Non-Aligned View of NATO

Tim Brown rightly calls attention to articles in the European press:
     " According to the European press. the Pope is not/not unaligned on Kosovo. He openly opposes NATO's campaign. The Vatican too has condemned the military action and put pressure on the [Italian] government to reconsider its support for the NATO strategy.The article also reported that the Italian Parliament voted [March 26] 318 to 188 to demand an immediate stop to the bombing. The BBC reported both events, but the NYT, Wash Post and CNN ignored them, apparently considering them political events not fit to print in the US."
     My comment: The Pope is nonaligned in the sense that he condemns both sides. The Russian Patriarch has just been in Belgrade, where he invoked Slavic solidarity and did not openly condemn Serb actions in Kosovo. There is a difference.
     In Italy the reformed (?) communists are powerful, and Italians feel dangerously near to the conflict.
     The San Francisco Chronicle correspondent in Paris, Frank Viviano, has reported on all of this, and I referred to it in an earlier memo.

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     John Wonder clarifies and defends his position:
     "I regard the present campaign in Kosovo as a prelude to disaster. When will the do-gooders learn what the road to hell is paved with? I was quite dubious about the gulf war, but at least I could see where possibly the US interests were involved. (But I think Japanese and other political entities who depended on oil had far more at stake, and consequently should have contributed more, if only in sideline support.) I fail to see any further rationale for NATO. If Western Europe wishes to form a defensive alliance and even include Poland and Czechoslovakia, this seems only prudent. But I do not understand why the US should be their milch cow. I still think Britain should be closely allied with us rather than Western Europe. Yours in argumentation, John."
     My comment: I try to do good, but I am not a do-gooder. I agree that West Europeans should get their act together, but I do not think the U.S. is just a milch cow. Looking at the world at large, I see an Atlantic alliance as the basis for world peace. That would include Iberoamerica, but not Africa, which is a mess. Of couse, Iberoamerica is a mess too, and cannot be included at present, but I hope Western ideals triumph there.

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     Robert Gard, who has had a distinguished military career, says:
     "Our European allies have a larger combined population than the US and a larger GDP, yet they spend about $100B less on defense per year. We have 100K troops in Europe and allow the Europeans to flatter us into believing that we must take the lead everywhere in the military area. I'd serve notice that we will reduce our troop commitment to Europe to one division over the next five years, while the Europeans decide how they will exercise leadership in their own back yard."
     My comment: I agree. I have expressed my conviction that the European members of NATO must get their act together. I hope that Kosovo affair forces them to do so. At the same tine, it is vitally important that NATO survive, preferably with a separate European group.

Ronald Hilton - 04/21/99

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     Tim Brown writes:
     "My son, just back from France, tells me the spin on Kosovo in the French press [his French is near bilingual] is that Europe has simply gone along reluctantly with a Clinton initiative under an implied threat that refusal would undermine America's commitment to NATO. Thus the French, Germans and others become merely supporting actors in an essentially American war which they, more experienced in the Balkans, privately think is very dangerous and probably unwinnable.
     While this may be simply the French being French, having myself once been a NATO advisor and desk officer for the EC, I must say I find that it fits the available evidence far better than Clinton's suggestions that somehow that always fractious grouping miraculously reached exactly the same conclusion at the same time as we did, and thus all its members are equally enthusiastic and optimistic over bombing Yugoslavia.
     If the Kosovar refugees are, as Clinton has said repeatedly, all innocent old people, women and children [Clinton has not said that. RH], who is providing the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, with the popular base without which no guerrilla can survive? My own experience with several guerrilla wars suggests that its 20,000 combatants need at least 200,000 active supporters just to eat, get intelligence, house themselves, recruit, proselytize, and so forth, unless someone else is doing all this for them. Albania? I doubt it. And why do so many military age males keep popping up in TV coverage of Kosovar refugee camps?
     Who paid to transform the KLA from a rag tag militia in 1997 into a well armed, disciplined, uniformed, and equipped force in 1999? Based on my experience I would estimate someone expended about $250 million, and exile bake sales, the only expanation I've heard, would be hard put to generate that kind of money. How have we managed to miss KLA units during our 9,000 sortie bombing campaign? Can we tell the difference between theirs and Serbia Army uniforms, even from 15,000 feet? If so, how? My guess, based purely on experience with no evidence, is that "someone" is smack dab in the middle of their forces with radios or other identification beacons that allow NATO to tell friend from foe.
     My comment: The evidence I have, and my interpretation of it, do not confirm what Tim has said, based on his report from his son, who has just come from Paris. Thia mugwump thinks Clinton is right. It is essential that NATO be made to work in such a way that Europe in future can take care of its own problems.
     Undoubtedly, support for the NATO action varies. While Tony Blair, a very bright person, supports it wholeheartedly, the French dislike U.S. leadership in anything, as de Gaulle showed when he expelled NATO from Paris. Germany is struggling with the Greens, Italy with the ex-Communists and the Vatican. If NATO fails, the West, and the world, face chaos.

Ronald Hilton - 04/24/99