different time, a dif-ferent world and certainly a differentUS Army.

I accept reasonable debate on thedegree to which US forces should bea part of long-term peacekeepingmissions and, as I told you in my lastletter, I think the real long-term con-cerns are more civilian in nature thanmilitary. The use of reserve forma-


JOHN HILLEN

We have all grown veryBalkan-centric thesedays but someone inNATO has to keepan eye on the rest of

the globe


tions as these missions are extendedmakes a lot of sense. But the readi-ness impacts are really marginal andwe should not hide behind frivolousreasons, when there are so many realcauses for readiness shortfalls thatneed to be addressed in order for usto be capable of fulfilling our world-wide responsibilities. We have fewerthan 10,000 soldiers committed inthe Balkans, many of whom arereservists. If we’re called to combatelsewhere, this small number beingdiverted to a greater good will notrisk victory or the survival of theUnited States.

Lastly, I suggest that we need toensure a broadly based coalition offriends and allies as we prepare our-selves for the security challenges ofthe 21st century. Charges of Americanarrogance or exceptionalism, whetherreal or perceived, will not help us inour endeavours and will more likelythan not detract from the security weseek. Going it alone will not be a suc-cessful long-term strategy.

Yours,Bill

Dear Bill,

Your points are well made and welltaken. We agree that US combat sol-diers can do peacekeeping as well aswar-fighting, especially in NATO orother collective security missions.Moreover, you make a great pointabout reserve forces. The use of USreserve forces in these missions — apattern many of our Allies alreadyfollow — is a positive developmentbut it will not be without its conse-quences in the United States, where

the reserve force structure and“covenant” will need to be retooledas both were built for the Cold War.

I f irmly believe, however, thatpeacekeeping should be a secondarycompetency for US combat troops.The example of Korea in 1950 is notmeant to be an exact historical analogy but was used simply to pointout a pattern in history: 1) Bad thingshappen to good nations; 2) It is usu-ally a surprise; and 3) The situation ispainful to turn around if some nationor group of nations is not prepared tocombat aggression from day one.The First and Second World Wars,Korea, the Gulf, ... you name it, theyfit the pattern.

These are the missions in which theUnited States simply cannot afford tofail. Failure in these sorts of situationshas more serious and far-reachingconsequences than in the protractedand largely unsolvable internecineconflicts that characterise peacekeep-ing missions today. A little geo-political reality is needed. These con-tingencies for which the United Statesalone is prepared are not necessarilysituations that threaten our survival.That is a caricature of the argument.They are, quite simply, securitythreats that require the deploymentand possible use of a fair amount ofcombat forces with little or no notice.

Few remember Haiti or Somaliatoday, though we were obsessed withtheir importance in the early 1990s.Yet, we would be constantly remind-ed of Saddam Hussein today, if hewere occupying Kuwait and hadSaudi Arabia under his thrall. To saythat peacekeeping matters more thanthose sorts of security threats is ther-apeutic, but deeply unrealistic.

Only one NATO Ally has thestealth technology, precision muni-tions, large aircraft carriers, strategicairlift, satellites, large-scale deploy-able logistics packages, etc. Yet, at

the same time, there are manynations with experienced peace-keepers, paramilitary police, civilianreconstruction experts and the like.Why dull the one true sword by usingit along with the other ploughs?

Once again, I am only referring tothe long-term deployment of UScombat troops in Allied peacekeep-ing operations. We all know that theUnited States needs to be heavilyinvolved in almost every other aspect(intelligence, support, logistics,transportation, etc.) of any NATOmission, or it simply would not hap-pen. US dominance of the 1999Kosovo air campaign is a case inpoint. It is by default, not by choice,that the United States will find itselfgoing it alone in other security mis-sions of greater consequence. OtherAllies have by their own admissionfailed to retool their forces for com-bat missions outside Europe.

Someone in the Alliance needs to beable to respond to contingencies withwell-trained combat forces. It makesfor poor leadership for the US militaryto be deployed as if it were simply alarge constabulary force for the sakeof Alliance solidarity. As leadershipguru Peter Drucker reminds us, leaders lead because of their uniqueknowledge and competencies, they donot lead by simply trying to replicatethe skills of their followers.

Yours,John

* For a European perspective onpeacekeeping, see also the views ofGeneral Sir Rupert Smith on pages24 and 25.


BILL NASH

Leaders must alwaysshare the deprivationsand risks with their

followers


JOHN HILLEN

There are missions inwhich the United

States simply cannotafford to fail


stopping, the violence escalated, as Milosevic respondedby displacing 1.3 million Kosovo Albanians of whom morethan 800,000 were forced over the border. Only two monthslater, when Allied leaders had demonstrated their totaldetermination to prevail by escalating the air campaign andgrappling with the option of ground forces, did Milosevicfinally throw in the towel.

The second reason for enduring interest in NATO’sKosovo campaign lies in the voluntarist nature of modern

conflict. The vital national interests or physi-cal security of NATO’s 19 member states werenot directly or immediately threatened by theethnic violence in Kosovo, even if the possiblespill-over of fighting did threaten to desta-bilise NATO’s Partner countries in the region.For all NATO’s 19 governments the decisionto launch Allied Force was a close call, requir-ing difficult judgements. Would the price ofintervention ultimately be less than that ofabstention? Was the extent of the violenceagainst civilians in Kosovo of a suff icientdimension to justify a full-scale air campaign?How could the need to ensure political supportwithin NATO countries be squared with theneed for maximum deterrence and, later, a

quick, decisive air campaign? How could public support inan Alliance with 19 different governments and public opin-ions be maintained over the long haul, if the immediate useof force failed to bring Milosevic to heel? How could aconvincing legal basis for the use of force be identified inthe absence of a UN Security Council Resolution? Andhow could NATO ensure an improvement in the post-conflict situation and reach a political solution in Kosovo,which would vindicate the decision to use force and justifythe inevitable destruction and disruption?

The jury is still out on the last of these questions. Giventhe legacy of hatred in Kosovo, we may have to wait someyears before KFOR can leave the province, secure in theconviction that a multi-ethnic, democratic and prosperoussociety has been created. But it is the merit of the bookslisted in this review to have dealt authoritatively with mostof the other bitter controversies that clung so doggedly toAllied Force at the time.

Tim Judah’s Kosovo: War and Revenge (Yale UniversityPress, 2000) is excellent in analysing the origins of the con-flict. Starting deep in history, Judah charts the recurrent

Jamie Shea is director of NATO’s Office of Information andPress.

Although the television images of NATO’s bombingmissions and of thousands of refugees streamingacross borders are more than two years old, the

Kosovo conflict continues to generate interest, controversyand occasionally passion. Hardly a month goes by withoutthe appearance of another history or memoir. Some, suchas Wesley Clark’s recently published account, have beenaccompanied by a barrage of publicity in the leading newsmagazines. My records show that more than 200 books onKosovo have already appeared in the English languagealone. To my great surprise, even the mostarcane aspects of the Kosovo conflict arebeing investigated by PhD students. Just lastmonth I was visited by one graduate who waswriting his thesis on the semiological linguis-tic analysis of NATO’s press brief ings.Several heavyweight actors in this saga, nowretired from government, are rumoured to beworking on their own accounts. So the battlefor the ultimate historical verdict looks set tocontinue.

Why has such a short and limited conflictgenerated such a heated debate? Why have somany of the key players felt the need for postfactum — and public — vindication? Ibelieve there are two reasons. In the first place, it is the dis-crepancy in the eyes of many between ends and means.While few disputed the need for international pressure torelieve the plight of the Kosovo Albanians, many recoiledat the use of force on such a scale, particularly when itrequired air strikes against Yugoslavia as a whole. Thebelief continued in many quarters that the violence couldhave been stopped by giving diplomacy more time — aview which overlooks Slobodan Milosevic’s categoricalrejection of the peace accords worked out at Rambouillet.Others felt that military force should have been threatenedearlier and more energetically in order to avoid having ulti-mately to use it — an argument that too easily presumesMilosevic’s rationality in calculating risks and weighingoutcomes. Every civilised individual would like means tobe directly proportionate to ends. NATO itself tried to dothis at the beginning of the air campaign, publicly rulingout ground forces and limiting itself to 50 strike aircraftand targets in or near Kosovo. Unfortunately, instead of

Instant historyJamie Shea reflects on continued interest in NATO’s Kosovo campaign and

reviews five books which have already appeared on the subject.

pattern of violence between ethnic Albanians and Serbs,with both sides enjoying the upper hand at various stages inthis long, rather depressing history. Judah, the author of aprevious, much-respected book on the Serbs, is a trueBalkan specialist and unbeatable on the local factors.While being scrupulously fair to both sides, he charts indetail the splits and radicalisation among Kosovo Albanianleaders and the emergence in the 1990s of the KosovoLiberation Army (KLA). He has a clear grasp of the keyfactors that tipped the balance towards violence, in particu-lar the disappointment of Kosovo Albanians that theircause was not taken up at the Dayton Peace Conference in1995, and the near collapse of the Albanian state in 1997,which allowed the KLA to get its hands on thousands ofweapons at bargain-basement prices.

Although Judah shows that theKosovo Albanians were not angels,he clearly points the f inger atMilosevic and Belgrade in consis-tently failing to address KosovoAlbanian grievances and exacerbat-ing the situation through an increas-ingly wilful and indiscriminate use offorce against the civilian population.It may be tragically typical ofMilosevic that he had no clear strategy for dealing with Kosovo andthat his spasmodic but brutal actionsonly succeeded in provoking the veryNATO intervention and lengthy armedpresence inside Yugoslavia that he wished toavoid.

From a NATO perspective, one of Judah’smost helpful observations is that Milosevic’scampaign of ethnic cleansing started wellbefore the initiation of air strikes. He points outthat in January 1999, two months before Allied Force, theSerb special forces had already forced 300,000 KosovoAlbanians from their homes. He also demonstrates thatethnic cleansing of the local civilian population was on anupward trend and would have increased whether NATO hadacted or not. In doing so, he gives the lie to commentatorswho allege that NATO caused the humanitarian crisis inKosovo by taking action and that its cure was worse thanthe disease.

Judah’s profound grasp of the psychology of the ethnicAlbanian and Serb leaderships comes across clearly butalso at the expense of a detailed account of the positions ofthe 19 Allied governments and their military establish-ments. In his book, the NATO air campaign is treated onlybriefly, if succinctly, towards the end. Those wishing topursue this angle would be better advised to turn toWinning Ugly: NATO’s War to Save Kosovo (BrookingsInstitution Press, 2000) by Ivo Daalder and MichaelO’Hanlon, both prominent scholars at the Brookings

REVIEW


Institution with previous administration experience. For aNATO insider, their account is heartening and sobering atthe same time. It is heartening because the authors offer anumber of fascinating and intellectually rigorous analysesinto the possible alternatives to NATO’s approach. In doingso, they show that the alternatives much touted at the time,such as partitioning Kosovo, more vigorously clampingdown on the KLA or offering Milosevic concessions to gethis agreement to granting Kosovo full autonomy, would nothave worked in the circumstances of the spring of 1999.The only way to prevent not only a humanitarian disaster,but the destabilisation of the entire southern Balkans(which would, incidentally, have inflicted lasting damage toNATO’s credibility) was, in the view of Daalder and

O’Hanlon, for the Alliance to take military action. To par-aphrase Winston Churchill on democracy, Allied Forcewas the worst outcome, except for all the others. Buthaving vindicated Allied Force through an exposure ofthe fallacies of the alternatives, the authors of WinningUgly are equally unrelenting in their assessment ofNATO’s conduct of the conflict: hence the bittersweet

title of their book. Napoleon once said: “God, ifI have to fight, let it be against a coalition.” In asimilar vein, the pitfalls of Alliance politics andconflict by committee are well analysed, even ifthe authors acknowledge that, as it is unlikelythat nations will conduct humanitarian inter-ventions alone in future, putting up with coali-tion politics will be de rigueur. Alliances maycomplicate military decision-making, butthey also make it clear to an oppressor that heis up against the international community.Ultimately, this was a key factor inMilosevic’s isolation and failure.

Where Daalder and O’Hanlon drivehome their argument is in pinpointing the

gap between European and US military capabilities inAllied Force, which placed a disproportionate burden onthe United States while frustrating European Allies, whofelt excluded from the inner circle of decision-making. Ifcoalition warfare is to function smoothly in such operationsin future, military contributions within NATO will have tobe more evenly matched. Daalder and O’Hanlon also takeNATO to task for starting the air campaign too slowly andruling out a ground option at the beginning, thereby depriv-ing the Alliance’s strategy of the element of surprise, whichwould have kept Milosevic guessing. They have a point, butconflict is the art of the politically possible as well as themilitarily desirable. NATO’s choice was not between theperfect campaign and the imperfect variant. Given the needto achieve consensus among the 19 NATO governments, itwas a choice between an imperfect campaign and none atall. Better perhaps to win ugly than to lose beautifully.Nonetheless, Daalder and O’Hanlon’s criticisms cannot beignored, particularly as they are convinced that: “This warwill not be the last time that NATO governments use forceto save lives.”

Those who suspect that behind every great event there isalways a turbulent inside story will be fully served byWaging Modern War (Public Affairs, 2001), the memoir ofthe commander of Allied Force, the former SACEURGeneral Wesley Clark. All students of conflict know onlytoo well that the stress of battle and the need for constantdecisions often give rise to bureaucratic struggles and per-sonality clashes. Confronting superiors can sometimes beas demanding as confronting adversaries. General Clarkdocuments his frustrations with his Pentagon colleagueswith candour. Even NATO officials who were at NATOheadquarters during Allied Force will find on reading thisbook that they only knew half of what was going on behindthe scenes. The insider nature of General Clark’s book,with its intensive diary-like narrative, makes it a treat forspecialist officials and journalists but perhaps less forthe general reader who is not familiar with the actorsinvolved. Issues of bureaucratic turf and policy clash-es frequently overshadow the author’s more generalreflections on the nature of modern conflict, theprinciples of successful crisis management or theprospects for building peace in the Balkans. Bookson famous events written by partici-pants inevitably place the author cen-tre stage. In the case of GeneralClark, this is hardly surprising andoffers many valuable insights. But italso means that those who were notin Clark’s daily entourage featureonly occasionally and fleetingly,even though they also playedimportant roles. What we learnabout the author himself is asimportant as what we learn aboutthe event. General Clark is good atdescribing the constraints thatpoliticians, the media, NGOs, col-leagues and bosses impose on acommander trying to win a modern war, but to some extentmost of these constraints have existed for a long time. Theydominate the literature on Vietnam, for instance, as muchas that on Bosnia or Kosovo.

What one would really have liked from Clark’s book ismore conceptual analysis of how the new form of high-tech, media-spotlight warfare differs from the old. Whilesympathising with Clark’s predicament — trying to con-vince his Pentagon superiors and colleagues that, whateverthe lessons of the Gulf War, overwhelming force is not adoctrine that can be applied to every type of conflict — onewonders at the end of Waging Modern War, what is new orsignificant about the word “modern”.

One stimulating attempt to answer this question comesfrom Michael Ignatieff in Virtual War (Chalto and Windus2000). Stringing together contemporary interviews andessays, including one on Clark (“the virtual commander”),Ignatieff’s book is full of insights into the elusive modern

quest for the perfect war, with zero casualties and impecca-ble moral and legal justification. Its most interesting dis-cussion is the use of the selective image of reality, both toenhance support at home and to discredit the adversary’scause in the eyes of his own public opinion. But even thebest media manipulation, the most persuasive politiciansand the most advanced technology cannot conceal the bru-tality and human suffering of armed conflict indefinitely,any more than it can avoid real casualties. Ultimately, thevirtual war of the air waves comes face to face with the realwar. Ignatieff, a veteran of the Balkans and most other eth-nic conflicts of the past decade, is a real thinker on modernwarfare. I can only hope that he will develop these interest-ing insights into a fuller, more comprehensive work in thefuture.

The Kosovo conflict witnessed acontroversy surrounding NATO’smedia operations and the daily pressbrief ings from NATO headquartersand Alliance capitals. The public pres-entation of the conflict has been ashotly debated by journalists as the con-duct of military operations themselves.Did NATO deliberately lie? Were theremore spin doctors than spokesmen?What is the responsibility of govern-ments and journalists in explaining mod-ern conflicts to the public? An excellentaccount of NATO’s media operation isgiven by its military spokesman at the

time, General Walter Jertz, in Krieg der Worte,Macht der Bilder (Bernard and Graefe, 2001). Jertzis honest in describing NATO’s failings as well asits successes in handling the massive internationalpress corps that descended on NATO headquartersfor the duration of the air campaign. He makes itclear that, in Clausewitz’s “fog of war”, getting accu-rate information from the theatre in real time was

never easy, but he demonstrates convincingly that NATOdid not deliberately mislead and was often the victim of itsown quest for transparency. Jertz highlights many valuableissues for future improvement. One can only hope his bookwill be published in other languages to give it a wider audi-ence.

NATO has taken a good deal of stick over Kosovo, bothat the time and since. There have been revisionists aplentyto seize on every piece of bad news to argue that NATO hadno right to intervene militarily. But these books, all wellworth the read, show that NATO has nothing to fear or toregret from an in-depth examination of the facts. Theauthors are all critical of what went wrong or could havebeen done better. But if Allied Force does not emerge fromthese histories as a more perfect operation than it reallywas, neither does the moral and strategic necessity ofNATO’s intervention in Kosovo appear any less necessaryand just. ■

REVIEW



NR: Should soldiers be deployedwith the kind of mandate that theUN forces had during the Bosnianwar, or should a more robust man-date be established before troopsare deployed?RS: You can deploy forces withsuch a mandate provided that iswhat you want them to do. Whatyou must not do is to decide at alater stage that you want them to dosomething else, without equippingthem and giving them suff icientrules of engagement to carry outthat task. This was demonstrablythe case with the “safe areas” inBosnia, where the idea was to deterfurther incursions into thoseenclaves but the forces to achievethat were inadequate.

NR: What strategy will generate results in complex situa-tions, such as Bosnia?RS: If you wish to use force to help arrive at a resolution ofa conflict, it must be employed in support of a politicalprocess. The prospect of the use of force and the politicalprocess must run in parallel, and not be treated as linearprocesses. The events of 1995 in Bosnia are a good exam-ple of a number of actors pulling in the same direction atthe same time. Richard Holbrooke was pursuing a diplo-matic solution, which led eventually to the DaytonAgreement, and force was being used to complement thenegotiations, although this was more by seizing opportunities than by planning.

NR: You have been involved in the Balkans in both aNATO and a UN capacity. How has this shaped yourviews about the respective roles of these two organisa-tions?

NATO Review: Can soldiers beboth warriors and peacekeepers?General Sir Rupert Smith: A sol-dier is a warrior. He is no good as asoldier unless he is a warrior. Thepurpose to which you put your sol-dier covers a range of activities,including peacekeeping.

NR: What are appropriate activitiesfor peacekeepers to be involved in?RS: This depends upon the natureof the peace you are trying to keep,who is breaking the peace and thelevel of force you need to bring tobear to create the conditions youhave been sent to create. If you arefacing a fully armed enemy deploy-ing a fully organised army, then youhave to produce a similar capabili-ty. If you are facing the occasionalarmed man, then it is clearly inappropriate to be using moreforce than necessary to achieve your aims.

NR: What sort of force do you believe would have beenappropriate to employ during the Bosnian war and do youfeel that you were able to employ that force?RS: The forces deployed by the United Nations were not thereeither to keep the peace, enforce the peace or be peacekeep-ers. They were there to protect the convoys of aid being deliv-ered to non-combatants. In most cases, this aid was deliveredsuccessfully. When their mandate was expanded to protectwhat came to be known as the “safe areas”, they were lesssuccessful, though they still managed to get aid into thoseenclaves. However, when it came to deterring further attackson the “safe areas”, without any potential use of force otherthan calling on NATO for air strikes, they failed and it tooksome time to gather together sufficient forces with the neces-sary capabilities to take more forceful measures.

General Sir Rupert Smith:DSACEUR

Since November 1998, General Sir Rupert Smith has been DeputySupreme Allied Commander Europe. One of the most outstanding

officers of his generation, he became DSACEUR after commanding theBritish Army in Northern Ireland between 1996 and 1998 and

UNPROFOR in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995. He leaves SHAPE in September and will retire early in 2002.

© N

ATO

RS: I don’t find it useful to compare the two because theyare different organisations. NATO has a limited member-ship. It is regional. It is organised and equipped to do onething, which is to fight. The nations which are members ofNATO are on the whole confident of the North AtlanticCouncil’s political direction of their forces. On the otherhand, the United Nations has all nations in it, or very near-ly all. It has a global responsibility as opposed to a region-al responsibility. It is the legal authority for much of whatwe do and it encompasses a wide range of difficult tasksother than that of fighting.

NR: What ingredients do you consider critical to the suc-cess of the NATO-led operations in the Balkans and topeacekeeping operations in general?RS: NATO can only achieve success in peacekeeping oper-ations on the most limited of scales because all NATO cando is provide the conditions in which success might befound. It is with the other agencies, those that build nations,reform institutions, rescue and rehabilitate peoples, and soforth, where success is to be found.

NR: What benchmarks should be in place for there to be areduction in the size of the peacekeeping missions?RS: Judgements have to be made about the prospects offighting starting again as well as the state of other institu-tions, such as a well-developed police force and a judicialsystem, all of which must be trusted by the local popula-tion. In the wake of civil strife, the failure of internal gov-ernment and the breakdown of trust between ethnic groups,the benchmarks to look at are the status and activities of theagencies which caused the fighting in the first place. Havethey been neutralised by your presence? Have you eithergot rid of them or reformed them? Have you either rebuiltthem to make them of value or have you replaced them andproduced something else in their stead? As the risk offighting breaking out again diminishes, you can reduce thedeterrent presence on the ground. However, this is not aquick process.

NR: How can soldiers best be prepared for missions suchas SFOR and KFOR? And where does the work of a soldierend and that of a policeman begin?RS: I will start with the second question because it helpsanswer the first. The primary business of a soldier is to killhis opponent. That is why he is there and why we deployhim. The policeman’s primary purpose is to arrest thewrong-doer and see to a successful prosecution. Those aretwo very different functions. Of course, the soldier can helpthe policeman, by providing information, even by guardingthe policeman so that he can carry out his functions. But in the end, he is not a policeman. In the same way, thepoliceman is not imposing his will or the law by force. Heimposes the law by the deterrence of a successful prosecu-tion. And there is the difference between the two. So in

these circumstances, it is well to remember that differencebecause it tells you what you have to prepare your soldierfor. He has, first and foremost, to be capable of using hisweapons. But his next step is to be able to support thatpoliceman in the circumstances of that community. So hehas to understand that community. He has to be able tooperate at a low level, making what are probably greaterand more complex decisions than he would have to make ina conventional battle. Lastly, he must be in a position togather the information that supports the policeman in hiswork. Otherwise, you do not grow the police force youneed to replace your soldier.

NR: Militaries have become involved in many aspects ofreconstruction in the Balkans. What lessons do you drawfrom your experience of the Bosnia and Kosovo missions?And how can civil-military relations best be coordinated?RS: We use soldiers, particularly engineers, to carry outreconstruction tasks. Some of these tasks are appropriatefor the military to do. For example, with the possibleexception of one or two non-governmental organisations,we probably have the greatest expertise in areas such asmine clearance. That said, using military engineers tobuild schools is probably valid in the early stages of anoperation. But, once matters have progressed, such recon-struction is taking the possibility of generating work awayfrom the local population and is no way to build a newsociety. Some senior engineers may be needed to super-vise local construction work to start with but, even then,they should not stay for long because their presence wouldbe stopping the evolution of a society. Coordinating suchwork with the civil agencies charged with reconstructionrequires some form of central civil administration,whether it’s the local government or some imposed admin-istration such as is the case with the United Nations inKosovo, and then it should be clear who is supportingwhom in each particular case.

NR: How do you envisage a future European rapid reactionforce operating? Under what circumstances might it actindependently of NATO?RS: I see a European rapid reaction force operating in muchthe same way as a NATO one. The countries providing theforces are in most cases the same and I don’t see any greatdifficulty. In the event of a crisis in the European region, adebate would have to take place between NATO and theEuropean Union. The merits of who took what action wouldhave to be discussed before deciding which institutionshould take the lead. The exact circumstances as to whowould have the lead would vary according to the crisis.

NR: Although you are a long way from the normal retire-ment age, you will leave the military early next year. Whatchallenges do you anticipate taking up in your retirement?RS: The challenges will find me. They always have. ■

INTERVIEW



deployed in so-called Multinational Specialised Units(MSUs) to help maintain public order. Carabinieri haveskills which are ideally suited to peacekeeping. As a result,they have been deployed throughout Bosnia and Kosovo topatrol sensitive areas, assist the return of refugees and dis-placed persons to their homes, and intervene in the event ofpublic disorder.

Carabinieri were also key to the success of OperationAlba in 1997, when Italy put together an eight-country,7,000-strong intervention force to restore law and order toAlbania in the wake of the collapse of a series of pyramidinvestment schemes. This “coalition of the willing” wasauthorised by the UN Security Council and coordinated byan ad hoc political steering committee. Lasting from Aprilto August, it was also the first crisis-management missionconducted in Europe by a multinational military force com-posed exclusively of Europeans.

The turning-point in Italian attitudes occurred in thewake of NATO’s decision to station an extraction force inthe former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.* This French-led force was deployed to support and, if necessary, assistthe withdrawal of the Organisation for Security andCooperation in Europe’s verification mission in Kosovo.In November 1998, the new government of MassimoD’Alema made a conscious decision to play a major role bydeploying 2,850 soldiers, the equivalent of a brigade,equipped with the much sought-after anti-tank A-129 heli-copters.

The reason for this change in attitude is that MassimoD’Alema and I, then the defence minister, were concernedabout the impact of events in Kosovo on the stability ofAlbania. That country had already descended into anarchyon three occasions in the preceeding decade, leading direct-ly to increases in smuggling and crime across the AdriaticSea and forcing Rome to react in almost impossible condi-tions. We wanted to prevent a repetition by stabilisingAlbania, and I thought that the best way to achieve thiswould be to help Albanians feel secure at home. Moreover,I felt this might have been achieved, if NATO includedAlbania in its strategic security policy. At the time, howev-er, the other NATO members opposed this proposal.

At the time, we were concerned about the way in whichthe Italian-Albanian relationship was beginning to resem-ble a protectorate, but our attempts to internationalise theissue had failed. However, I realised that something was

Senator Carlo Scognamiglio-Pasini is head of Italy’s AspenInstitute and a former Italian defence minister.

In the five-and-a-half years since NATO troops firstdeployed in the Balkans, the number of Italians on theground, both in absolute and proportional terms, has

been steadily rising. Indeed, Italy is now contributing asmany troops to the NATO-led peacekeeping operations inBosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia) and Kosovo as Franceand the United Kingdom. This is the result of a consciouspolicy to take on a greater role in a region in which Romeconsiders its national interest to be at stake.

Sharing the Adriatic Sea with Albania, Croatia,Montenegro and Slovenia, Italy is an obvious magnet forrefugees, many of whom have grown up watching Italiantelevision, dreaming of Italy and speaking Italian. Theselinks are deep and enduring, and help explain why manyordinary Italian citizens have, in recent years, come forward as aid workers, helping provide humanitarianassistance during war and later helping rebuild shatteredsocieties.

Italian peacekeepers first deployed on the ground in theBalkans with the NATO-led Implementation Force (IFOR)to Bosnia in December 1995. They were not involved inUNPROFOR during the Bosnian war, since, at the time themission was being set up in 1992, the United Nations wasreluctant to employ peacekeepers from neighbouring coun-tries with a history of military involvement in the formerYugoslavia. Between 1992 and 1995, therefore, Italyfocused its efforts on relief work. When, in 1994, theEuropean Union took over administration of the dividedand war-ravaged town of Mostar in southern Bosnia, Italydispatched 40 carabinieri to an international police forceset up under the auspices of the Western European Union.And when NATO planes took off to attack Bosnian Serbtargets, first for limited strikes to lift the siege of Sarajevoin 1994 and then in a sustained wave of attacks in Augustand September of 1995, they did so from Italian air bases.

Initially, some 3,200 Italian troops were deployed inIFOR in the French sector. At the time, IFOR numbered60,000 soldiers. Today, some 1,800 Italian troops remain ina much-reduced Stabilisation Force (SFOR) of 20,000 andanother 6,000 are currently deployed in the Kosovo Force(KFOR). These figures include carabinieri, police withmilitary status, who have, since August 1998, been

Increasing Italy’s inputCarlo Scognamiglio-Pasini explains how and why Italy has expanded its role in

the NATO-led Balkan peacekeeping operations.

wrong on our side, if theother Alliance memberswere not listening to us.The first step to drawingthe attention of our Alliesto our concerns requiredmatching the troop contri-bution to NATO-led oper-ations in the Balkans ofFrance and the UnitedKingdom. The decisionsthat followed stemmedfrom that turning point.

When, on 24 March1999, NATO launched airstrikes against Yugoslavforces, Italy contributed50 combat aircraft out ofan overall force of 900 tothe campaign. At the con-clusion of the 78-day aircampaign, the YugoslavArmy agreed to withdrawfrom Kosovo and the fol-lowing day, Italian forcesentered the province fromthe former YugoslavRepublic of Macedonia*to take charge of a sectorin north-western Kosovo,around the city of Pec.

My records of theKosovo campaign includetwo aspects that are littleknown about: the issue ofthe so-called “ground option” and the Albanian context. Atthe beginning of the conflict, Slobodan Milosevic’s strate-gy appeared to be one of seeking to endure air strikes untilthe coalition against him disintegrated, while destabilisingthe neighbouring countries of Albania and the formerYugoslav Republic of Macedonia,* whose territory wouldhave been a necessary staging post for NATO groundforces. One month into Operation Allied Force, the effi-ciency of a campaign based entirely on the use of air powercame into question and NATO was under pressure to comeup with another option to win the conflict. Although plansfor a ground invasion of Kosovo were never drawn up, thismatter was discussed at an informal meeting of defenceministers of the five largest NATO members on 27 May.Moreover, despite being considered the weakest link in thecoalition, Italy pledged to supply unconditionally up to10,000 men at that meeting, an event described in formerSACEUR General Wesley Clark’s recent book.

The outcome of that meeting was a decision toreassemble on 15 June in order to muster the necessary

forces to launch a groundoffensive by no later than15 September. In theevent, however, the sec-ond meeting never tookplace because Milosevicdecided to surrender andwithdraw the YugoslavArmy from Kosovo on 9June. However, I am per-suaded that he was awarethat his last chance to seethe coalition break-uphad disappeared and,consequently, any furtherresistance made nosense.

In Albania, we fearedthat Milosevic mightattempt to destabilise thecountry by precipitating amass exodus of refugees.Two approaches wererequired to counter thistactic: supplying Alba-nians with sufficient shel-ter and food to keeprefugees close to the bor-der for a possible returnhome; and giving themconf idence that NATOwould take care of themand, above all, that theAlliance would prevail. InJanuary 1999, the ItalianArmy identified possible

sites for refugee camps and began storing food andpreparing shelters. When, soon after the beginning of theair campaign, Albania found itself deluged by close to amillion refugees, it was possible rapidly to constructcamps in the region of Kukes and elsewhere, thus main-taining hope among the population and alleviating thehumanitarian catastrophe. Moreover, the deployment ofmore than 7,000 NATO soldiers, including a large Italiancontingent, to Albania in Operation Allied Harbour on 15April reinforced the message that the refugees would begoing home.

Since, at the time, Italy only possessed a rapid reactionforce of 20,000, we seriously risked overstretching ourarmed forces during the Kosovo campaign. In the wake ofthese operations, our government proposed a law, whichhas subsequently been passed by the parliament, ending thedraft and transforming the army into a fully professionalone. This should substantially increase the size of Italy’srapid reaction forces to meet the needs of any future NATOpeacekeeping operation. ■

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On target: Italy has increased its contribution to the NATO-led peacekeepingoperations in the Balkans to match that of France and the United Kingdom


of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland 2001-2006(the reform programme) is based on such principles.

The earlier reduction of manpower was not followed bya similar reduction in military hardware and assets. Thearmed forces have, for example, been using high-mainte-nance equipment and munitions of little military and train-ing value, such as T-55 tanks and 100 mm shells. Moreover,obsolete equipment and stockpiles require active supervi-sion, which is extremely costly. Disposing of surplusassets, including obsolete training grounds, many of whichhave some commercial value, should generate savings ofbetween 200 and 250 million zloty (about $50 and $60 mil-lion). Further savings should come from the planned reduc-tions in military personnel, money that will in future beretained within the defence budget, and by changing pro-curement procedures and contracting out services to theprivate sector.

These cost-cutting measures should allow the defenceministry to increase the proportion of its budget allocatedto capital expenditure from the current 12 per cent to 23 percent in five years. In practice, they should augment thedefence ministry’s budget and provide necessary fundingfor long-term restructuring and modernisation. To achievethis, however, the defence budget will need to be main-tained at 1.95 per cent of GDP throughout the implementa-tion period of the reforms.

All projects related to Poland’s obligations to NATO, aswell as to current requirements of Poland’s defence system,form part of the reform programme. In the process ofrestructuring Poland’s armed forces, one third of the mili-tary — rapid reaction and strategic covering forces —should become fully interoperable with other NATO mili-taries, adapting to NATO standards regarding armaments,equipment, mobility and the ability to operate in complexmissions beyond Polish territory. The programme providesfor the modernisation of intelligence, command and airdefence systems, and for halting the further deterioration ofarmaments and military infrastructure in the remaining twothirds of the Polish Armed Forces.

Further plans include the creation of clear functionaldivisions between operational and support forces; chang-ing the structure of military posts for professional soldiersto adapt it to NATO standards; and adapting logistics sys-tems to those in NATO countries, improving the armedforces’ ability to cooperate with relevant NATO structures,

Bronislaw Komorowski is Poland’s defence minister.

The Polish Armed Forces went through a turbulentperiod in the decade after 1989. As in other post-communist countries, successive governments

found to their cost that the transformation of the defenceestablishment, as an essential component of the social,political and economic transformation of the country, wasmore difficult, more painful and slower than expected.These difficulties were compounded in the latter part of thedecade by further reforms necessitated by Poland’s entryinto NATO. As a result, the Polish Armed Forces today stillhave a long and difficult path of reform before them.

During the next five years, these reforms will changefundamentally not only the structure of the armed forces,their command, control, communication and intelligencesystems, and operational procedures, but also the militaryeducation system and personnel structure. These changeswill not only be extremely complex for the armed forces,but they will almost inevitably create social tensions andresult in a different relationship between the military andsociety.

Today, the 350,000-strong armed forces of the 1980shave been reduced to about 200,000. However, this numer-ical change failed to generate similar improvements inquality. Although the reforms aimed at creating smaller butmore effective armed forces, the increase in effectivenesswas modest due to the inability to allocate the savings gen-erated by reducing the size of the army to its technicalmodernisation. Those savings were returned to the statebudget to meet Poland’s most immediate needs.

Poland’s participation as a NATO member in defenceplanning since 1999 has been a major spur to reform andthe latest programme of reform is aimed at fulf illingAlliance objectives. At the time when Poland joined NATO,Alliance members adopted a new Strategic Concept andlaunched the Defence Capabilities Initiative. The resultingforce goals, which are primarily concerned with the techni-cal modernisation of the armed forces, the organisation ofrapid reaction forces and improvement of operations,require substantial expenditure and the development of abetter long-term financial planning framework, as well as acomplete change of the philosophy of military reform. TheProgramme of Restructuring and Technical Modernisation

Reforming Poland’s militaryBronislaw Komorowski explains the reasoning behind his country’s new

programme to restructure and modernise its armed forces.

and increasingtheir mobility toenable them to takepart in operationsoutside Poland.

In completingthe design of theWar CommandSystem and ensur-ing its compatibili-ty with NATOcommand systems,the most diff iculttask is likely to bereducing personnelaccording to a tightschedule. By theend of 2001,26,000 more posts,that is 13 per centof the total, shouldhave gone, leaving180,000, including36,000 officers and52,200 other professional soldiers. The number of con-script soldiers will be reduced to 91,800. By 2003, theoverall numbers should be reduced further to 150,000 ofwhom 75,000 will be professionals.

Personnel reductions are directly linked to recruitment inmilitary schools as well as the system of discharge. Whilegraduates of Polish military academies boast a high level ofeducation and military skills, the schooling process isexcessively long and expensive in relation to the armedforces’ actual needs. The annual cost of educating a cadetcomes to approximately 38,000 zloty, compared with 6,500zloty for a university student. As a result, in the f irstinstance, the number of places in military academies willbe reduced. Following this reduction, the armed forces willbegin recruiting regular university graduates for officerposts on a contract basis and introducing a system of con-tinuous education. The social costs of these reductions arelikely to be extremely high and this may cause unrestamong those officers — colonels, lieutenant colonels andmajors — who will bear the brunt of the cuts, many ofwhom will be discharged within three years.

The technical modernisation of the armed forces is like-ly to be less painful, but equally costly. The focal point ofthe modernisation programme will be the provision ofHigh Operation Readiness Units (one third of all armedforces) with modern equipment. This will be achievedeither by purchasing new equipment or modernising old, aswell as by designating currently used armaments fromother types of forces to High Operation Readiness Units.The process of technical modernisation is based on long-term programmes with guaranteed, statutory financing.

S i g n i f i c a n tresources will beearmarked to thefollowing areas:modernising theair-defence sys-tem, including thecommand systemand the process ofobtaining multi-role aircraft;upgrading T-72tanks to meetNATO standardsand obtaining newtanks; introducingdifferent types ofwheeled armoured-personnel carriers,and introducingnew anti-tankguided missiles;equipping shipswith modern mis-sile systems; mod-

ernising combat helicopters; purchasing medium-lift trans-port aircraft; and introducing new ships of 621 (corvette)and FFG-7 (frigate) types, and submarines.

By 2006, the Polish Armed Forces should comprise thefollowing units, equipped and trained to NATO standards:11 combat units of the brigade-regiment type, 15 combatunits of the battalion type, two units of the company type,five tactical air squadrons, 22 air-defence missile divisions,seven air bases, three radio-electronics units, 35 ships andtwo naval air squadrons. By that time, Polish units of theDanish-German-Polish Multinational Corps North-Eastbased in Szczecin, Poland, will have attained the requiredNATO standards.

The process of technical modernisation, which willinclude purchasing armaments and military equipment,should generate opportunities for Poland’s military indus-try and related businesses. The reform programme hasbeen drawn up on the basis of wide-ranging consultationwith politicians of all persuasions and military experts.Implementation will be difficult and will require broadsupport. Critically, however, the planned reforms have beenwelcomed by all Poland’s major political parties, both thosein government and those in opposition. This support led tothe adoption, by a large majority, in parliament on 25 May,of a bill covering the reform programme. ■

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A show of hands: a large majority of the Polish parliament voted for both NATO membership andthe defence reform programme

For more details of the Programme of Restructuringand Technical Modernisation of the Armed Forces of theRepublic of Poland for 2001-2006, see www.wp.mil.pl.


Since the integration of women takes place at differentlevels and in different ways, it is difficult to draw up a pre-cise league table among NATO countries. A brief look atsome Allies with longer histories of servicewomen, oftendating back to the Second if not the First World War, illus-trates the point.

Norway and Denmark are in some respects the most pro-gressive countries, where female soldiers are concerned.Norway was the first NATO country to allow women toserve on submarines and women have been allowed into allother combat functions since 1985. Denmark opened allfunctions and units in the armed forces to women in 1988after trials conducted in combat arms in 1985 and 1987.Danish and Norwegian servicewomen serve or have servedin almost all operational functions in the armed forces,except for the para-rangers and marine commandos, sinceto date no woman has met entry requirements. No Danishwoman has yet served as a fighter pilot, either. In bothcountries, female soldiers train, work and are deployed onequal terms with men. They can also enrol for nationalservice on a voluntary basis, an opportunity that allowsthem to gain insight into the armed forces and mightencourage them to pursue a military career. There has evenbeen recent debate in Norway about introducing compulsory

Vicki Nielsen is assistant editor of NATO Review.

W omen in NATO forces have much to celebratethis year. It is the 40th anniversary of the firstNATO Conference of Senior Service Women

Officers and the 25th anniversary of the formal recognitionof the Committee on Women in the NATO Forces by theMilitary Committee, NATO’s highest military authority.

In the course of the past four decades, the status, condi-tions and numbers of women in NATO armed forces havechanged almost beyond recognition. According to statisticsfrom the Office on Women in the NATO Forces, the num-ber of females in NATO uniforms, all volunteers, hasjumped from 30,000 in 1961 to 288,000 today. But eachmilitary has its own history, traditions and culture and thedegree of integration of women varies from one to another.Although women have served in armed forces for manyyears, the debate about the feminisation of the militarycontinues, even in countries that are farther down the roadof integration than others: about how and where womenshould serve and train, about the extent to which womenshould be integrated, and even about whether the processhas already gone too far.

Women in uniformVicki Nielsen examines how far women have been integrated in NATO forces.

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Giving direction: during the past four decades, the status, conditions and numbers of women in NATO armed forces have changed almost beyond recognition

military service for women as a means to boosting femalerepresentation and promoting gender equality.

However, at five per cent of total strength in Denmark andonly three per cent in Norway, representation of women islow relative to some other Allies. Norway aims to boost theproportion of female soldiers to seven per cent by 2005. Butdespite the appointment of the country’s first female defenceminister in March 1999, few Norwegian servicewomen haveadvanced to senior ranks. The first female colonel was onlyappointed in November 1999. One reason is that manyfemale officers change from operational to administrativeservice after maternity leave, reducing their chances ofbeing selected to study at military academies. Few womenhave reached the senior ranks of the Danish Armed Forceseither, where recruitment and retention of female soldiers isalso problematic. In 1999 and 2000, military academiesthere saw the lowest intake of women in recent years.

The highest representation of women in the armed forceson active duty is found in the United States (14 per cent)and Canada (11.4 per cent). The breakthrough for US ser-vicewomen came with the creation of the All-VolunteerForce in 1973. At the time, disillusionment with the mili-tary in the wake of the Vietnam War meant that fewer menwere willing to serve so female recruits were welcome.Today, 8.6 per cent of US troops deployed world-wide arewomen. More than 11,200 female soldiers have supported

NATO peacekeeping operations and 37,000 served in theGulf during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. US service-women are also making inroads into the highest ranks. Todate, four have risen to the three-star equivalent rank oflieutenant general/vice admiral.

Not all posts are open to women in the US forces, however.In theory, only posts involving direct ground combat remainclosed but, in practice, current assignment policy rules meanthat several other positions are effectively male-only, so that80 per cent of jobs are open to females. Canadian service-women, on the other hand, have been able to serve in almostall functions and environments since 1989. The only excep-tion was on board submarines and even that restriction waslifted in March this year. The first women are expected tostart submarine training in the autumn. Nevertheless, mostwomen in the Canadian Armed Forces remain concentratedin more traditional areas and there has been little successintegrating them into the combat arms occupations —infantry, artillery, field engineer and armour — where repre-sentation remains low at 1.9 per cent.

The armed forces of France, the Netherlands and theUnited Kingdom also have long histories of recruitingfemale soldiers and women represent more than eight percent of personnel. Generally, few female soldiers have risento the senior ranks. Women remained segregated inwomen’s corps in both the Netherlands and the United

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The debate continuesNot everyone welcomes the growing influx of women

in the military. Some traditionalists continue to argue thatthere is no place for women in the services. In anexchange in the Millenium journal last year, an ardentproponent of this view, Martin Van Creveld of the HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem, argued that feminisation is partsymptom, part cause, of the decline of the advanced mil-itary. In their replies, both Christopher Coker of theLondon School of Economics and Jean Bethke Elshtain ofthe University of Chicago, challenged the view that themilitary is in decline. They argued instead that it is under-going a process of change, which reflects developments inthe social, technological and international security con-texts, which require the military to be more responsive tocertain public pressures concerning civil values and placenew demands on the armed forces in terms of skills, par-ticularly for peacekeeping activities.

Caroline Kennedy-Pipe of Sheffield University echoedthese views in an article, which appeared in the Journal ofStrategic Studies last December. Pointing to the definitionof the future warrior offered by Christopher Bellamy inKnights in White Armour, she argued that technologicalinnovations have changed the nature of contemporarywarfare, making old-fashioned close combat less likely

and leaving the role of the modern warrior more genderneutral than ever. As a result, few good military reasonsremain for denying physically and mentally competentwomen positions in the armed forces. Moreover, she pro-posed that the debate move beyond whether womenshould be fully integrated in the military and insteadaddress “how and where they can best serve in the newwars that require new warriors”.

From make-up to camouflage: debates about the feminisation of themilitary revolve around the suitability, fitness and appropriateness ofthe female for war

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Kingdom until the early 1980s and early 1990s, respective-ly. France granted female soldiers equal status in the early1970s, but it was not until the 1980s that serious steps weretaken to improve the integration of women and quotasremained in place until 1998. Recruitment of French ser-vicewomen is expected to rise with the end of compulsorynational service in 2002. The Dutch Armed Forces’ newtarget of 12 per cent female personnel by 2010 may provehard to achieve, given difficulties encountered trying toreach current levels and problems with retention.

In theory, all positions are open to women in both Dutchand French militaries. In practice, however, access to somespecialities remains restricted, usually on the grounds ofphysical requirements and combat effectiveness, or forpractical reasons, as in the case of submarines. Most womendeployed continue to serve in logistic and combat-supportunits, though operations in recent years have demonstratedthe ability of women to operate effectively in war zones.

Some restrictions also remain in place in the UnitedKingdom, but many changes took place in the early 1990s,when women were allowed to serve at sea in surface shipsand in all aircrew roles. Now, over 95 per cent of posts areopen in the air force, along with around 70 per cent of postsin both the army and navy. UK servicewomen serve along-side their male counterparts in nearly all specialities,except in units whose primary duty is “to close with andkill the enemy”, where it is felt their presence would impaircombat effectiveness. Such restrictions are consistent witha European Court ruling that allows women to be excludedfrom certain posts on the grounds of combat effectiveness,leaving it up to national authorities to decide which. UKservicewomen are also barred from serving in submarinesor as mine-clearance divers in the Royal Navy for medicalreasons.

Belgian servicewomen were later to arrive on the scene,with the armed forces only opening to women in 1975. Buttoday they make up over seven per cent of the total forceand their numbers continue to rise, including in the higherranks. They are fully integrated with all functions open tothem, though the majority occupy administrative or logisticposts. In Luxembourg, which has no air force or navy,women were not allowed to serve in the army until 1987and today make up only 0.6 per cent of personnel.

Most Mediterranean countries started opening theirarmed forces to women in the 1980s and 1990s, thoughsome were already employing women in the medical serv-ices. Greece admitted female non-commissioned officersto support functions in 1979. Military academies remainedclosed until 1990 and access to military education remainsrestricted. Women are still excluded from combat tasks butthe first Greek women served at sea in 2000 and the firstfemale pilot cadet is expected to enter the Air ForceAcademy in 2001. Representation is about four per cent.Spain started recruiting women in 1988 and Portugal in

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1992 and female soldiers now make up around six per centof total strength in both countries. Most functions includ-ing combat positions are now open to women in theSpanish Armed Forces, though restrictions remain in somespecialities, and over half of Spanish servicewomen areemployed in administrative posts. Portuguese service-women can in theory apply for all posts, though in practicethe marines and combat specialities remain closed.

In Turkey, women were accepted into military academiesin the late 1950s, but a drastic change in policy in 1960meant that they were not admitted into military educationagain until 1982 and no female cadets were allowed in mil-tary schools until ten years later. Turkish servicewomen,who make up only 0.1 per cent of total strength, can onlyserve as officers and are restricted from serving in armourand infantry branches as well as submarines.

In the new NATO member countries, preparations forEU accession helped spur the introduction of equal oppor-tunities in the military in the 1990s, which also saw theopening up of military education to women in all threecountries. Today, servicewomen represent 3.7 per cent ofthe total force in the Czech Republic and over nine per centin Hungary, but they tend to remain in traditional roles andfew have risen to higher ranks. In the Polish Armed Forces,representation is low at 0.1 per cent and is likely to remainso due to current restructuring. Practically all women servein medical posts.

Germany’s Bundeswehr restricted the employment ofwomen to military bands and the medical services untilrecently. As a result, female representation remains low at2.8 per cent. But thanks to the lonely struggle of a womanwanting to serve in a maintenance-support team and a rul-ing of the European Court of Justice in January 2000, allposts are now open to female soldiers. A year later, the firstwomen were recruited into the lower ranks and as non-commissioned officers, to be followed by the first officersin July 2001. To date, the integration of women has pro-ceeded smoothly and women in all career groups arealready serving in the NATO-led operations in the Balkans.

Italy was the last NATO member to exclude women fromthe military. But in September 1999, the Italian parliamentpassed a bill allowing women to serve in the armed forcesfollowing years of campaigning by La AssociazoneNazionale Aspiranti Donne Soldato (the association ofaspiring women soldiers), which won wide popular supportand the backing of Admiral Guido Venturoni, chairman ofNATO’s Military Committee. To celebrate this landmarkdecision and the first intake of female recruits in 2000, theannual meeting of the Committee on Women in the NATOForces in June 2001 was, at Italy’s request, exceptionallyheld in Rome, instead of a city in the Netherlands, thecountry holding the chair at the time. Italy is adopting agradual approach, focusing initially on integrating womeninto general support rather than operational positions and

Promoting womenin NATO forces

Forty years ago, in June 1961, delegates fromDenmark, the Netherlands, Norway, the UnitedKingdom and the United States gathered inCopenhagen, Denmark, for the f irst NATOConference of Senior Service Women Officers, whichwas organised by the Danish Atlantic Association.They expressed the desire to meet regularly and thehope that the appropriate NATO and national authori-ties would consider employing women more widely inthe armed services.

But it was not until 1976, 15 years later, that aCommittee on Women in the NATO Forces, was for-mally recognised by NATO’s Military Committee. Thenumber of NATO countries sending delegates orobservers to Committee meetings rose gradually overthe years. There are now 18 delegates from all NATOcountries except Iceland, which has no armed forces.Canada holds the chair for the next two years.

An Off ice for Women in the NATO Forces wasgiven permanent status on the International MilitaryStaff at NATO headquarters at the end of 2000. It sup-ports the work of the Committee and its three sub-committees in the areas of training and development,recruitment and employment, and quality of life. TheOffice also seeks to act as a repository for informationand research on such issues and to promote awarenessof the effective employment of women in the militaryamong NATO and Partner countries.

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there are restrictions on enrolment to military academies. Itis hoped this will facilitate integration and give male mili-tary personnel time to adapt.

The German and Italian militaries have the examples offellow NATO Allies to follow as they start down the road ofintegrating women more widely and can benefit from les-sons learned and best practice built up elsewhere. Clearly,the interaction between the armed forces of different mem-bers of the Alliance during military exercises and operationsor peacekeeping activities plays its part in promoting thecross-fertilisation of ideas and practices on gender issues.

But NATO countries where women have already beenemployed in the military for many years can also learnfrom one another, as the armed forces struggle to recruitand retain skilled personnel in a competitive job market. InNorway, for example, as part of the defence ministry’sstrategy for gender equality, extensive mentoring pro-grammes have recently been launched to encourage womento stay and compete for senior positions in the armedforces. Mentoring is also used to differing extents in someother countries, including the United Kingdom and theUnited States. Both Canada and Denmark have embarkedon a diversity-management approach. Denmark hopes toboost female recruitment by the adoption of gender-differentiated basic physical standards, while keepingrequirements for physically demanding functions genderneutral. But there is a growing trend towards adaptingphysical standards to the requirements of the job ratherthan applying different standards for each sex.

Improving the quality of life for all military personneland their families is a key priority in the United States andseveral other countries. Belgium and the Netherlands, forexample, are experimenting with opportunities for part-time work to make it easier for mothers of young children.A family policy action plan for the Norwegian ArmedForces, due to be published this summer, focuses on sup-port for families with members deployed on internationaloperations. And in Denmark, all personnel are given asmuch influence as possible over their own work situationand duty cycle to minimise strains on family life, includ-ing possibilities to take a temporary downgrading withoutjeopardising future career possibilities.

Women have come a long way in NATO armed forces dur-ing the past 40 years. However, female under-representation,especially in the senior ranks, has a devastating effect on attri-tion and remains a key issue. On this point, NATO headquar-ters has failed to set an example, as only three female officerscurrently serve on the International Military Staff. But aswomen continue to rise through the ranks and make their markon the military, the picture may be very different in the not toodistant future. ■

Drilling recruits: a key challenge in today’s competitive job mar-ket is recruitment and retention of skilled personnel

© U

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More information on women in NATO forces can befound at www.nato.int/docu/facts/cwinf.htm.


STATISTICS

Belgium 7.6% 3,202

Canada 11.4% 6,558

Czech Republic 3.7% 1,991

Denmark 5.0% 863

France 8.5% 27,516

Germany 2.8% 5,263

Greece 3.8% 6,155

Hungary 9.6% 3,017

Italy 0.1% 438

Luxembourg 0.6% 47

Netherlands 8.0% 4,170

Norway 3.2% 1,152

Poland 0.1% 277

Portugal 6.6% 2,875

Spain 5.8% 6,462

Turkey 0.1% 917

United Kingdom 8.1% 16,623

United States 14.0% 198,452

Statistics on women in NATO forces are compiled on thebasis of figures provided by each NATO country (exceptIceland, which has no armed forces) in the Annual Review ofWomen in NATO’s Armed Forces. Total force numbersinclude conscripts. Figures for 2001 are provisional.

Female personnel force strengths

0% 5% 10% Numbers

source: CWINF National Delegates

Selected current United Nations peacekeeping operations

Start of Personnel Cost to Estimateoperation strength 1999/00 2000/01

US$m US$m

UNTSO United Nations Truce Supervision (Middle East) 1948 154 606 23UNFICYP United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus 1964 1,219 1,019 43UNDOF United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (Israel) 1974 1,120 786 37UNIFIL United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon 1978 4,922 3,118 147MINURSO United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara 1991 231 389 49UNIKOM United Nations Iraq-Kuwait Observer Mission 1991 1,115 521 53UNOMIG United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia 1993 102 115 30UNAMSIL United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone 1999 12,439 267 504UNTAET United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor 1999 8,087 350 584MONUC United Nations Organisation Mission in DROC 1999 258 59 141

Selected current non-United Nations peacekeeping operations

Start of Personnel Cost to Estimateoperation strength 1999/00 2000/01

US$m US$m

MFO Multinational Force and Observers (Egypt) 1982 1,844 1,385 51SFOR NATO-led Stabilisation Force (Bosnia) 1996 22,800 13,000 2,700Belisi Peace Monitoring Group in Bougainville 1998 262 55 14KFOR NATO-led Kosovo Force 1999 50,000 7,000 6,000

Selected past United Nations peacekeeping operations

Dates of Personnel Costoperation strength US$m

UNEF I First United Nations Emergency Force 1956-67 6,073 214UNOGIL United Nations Observer Group in Lebanon 1958 591 4ONUC United Nations Operation in the Congo 1960-64 19,828 400UNYOM United Nations Yemen Observer Mission 1963 239 2UNEF II Second United Nations Emergency Force 1973-79 6,973 446UNIIMOG United Nations Iran-Iraq Military Observer Group 1988-91 400 178UNTAG United Nations Transition Assistance Group 1989-90 5,993 369ONUCA United Nations Observer Group in Central America 1989-92 1,098 89UNAVEM I, II, III United Nations Angola Verification Mission I, II, III 1989-97 7,546 944ONUSAL United Nations Observer Mission in El Salvador 1991-95 683 107UNTAC United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia 1992-93 19,159 1,600ONUMOZ United Nations Operations in Mozambique 1992-94 8,125 471UNOSOM I,II United Nations Operations in Somalia I, II 1992-95 28,000 2,300UNPROFOR United Nations Protection Force 1992-95 30,869 4,600UNAMIR United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda 1993-96 5,500 437UNMIH United Nations Mission in Haiti 1993-96 1,549 516UNPREDEP United Nations Preventive Deployment Force 1995-99 1,110 176UNTAES United Nations Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia 1996-98 5,344 558MINUGUA United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala 1997 188 15UNOMA United Nations Observer Mission in Angola 1997-99 1,156 181MINURCA United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic 1998-00 1,252 86

Selected past non-United Nations peacekeeping operations

Dates of Personnel Costoperation strength US$m

ECOMOG ECOWAS Military Observer Group (Liberia) 1990-98 12,400 525UNTAF Unified Task Force in Somalia 1992-93 40,000 2,500IFOR NATO-led Implementation Force (Bosnia) 1995-96 60,000 5,000Alba Multinational Protection Force (Albania) 1997 6,294 175MISAB Mission Interafricaine de Surveillance des Accords de Bangui 1997 1,578 102AFOR NATO Albania Force 1999 5,500 650INTERFET International Force in East Timor 1999 11,310 421

The above statistics are from the 2000 Chart of Armed Conflict, published in TheMilitary Balance 2000-2001 by the London-based International Institute forStrategic Studies. Data are assessed as correct as of 30 June 2000.

Women in NATO forces and peacekeeping operations

KOSOVO - ONE YEAR ON - Achievement and ChallengeReport by NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson

NATO and Russia: Partners in PeacekeepingInformation sheet describing practical cooperation on theground between NATO and Russian peacekeepers in the

Balkans

Extending Security: The Role of NATO and its Partner CountriesComprehensive illustrated booklet which describes howNATO works and covers policy development in key areas of Alliance activity

NATO 2000CD-Rom charting the evolution of the Alliance and describingthe adaptation it has undergone to address the security challenges of the 21st century

NATO Topics Visual presentation of the Alliance outlining milestones in NATO’s development and key issues on its current agenda (electronic edition only: www.nato.int/docu/topics/2000/home.htm)

The Reader’s Guide to the Washington Summit Compilation of all official texts and declarations issued at

NATO’s summit in Washington in April 1999, including background information on Alliance programmes and activities

NATO at 50 Introductory leaflet on the history of the Alliance, giving an

overview of key topics on NATO’s current agenda

NATO UpdateWeekly web-based newsletter which covers NATO activities

and events in brief, giving a broad overview of Alliance initiatives (electronic edition only: www.nato.int/docu/update/index.htm)

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Documents

NATO contents · regular spring meetings in Budapest, Hungary, on 29 and 30 May. Discussions focused on current ten-sions in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,* develop-ments