Nato

NEW YORK -- NATO will be 50 years old in April, and the United States has extremely ambitious plans for it. NATO is the central element in a new American conception of global policy. What Washington calls the "New Strategic Concept" for NATO would make the alliance a major actor in world affairs, under American leadership.The Holbrooke-Milosevic agreement on Kosovo in October was accurately described by U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke as unprecedented event. NATO had intervened in an internal conflict inside a sovereign non-NATO state, not to defend its own members, but to force that other state to halt repression of a rebellious ethnic minority.

PARIS -- The executive branch of American government seems determined to commit the United States to responsibilities in Europe which common sense says the Congress will refuse.The administration wants rapid expansion of NATO. It wants this in defiance of the fact that expansion offers destabilization rather than stabilization in East-Central Europe and Russia.From the beginning of the debate over NATO enlargement, critics have maintained that it is most unlikely that a two-thirds majority of the U.S. Senate would agree to extend unconditional U.S. nuclear guarantees to NATO's new members.

WASHINGTON - In this time of war, I find it helpful to step back a little. So I went last week to NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, and, I must say, the view from there was illuminating. What I think I saw were some huge tectonic plates of history moving. Here's how I would describe it: 9/11 was the start of World War III, a la Pearl Harbor; the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was the initial response, a la the North Africa campaign; the invasion of Iraq was akin to D-Day (I hope it ends as well)

Navy Petty Officer 1st Class David W. Garver is participating in a six-month deployment to the Mediterranean and Adriatic seas aboard the destroyer USS John Rodgers.The destroyer is the flagship for NATO's Standing Naval Force Atlantic, an international task force of ships from different NATO countries.In the Adriatic Sea, the ship helped enforce the international arms embargo against Bosnia-Herzegovina. The ship was awarded the Battle Efficiency Award in February for the crew's outstanding performance in a variety of mission areas.

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The North Atlantic Treaty Organization reached agreement yesterday on the outline of a radical reorganization that would mean deep cuts in its overall troop level in Europe and the creation of a rapid-reaction corps for sudden hot spots.The number of active U.S. troops now in Europe is estimated at 320,000, and officials agreed that the reorganization, driven by the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, could cut that figure in half.The reductions in the 16-nation alliance would begin at the end of 1994 and are to be completed by the end of the decade.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- The Bosnian Serb army has complied with a NATO ultimatum for the withdrawal of its heavy weapons beyond 20 kilometers from Gorazde, a United Nations spokesman said early Wednesday.Cmdr. Eric Chaperon added that the "logical conclusion" was that there would be no NATO air strikes. These had been threatened by NATO in the event that Serbian heavy weapons remained within 20 kilometers, or 12.4 miles, of Gorazde's city center at 2:01 a.m. today (8:01 p.m. Tuesday, EDT)

WASHINGTON -- If you want to get a feel for how far ahead the U.S. military is from any of its allies, let alone its enemies, read the fascinating article in the November issue of The Atlantic Monthly by Mark Bowden about the U.S. air war over Afghanistan. There is one scene that really sums it up. It involves a U.S. F-15 jet that is ordered to take out a Taliban truck caravan. The F-15's co-pilot bombardier is a woman. Mr. Bowden, who had access to the communications between pilots, describes how the bombardier locates the truck caravan, and with her laser guidance system directs a 500-pound bomb into the lead truck.

MOSCOW -- Russia's foreign intelligence service warned NATO yesterday that any move to incorporate Eastern European countries into the Western alliance would bring "fundamental" military countermeasures and heighten anti-Western sentiments.Some Eastern Europe countries that were once under Soviet domination, including Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, have asked to join NATO. Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin reacted calmly in late August, but the military pushed him to reconsider, and Mr. Yeltsin wrote Western leaders on Sept.

MOSCOW -- Opening the way to a possible military partnership with the West, Russia said yesterday that it might soon join the loose alliance with NATO that many former Eastern Bloc countries hope will lead to full membership."

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Imagine that a nationalist wildman -- Vladimir Zhirinovsky, for example -- becomes president of Russia. Probable? No. Possible? Yes; nothing is yet guaranteed in the new Russia. Imagine that he leans heavily on former Soviet states to return to the fold, as he has said he would. They -- some of them new members of NATO or close to membership -- look westward for help.Ask Americans if they are willing to fight for, say, Ukraine, and they are likely to suggest a sanity test.