Julie Smith, head of the European program at Britain's Royal Institute of International Affairs, said: ``If Bush follows the policies he's articulated on National Missile Defense and if he did pull out of the Balkans, I think that would be the death of NATO.''... ----- Original Message ----- From: Miroslav Antic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: SNN <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Siem News <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Balkan News <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; SerbianNewsNetwork <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: STOPNATO <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, October 29, 2000 3:00 PM Subject: [STOPNATO.ORG.UK] ANALYSIS-Bush Risks Crisis with NATO Europeans if Elected STOP NATO: �NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ANALYSIS-Bush Risks Crisis with NATO Europeans if Elected By Paul Taylor, Diplomatic Editor LONDON (Reuters) - George W. Bush (news - web sites) risks sparking a crisis with the United States' European NATO (news - web sites) allies if he tries to implement policies on missile defense and the Balkans outlined during the presidential campaign, experts say. But many European analysts expect that if the Republican candidate wins, his seasoned foreign policy team will talk him out of his stated plans to pull U.S. troops out of the Balkans and press ahead with an extended anti-missile shield regardless of international opposition. European governments were jolted this month when Bush's top national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said a Republican administration would leave long-term peacekeeping in Bosnia and Kosovo to the Europeans and focus on major military challenges such as the Gulf and Northeast Asia. Rice's call for a ``new division of labor'' was in stark contrast to NATO's traditional concept of risk-sharing. ``If Bush came to NATO with those positions, it would be a recipe for a real crisis. But I think in the end, if there is a Republican administration, they will soften their positions,'' a senior European security official said. ``This talk of a division of labor where the Americans would do the 'big war' and the Europeans would do the 'soft security' tasks of long-term peacekeeping is a bit simplistic. A messy world is not going to allow such a mathematical division, even if it were desirable, which it isn't,'' the official said. Europe Provides Most Balkan Effort The Europeans were quick to point out they already provide 80 percent of the troops and 90 percent of the funding for Balkan peacekeeping and reconstruction, and that the 11,000 U.S. troops there make up less than one percent of U.S. armed forces. ``First of all, Bush doesn't know what he's talking about. We saw that in the third debate (with Democratic Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites)) when he said Europe should provide troops on the ground, while everyone knows Europe already provides over 80 percent of them,'' veteran German commentator Theo Sommer said. ``Second, if America really wants to withdraw from joint NATO operations, then that will be the beginning of the end of NATO,'' Sommer said. In the absence of a Cold War-style military threat, halting ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia has become the alliance's main task, and the main rationale for keeping about 100,000 U.S. troops deployed permanently in Europe. NATO, which marked its 50th anniversary last year, remains the main vehicle for U.S. political leadership in Europe. Julie Smith, head of the European program at Britain's Royal Institute of International Affairs, said: ``If Bush follows the policies he's articulated on National Missile Defense and if he did pull out of the Balkans, I think that would be the death of NATO.'' Many European allies are concerned at the Republicans' declared determination to tear up an Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Russia unilaterally if necessary to forge ahead with building a national anti-missile shield. But Smith hastened to add she did not believe the Texas governor would go through with such policies, especially in the light of the immediate negative reaction from European allies. Clash Over Europe's Role Beyond the immediate concern over those two issues, many Europeans fear a Bush administration would be less supportive of the European Union's own integration than Democratic President Clinton (news - web sites) has been. European officials point to an apparent contradiction between Bush's desire for the Europeans to handle more of their own security problems, and the hostility of leading Republicans to the EU's emerging common defense identity. Richard Perle, a member of Bush's policy team, warned Britain in June that it was risking its ``special relationship'' with the United States by its support for the European defense initiative, in which it is the main partner alongside France. In a speech to London's Center for Policy Studies, Perle branded the EU's plan to develop its own rapid reaction force a French-inspired maneuver ``aimed at sidelining the United States in Europe.'' John Bolton, senior vice-president of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, who has been speaking for Bush in Europe, said the EU's common foreign and security policy was ''driven by a not-so-hidden anti-American agenda'' and could lead to the demise of NATO. While the United States carried the overwhelming military burden in last year's Kosovo war, the Europeans undermined NATO's decisiveness and credibility by restricting the targets of the air campaign, Bolton said. ``If the EU had a united security policy, it would undermine the most salient reason for the U.S. military presence in Europe -- that the Europeans can't do it alone,'' he added. European experts say such thinking is corrosive, but they do not believe it would hold sway in a Bush administration. Professor Michael Cox, a leading British expert on U.S. foreign policy, said Bush was likely to maintain a large degree of continuity with the Clinton administration, just as Clinton had done with the policies of Bush's father. ``The Bush family are centrist moderate Republicans. If you look at the professionals who are likely to pack a Bush administration, they are not going to play around with NATO and the Balkans,'' Cox said. ``The Republicans want the Europeans to pay more and do more, but not to think more for themselves. If they were to translate that rhetoric into policy, they would lose a lot of what they call American leadership in Europe. I don't believe Bush would do that,'' he added. Miroslav Antic http://www.antic.org/SNN/ ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb
