Primeiro esboço do novo conceito estratégico da NATO

O projeto para o “novo conceito estratégico” da NATO, apresentado pelo secretário-geral da organização na segunda-feira, foi bem recebido, havendo “mais pontos de convergência que de divergência”, anunciou hoje em Bruxelas o porta-voz da Aliança.

James Appathurai lembrou que este primeiro esboço é ainda somente "um ponto de partida", começando agora a ser discutido com os embaixadores dos países membros.

Em conferência de imprensa, no quartel-general da NATO, Appathurai acrescentou que o projeto do «novo conceito estratégico» da Aliança Atlântica vai ainda ser debatido pelos ministros da Defesa e dos Negócios Estrangeiros, a 14 de outubro, antes de ser adotado em novembro, na cimeira de Lisboa.

O porta-voz sublinhou que a forma “inclusiva e transparente” no processo de consulta para a elaboração do documento já “está a produzir resultados”, pois as primeiras reações foram positivas, destacando-se «muito mais pontos de convergência do que de divergência».

Escusando-se a avançar pormenores sobre o conteúdo do documento, que a NATO espera manter "privado" até à cimeira de Lisboa, Appathurai adiantou que o texto tem um cariz bastante político, é curto e claro – apenas 10 páginas (às quais se juntarão depois textos mais burocráticos, sobretudo sobre implantação) -, pois o desejo do secretário-geral, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, foi que o texto fosse “legível” também pelos cidadãos. [...]

Ver notícia do jornal i

A cimeira da NATO: cartoon de Marquard Otzen no jornal Politiken.dk

Há um ano atrás, na cimeira da NATO de Bucareste: ‘com aliados como estes‘... in The Economist

The NATO summit in Bucharest was meant to be a celebration of France's full return to the fold and a show of long-term commitment to stabilising Afghanistan. Instead it turned into a particularly rancorous dispute about matters closer to home: how far and how fast NATO should continue to expand, and how it should deal with a more aggressive Russia.

The meeting became a battle of wills between Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, cast in a naysaying role that is usually reserved for French leaders, and George Bush, attending his last NATO summit and hoping to be remembered for extending “the circle of freedom”.

On the face of it, the issue was arcane: whether Ukraine and Georgia should be upgraded from “intensified dialogue” with NATO to a “membership action plan” (MAP), essentially a promise to join NATO after meeting a set of political and military benchmarks. But to many, particularly America and ex-communist states, this was a question of principle: NATO had to keep its vow to welcome fragile democracies, and should give no veto to Russia, especially in its current aggressive mood.

Germany says Russia's president-elect, Dmitry Medvedev, should get time to settle in without being forced into a spat with NATO. “What is the rush?” asked one senior official. Earlier the French prime minister, François Fillon, said his country opposed granting MAP “because we think it is not the right response to the balance of power in Europe”. Britain, too, was sceptical. But observers reckoned that, should Germany yield to American pressure, other resistance would melt.

At a bad-tempered foreign ministers' meeting on the opening night, Germany's foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, told colleagues Georgia would not be fit to join until it had resolved the “frozen conflicts” over two Russian-backed statelets on its soil. Condoleezza Rice, his American opposite number, retorted that these conflicts were “not Georgia's problem, but Russia's”. She added that Germany's own NATO membership in 1955 had come at a time when that country was divided.

After much haggling, the allies declared that the two countries “will become members of NATO” eventually—but that a decision on MAP would only be taken by foreign ministers in December. Even that could be a humiliation for the Georgians, whose volatile president, Mikheil Saakashvili, privately compared anything short of MAP to appeasement of the Nazis.

Even the enlargement that was supposed to be straightforward—expanding membership of NATO (and later of the European Union) to the Balkans—turned ugly because of an old row over Macedonia's name, shared by a Greek province. Macedonia had agreed to the formulation “Republic of Macedonia (Skopje)”; Greece wanted a compound formula such as “Upper Macedonia” or “New Macedonia” and blocked the invitation. The allies said Macedonia would join once the issue of the name had been settled.

NATO invited Croatia and Albania, boosted ties with Montenegro and Bosnia, and offered Serbia a friendly hand. Franco-American friendship took a big step forward as France offered more troops to fight the Taliban and signalled its intention to return in 2009 to NATO's integrated military structure. Mr Bush compared Mr Sarkozy's arrival with the “latest incarnation of Elvis” and endorsed an EU plan to develop stronger defences.

With Vladimir Putin due to join the summit on April 4th, and then to host Mr Bush the next day in the resort of Sochi, the American president was balancing the need to maintain working relations with the Kremlin while not being seen to yield to threats. “The cold war is over. Russia is not our enemy,” said Mr Bush, restating his assurance that America's plan to set up its missile-defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic was not aimed at Russia.

To America's delight, its allies embraced missile defence, recognising its “substantial contribution” to their security, and agreeing to seek ways to extend a shield to countries like Turkey. American sweeteners—offering to accept Russian liaison officers, promising not to switch on the system until a threat (from Iran) emerges, and holding out for Russian participation—impressed European sceptics.

Yet at its core, the dispute within NATO is about the renewed threat from Russia. Members of “old Europe” may hope to avoid a clash with the Kremlin, but many countries of “new” Europe say the struggle has already begun. For them security lies in expanding the frontiers of what was once the transatlantic alliance to the Black Sea and ultimately to the Caspian.

Even its strongest advocates recognise that such expansion raises questions about the purpose of the alliance: should it be mainly a military organisation, or a political club of democracies? Radek Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, questioned whether the promise of mutual defence from armed attack enshrined in Article 5 of NATO's charter was becoming “diluted”.

Mr Sikorski wants NATO to move military infrastructure east. He complains that NATO hesitates even to make intelligence assessments of perils from Russia. Others want more attention to non-conventional threats, given last year's cyber-attack on Estonia, blamed on Russia. “We do a disservice to Russia by not taking it seriously,” said Toomas Ilves, Estonia's president.

http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10981434
JPTF 2009/03/29

A França regressa à NATO: ‘Sarkozy quebra com o gaulismo e a tradição‘ in Der Spiegel, 12 de Março 2009

France wants to give up its special role after 43 years and reintegrate into all structures of NATO. The decision by President Nicolas Sarkozy represents a break from his predecessors, but it has drawn heavy criticism across partisan lines in Paris.

It was a chronicle of a return foretold. Academics, members of parliament and diplomats, as well as current and former cabinet ministers had gathered, against the impressive backdrop of the École Militaire in Paris, to attend a conference titled "France, European Defense and NATO in the 21st Century." The event made it seem as if the decision of the day had not been made yet. That afternoon, French President Nicolas Sarkozy had used the ceremonial backdrop of the Foch Amphitheater to announce his country's reintegration into all structures of the Atlantic alliance.

Citing his "responsibility for the nation's strategic decisions" and noting that strategic conditions in the world have changed considerably, Sarkozy pledged France's "full commitment" at the side of its partners -- 43 years after former President and General Charles de Gaulle withdrew France from the Atlantic alliance.

France's reintegration into NATO creates a largely symbolic orientation, with which Sarkozy, a committed friend of the United States (and Israel), seeks to liberate himself from the doubts of his European friends. But with this one-sided diplomatic move, Sarkozy was merely promoting France's interests.

Nevertheless, Sarko's turnaround represents a "break " with tradition. NATO, created after World War II, on April 4, 1949, was an allied organization designed to defend the West against the Soviet Union and serve as a counterweight against the Warsaw Pact. France was a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance.

The French withdrawal from NATO's integrated military and leadership structures took place in March 1966, because de Gaulle refused to allow the French armed forces to submit to US command. It was the middle of the Cold War, and the fact that La Grande Nation, which had just become a nuclear power, was going it alone was perceived as a destabilizing maneuver.

But the separation was not destined to last forever. In fact, France's subsequent rapprochement with NATO took place in stages. By 1992, France had joined the NATO operations in Kosovo, and French troops later participated in military campaigns in Afghanistan. In 1996, Paris said that it would re-establish a permanent military mission to NATO, and in 2004 French military officials were once again part of the NATO command. Since then, the French flag has fluttered in front of NATO headquarters once again, and today more than 4,000 French soldiers are deployed on NATO missions worldwide.

The End of the French Exception

Now Paris has put an end to the "French exception" and is turning its back on an "anti-American" reflex. France's change of heart is likely to be celebrated symbolically in early April a the NATO summit meeting in Strasbourg, France, and across the Rhine River in Kehl, Germany. In practice, however, the changes will have few consequences. France's return will provide 900 officers with NATO jobs and, most of all, Paris will be rewarded by being given command of two structures. This, at least, is the apparent upshot of a behind-the-scenes agreement between Elysée Palace and the White House.

The new French members of the General Staff will supervise the Allied Command Transformation project in Virginia. In addition, French military officials will take over regional command headquarters in Lisbon, the location of NATO's Rapid Reaction Force and its satellite reconnaissance system.

The amount of power that a land Sarkozy refers to as "a major power like France" is regaining with its return to the NATO structures is a matter of controversy among experts and even within the ranks of Sarkozy's party. In particular, there is growing dissatisfaction among old-guard Gaullists, who interpret Sarkozy's policy of a "break" with the old simply as a betrayal of de Gaulle's legacy. And it's not just the Socialists and their former prime ministers, Lionel Jospin and Laurent Fabius, who reject the president's about face -- even Sarkozy's former colleagues from the conservative governing party, Alain Juppé and Dominique de Villepin, have publicly criticized the change of heart on NATO.

Solidarity with Berlin

All of this was reason enough for Sarkozy to underscore, in his address, the notion that the return to the command structure of NATO is "in the interest of France and Europe" and would represent a "strengthening of our sovereignty." "We cannot risk the lives of our soldiers without taking part in the planning," the president said, insisting that Paris would continue to reserve the right to a "freedom of assessment" before deploying its troops on NATO missions.

Of course, to ensure that the NATO debate would not turn into a fiasco in the National Assembly in Paris, Sarkozy asked his prime minister to hold a vote of confidence after the debate, which is hardly likely to permit opposition. This gives Prime Minister Francois Fillon a tool to pressure the dissidents within his party and bring them back on course with the administration.

Sarkozy can also celebrate another triumph. The president's decision has met with far less criticism from the public. In fact, 58 percent of the French support their country's return to the NATO command structures.

Sarkozy received congratulatory notes on his speech from Brussels and applause from Berlin -- even before he had given it. In a perfect show of solidarity between President Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the two politicians sang the praises of the defense alliance leading up to the Munich Security Conference. "As a response to crises and conflicts, the alliances that are based on shared values -- the European Union and NATO -- are becoming increasingly important," the wrote in a joint newspaper contribution.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,druck-612840,00.html
JPTF 2009/03/12

A NATO alarga-se aos Balcãs

A Albânia e a Croácia receberam ontem, durante a cimeira de Bucareste da NATO, um convite formal para aderirem a esta organização de segurança militar, fundada a 4 de Abril de 1949, em plena Guerra-Fria. Todavia, outros estados com a Macedónia, a Geórgia e a Ucrânia viram as suas expectativas de adesão frustradas. No caso da Macedónia, o entrave resultou do conflito que persiste com a Grécia sobre o nome oficial do Estado, que esta apenas reconhece como ex-República Jugoslava da Macedónia, por ter uma província com o mesmo nome. No cerne da questão está ainda partilha territorial da antiga Macedónia otomana, efectuada nas guerras balcânicas de 1912-1913, e a herança cultural e identitária da Antiguidade Clássica de que Alexandre o Grande é um símbolo bem conhecido (ver também notícia da revista Der Spiegel). Nos casos da Geórgia, situada no Cáucaso e da Ucrânia, no Leste europeu, na actual fronteira com a Rússia (ambas ex-repúblicas da extinta União Soviética), os convites de adesão não se concretizaram. Aqui a razão de fundo foram divergências de entendimento entre os membros da NATO: se esta adesão tinha o apoio claro dos novos membros da Europa Central e de Leste - e está em sintonia com a actual visão dos EUA sobre a segurança na região -, contrastou também com a atitude de travagem do alargamento feita por alguns dos antigos membros da Europa ocidental, sobretudo da Alemanha e da França (ver notícia do jornal La Libre Belgique e da revista Der Spiegel). Por sua vez, este último país anunciou ainda a sua intenção de reingressar na estrutura militar da organização em 2009, que abandonou em 1966, na altura do general De Gaulle, e que levou à transferência da sede da NATO de Paris para Bruxelas, onde se situa actualmente (ver editorial do jornal Le Monde).
JPTF 2008/04/04

"A França concretiza em quatro propostas a vontade de regresso pleno à NATO" in Le Monde, 9 de Outubro de 2007

llustrant la volonté exprimée par le président français, Nicolas Sarkozy, d'un retour au sein de la structure militaire intégrée de l'Alliance atlantique, Paris a transmis le 3 octobre un document au Conseil de l'Atlantique nord (NAC) de l'OTAN pour "renforcer la transparence et la coopération entre l'UE et l'OTAN", qui se décline en quatre propositions. Celles-ci doivent être présentées, le 12 octobre, au Comité politique et de sécurité (COPS) de l'Union européenne (UE).

La France propose qu'une "présentation systématique du programme et du bilan de la présidence" de l'Union européenne ait lieu au NAC et dans les différents comités de l'OTAN, avec la participation au Conseil atlantique du ministre des affaires européennes du pays exerçant la présidence de l'UE.

Paris demande ensuite "une pratique plus fréquente d'invitations croisées" du haut représentant de l'UE pour la politique étrangère et de sécurité, Javier Solana, au NAC, et du secrétaire général de l'OTAN, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, au COPS, "pour présenter des domaines d'action pertinents".

La France suggère d'autre part de développer les contacts de travail entre l'Agence européenne de défense (AED) et le Commandement allié pour la transformation (ACT), qui s'occupe également de programmes d'armement.

Elle souhaite enfin la mise en place "d'une procédure prédéfinie d'échange d'informations en cas de crise" entre le Centre euro-atlantique de réponse aux crises et le Centre de suivi et d'information (MIC, mécanisme de protection civile) de la Commission européenne. Le recours aux capacités militaires pour la réponse aux catastrophes humanitaires et naturelles resterait toutefois coordonné au niveau européen.

TROC DIPLOMATIQUE

Ces propositions, d'apparence techniques, prennent, dans le contexte du rapprochement atlantiste souhaité par Paris, une portée politique significative. Elles contrastent avec les positions traditionnelles de la France, qui a longtemps freiné la coopération institutionnelle entre l'OTAN et l'UE.

Elles illustrent la démarche du président français, basée sur une sorte de troc diplomatique : la France envisage de reprendre toute sa place au sein de l'OTAN, à condition que l'Alliance atlantique prenne davantage en compte le poids et l'influence des Européens, qu'elle se recentre sur sa vocation d'organisation militaire, que la France occupe des postes de responsabilité à la mesure de sa contribution militaire à l'Alliance, et enfin que les Etats-Unis et la Grande-Bretagne cessent de freiner tout progrès de la défense européenne.

Ces dispositions ont été accueillies à l'OTAN comme de premières "mesures de confiance", destinées à prouver les bonnes intentions de Paris. "C'est la manifestation que la France a quitté le camp de ceux qui disent non , comme la Turquie; c'est un pas en avant qui montre que Sarkozy veut concrétiser son intention politique", estime un haut responsable de l'OTAN.

"L'atmosphère a nettement évolué depuis les propositions du président Sarkozy; on a le sentiment qu'il n'y a plus de tabou du côté français, plus de lignes rouges", renchérit un diplomate britannique, qui reste dubitatif quant à un éventuel succès.

La stratégie française semble en effet aléatoire, tant les concessions demandées apparaissent ambitieuses. Du côté français, la consigne est désormais de tout faire pour "ne pas bloquer la discussion" au sein de l'Alliance atlantique. Dans le passé, la France a manifesté ses réticences à un rapprochement OTAN-UE, notamment concernant la planification opérationnelle et la création de cellules de liaison militaire, et elle a résisté à la mise en œuvre des moyens militaires de l'OTAN dans les crises humanitaires, au Darfour ou après le tremblement de terre au Pakistan.

Cependant, le pays qui aujourd'hui bloque le rapprochement OTAN-UE est moins la France que la Turquie. Hostile à toute reconnaissance du gouvernement de Chypre, Ankara s'oppose aux rencontres et au partage d'informations de sécurité entre les deux organisations.

La question du retour de la France au sein de la structure militaire intégrée est devenue un sujet dominant des discussions informelles au sein de l'Alliance, chacun supputant quel sera le "prix à payer" pour les deux pays européens – la Grande-Bretagne et l'Allemagne – qui occupent d'importants postes de commandement.

On prête à Paris l'intention de revendiquer le poste d'adjoint au commandant suprême des forces alliées en Europe, mais aucune demande officielle n'a encore été faite. Les diplomates otaniens mesurent que la démarche française constitue, à ce stade, une sorte de ballon d'essai, pour tester les réactions, tant au sein de l'Alliance atlantique que sur le plan de la politique intérieure française.
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3210,36-964615,0.html
JPTF 2007/10/09