The Hindu : `Fight terrorism on its turf'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jun 08, 2002

International

International

`Fight terrorism on its turf'

By Batuk Gathani

BRUSSELS JUNE 7. The threat of terrorism has prompted NATO to review its military and technological capabilities as it seeks to maintain its relevance as a military and security alliance in the fast-changing security scenario with the rise of global terrorism and religious fundamentalism.

The U.S. Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has stated that NATO must "take the war on terrorism to the terrorists'' by pre-emptive attacks on "shadowy networks or hostile states'' armed with biological, chemical or nuclear weapons.

Mr. Rumsfeld urged NATO to expand its traditional definition of "collective self-defence'' which has united the alliance.

In the background of the current war against terrorism, NATO is launching a wide-ranging review of its military capabilities and structures. For two days, 19 Defence Ministers of NTO member countries pondered over the "stark security" assessment given by Mr. Rumsfeld at their Brussels summit.

Mr. Rumsfeld reiterated the American perception that "the threat from the global terrorist network is not theoretical but real.''

NATO members are reviewing the threats posed by precision-guided weapons to military and civilian targets. Then there are challenges posed by chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear arms.

NATO's command structure will be reviewed as some members find it bureaucratic and regional. The Defence Ministers debated new missions and a new meaning for the alliance created over five decades ago to hold back the spread of communism in Europe. All that is now history with the demise of the Soviet Union. Today, the Russian Federation has emerged as "an associate but not a full'' member of NATO.

The members of the alliance are deeply divided over the U.S. plan to destabilise the Government of the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein. Mr George Robertson, NATO Secretary-General, declined to discuss the alliance's response to the hypothetical scenario of a U.S. attack on Iraq. Mr. Robertson merely said the alliance must be ready to deal with threats "whenever they occur and wherever they occur''.

Europeans feel that the Bush administration is "too emotionally'' involved in its current anti-Iraq campaign. According to an American analyst, in his remarks to a closed door session of the Defence Ministers, Mr. Rumsfeld is quoted as having said: "Absolute proof cannot be a precondition for action'' and warned that NATO members have "consistently underestimated'' the threat from terrorists, ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction''.

In mid-1980s, central Europe was the most militarised region in the world guarded by NATO in the west and the Soviet Union-led Warsaw Pact military alliance in the east. Some two million men from the two military alliances faced each other mainly across the border that divided the two Germanies.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

International

Stories in this Section

Bush favours new agency

`Fight terrorism on its turf'

Arafat urges U.S. to call meet

Hostages shot dead

Shanghai group gains legal status

Apollo Hospital in Colombo

Collapse of Swissair hits tourism hard

Journalist's release hailed

'Russia is market economy'

Musharraf reiterates support

Lifting of LTTE ban linked to firm date for talks