http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4266431,00.html The Guardian Brussels dispatch Nato displays lack of intelligence The military power of the alliance may not be enough for it to play an effective role in the fight against terrorism, writes Ian Black Ian Black Guardian Unlimited Friday September 28, 2001 No one at the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in Brussels will say anything about security measures these days. But the "Alpha" threat level, newly installed anti-crash barriers, the specially attentive guards and extra-disruptive searches attest to a palpable sense of nervousness since the suicide attacks on New York and Washington on September 11. Meanwhile, Belgian police are holding two north African men found with weapons and explosives, though it is far from certain they were targeting the sprawling compound down the road from Zaventem international airport - or that Arab terrorists detained in Germany indeed planned to strike here. But what is clear is that the crisis triggered by the suicide missions against the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon has posed troubling questions for the world's most powerful military alliance - one which embodies, more than any other, transatlantic ties that go back half a century, and to a very different kind of war. Strikingly, Nato's first move after the atrocities was to solemnly invoke Article V of its 1949 founding treaty, the one which pledges that an attack on any member of the alliance shall be considered an attack on all. It was a bold decision - not only because it had never been done before, but also because, conceived as it was at the start of the cold war, the article was intended to trigger mutual military support in a conventional or in the worst case a nuclear conflict. That scenario involved Soviet tanks pouring across the north German plain, bringing the US, Britain and the other allies automatically into action. No one ever imagined Article V would be used in the present circumstances, even though, back in 1999, at the Washington summit marking the alliance's 50th anniversary, its "strategic doctrine" was adjusted to include terrorism as a new form of attack. Several European allies were unhappy with that at the time, and there was, in the words of one diplomat, "some muttering in the corridors" when the landmark decision was taken, without consulting lawyers, when ambassadors met in emergency session on September 12. "Everyone was bounced into it in a sense because it was a big moment and it took all governments a little while to adjust," said one senior official. It was, however, a powerful signal of solidarity - and one the Europeans hoped would stop Washington from lashing out blindly. Yet the practicalities were far from clear. Nato insisted its British secretary general, Lord Robertson, had not given the US a "blank cheque". Proof would be needed of the identify of the terrorists and their supporters, and a formal US request would be needed for the alliance to help. "Unflinching backing" for the US was repeated at a meeting of Nato defence ministers on Wednesday, but there was no request for help, reinforcing the now widely-held view that the alliance as a whole is unlikely to be involved in large-scale military action -whose value is, in any case, in doubt. Britain alone seems certain to play a combat role with the US. France has signalled it may take part if it agrees with specific plans. Operation Eternal Freedom will not be run like the Kosovo campaign of 1999, when decisions were taken collectively in a cumbersome and time-consuming process that led to fears about security leaks. Some member states also need parliamentary approval before deploying troops abroad. The US has asked other Nato partners to provide logistical support like the use of air bases and overflight rights. But there will be no Greek or Portuguese special forces yomping up the Khyber pass with the US Rangers or the SAS. So what will the alliance do in a "multifaceted" campaign against global terrorism in which closely coordinated legal, financial and diplomatic moves - with a central role for security agencies and covert action - may be more important than conventional military deployments? Nato can call on impressive war-fighting assets: from aircraft carriers, giant Awacs surveillance aircraft to tank-busting missiles. But it has no intelligence service, no spies or agent runners, no equivalent to the CIA or Britain's MI6 to penetrate and track suicidal terrorists operating in small groups using improvised communications but with neither clear structure nor state support. Secret intelligence is exchanged between close allies, but even then is always jealously guarded: serious espionage and counter-terrorist activity by an alliance of 19 sounds like a non-starter. Nato has been surprisingly busy since the cold war's end: it stayed out of the Gulf crisis in 1991-another "coalition of the willing" - but peace enforcement missions in Bosnia and Kosovo and most recently Macedonia have given it an important role in Europe's unstable south-eastern corner as well as a close relationship with the European Union. Enlargement to eastern Europe has been popular and its "partnership for peace" programme with former communist countries achieved a first landmark when Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic - once stalwarts of the Warsaw Pact - joined the club in 1999. The Baltic states and Romania are keen to be in soon. And Nato's relationship with post-Soviet Russia has advanced leaps and bounds. Old suspicions have been overcome and Moscow is deftly exploiting the current crisis to win western "understanding" of its problems with "terrorists" in Chechnya. Serge Ivanov, the Russian defence minister, was in Brussels for Wednesday's talks and won praise for his clear analysis of the Afghan situation. Vladimir Putin is meeting Lord Robertson here next week. But fighting Osama bin Laden and his shadowy al-Qaida network looks like a mission too far for the Nato. It may have a role to play, but what this will be no one quite seems to know. No surprise then, that there is not a civilian or a soldier at Brussels HQ who will laugh at the irreverent old joke that Nato's initials really stand for something else: Now Almost Totally Obsolete. Guardian Unlimited C Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 Serbian News Network - SNN [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.antic.org/
