The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.61/No.19           May 12, 1997 
 
 
Washington Steps Up War Preparations In Europe

`We will enlarge NATO whether Russia agrees or not'  

BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright ratcheted up the Clinton administration's war preparations against Russia another notch during her bellicose testimony in favor of expanding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). "NATO is still the anchor of our engagement in Europe," she asserted before the Senate Armed Services Committee April 23. It is "the only organization with real military might."

"I am a diplomat," Albright declared. "And I know that a diplomat's best friend is effective military force and the credible possibility of its use." She pointed to slaughter of the Iraqi people during the Gulf war and the imperialist occupation in Bosnia as a "lesson we must remember in Europe."

Albright has been the White House point person in pressing the foreign policy of the U.S. rulers ever since she launched a nine-country world tour in Rome February 16, to campaign for NATO enlargement. Her mission reflected the imperialists' accelerated moves toward their aim of overthrowing the workers state in Russia and reestablishing the system of wage slavery there.

Championing the extension of NATO's military infrastructure, Albright testified before the Senate committee together with Defense Secretary William Cohen. A few days later, Cohen boasted of Washington's military prowess during a speech to students at the University of Georgia April 28. "We don't want to engage in a fair fight," he declared. "We want to dominate across the full spectrum so that if we ever do have to fight we will win on our terms."

Cohen's talk in Georgia referred to a defense review by Pentagon officials, whose stated policy is to ensure Washington's capacity to wage two large regional wars at the same time, both on the scale of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The review could include slight troop cuts from the roster of active duty troops - which now number 1.5 million - along with upgrading the massive U.S. arsenal.

Overthrowing the workers state in Europe and defeating the struggles of workers and peasants around the world was Washington's objective when it founded NATO in 1949. It codified Washington's immense economic and military superiority in Europe in the aftermath of World War II. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops, a string of military bases across western Europe, and the U.S. Sixth Fleet stationed in the Mediterranean form the core of Washington's domination in Europe today. "When NATO was created in 1949," crowed Albright, its "area of concern has always been wider than its area of membership and it always will be."

Despite Albright's reassurance of goodwill and building a "peaceful, democratic and transatlantic community," Moscow remains unconvinced. "So far, NATO has not changed enough so that we could not feel a threat if the alliance's military structures are near our borders," Russian deputy foreign minister Georgi Mamedov stated before the April 15 negotiations with NATO officials in Moscow.

During the talks with NATO Secretary General Javier Solana, Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov demanded commitments from the imperialist military alliance not to station combat troops or nuclear weapons on the territory of new member states, nor move any of NATO's military infrastructure closer to Russia's border. Later, Russian president Boris Yeltsin met with German chancellor Helmut Kohl in Baden Baden, Germany, April 17 to discuss an agreement on the enlargement. While stating he was ready to sign a NATO cooperation charter on May 27 in Paris, Yeltsin reiterated the demands from the Kremlin.

`We do not need Russia to agree'
Albright flew to Moscow April 30 to impress on the Russian regime that regardless of whether an agreement is reached, "NATO enlargement will go forward with no delay." She explained to the Senate committee, "We do not need Russia to agree to enlargement." The secretary of state said a "joint NATO-Russia Council will give Russia a voice but not a veto."

Addressing the concerns of Russian officials about the deployment of conventional and nuclear forces, she asserted, Washington had no plans to pursue this course of action for now. "But we will not compromise on this issue," Albright added, leaving the door open for future military intervention.

NATO officials will announce the new members at the July 7-9 conference in Madrid. Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic are presumed to be the new candidates for the imperialist military alliance, which will lay out plans at the summit to accept them by 1999 - the organization's 50th anniversary.

"NATO's first new members will not be the last," Albright remarked. She mentioned a "particular effort" to strengthen NATO's military "cooperation with Ukraine," promote a new Polish-Ukrainian "peacekeeping battalion," and "bolster military reform" there. Moscow and the Ukrainian regime are engaged in a simmering dispute over the division of the jointly shared Black Sea Fleet in the Crimean Sea and the fleet's headquarters at Sevastopol, Ukraine.

U.S.-Ukrainian war games are scheduled for August 26-31, just weeks after the Madrid conference. News of this naval exercise - "Operation Sea Breeze" - in which the main enemy was Moscow provoked an uproar in Russia. The proposed scenario for the military operation involves a crisis in which civil unrest by unidentified "armed factions" is sparked by an earthquake. Under that pretext, the Ukrainian government is supposed to call for a multinational "peacekeeping force and humanitarian aid." Washington then leads a naval convoy on a rescue mission to provide medicine, blankets, and evacuation for the wounded.

A previous U.S.-Ukrainian exercise was conducted in 1995 off the Crimean coast that went off without controversy, as Washington had not yet presented its military expansion plans. In early April, U.S. Gen. George Joulwan, the top NATO commander, visited Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, to discuss bringing that regime closer to the imperialist military alliance.

Joulwan, who will retire this summer, will be replaced by Army Gen. Wesley Clark. Currently, Clark heads the U.S. Southern Command, which controls Washington's military operations in Central and South America. He was also the senior U.S. military official who helped force through the Dayton agreement on the warring factions in Yugoslavia, paving way for the imperialist troops now occupying Bosnia.

While Washington is pressing full steam ahead with the NATO enlargement, other imperialist regimes would prefer a little caution. Paris is demanding a legally binding agreement between Moscow and NATO as a condition for French military officials rejoining the inner command structure of NATO. Bonn is also seeking such an accord. The French government is pushing for more "Europeanization" of NATO, demanding that a European be named to one of the top two posts in NATO's Southern Command, which oversees imperialist military operations in the Mediterranean.

The prime minister of Spain, Jose Marie Anzar, expressed support for the "Europeanization" of NATO, but backed off from Paris's demand. Also voicing prudence, Anzar said NATO enlargement is possible only if Moscow and the U.S.- dominated alliance reach a prior deal on a cooperation agreement.

Debate in Senate committee
Last July, the U.S. Senate approved the NATO Enlargement Facilitation Act, endorsing the expansion and granting $60 million to the governments of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic to prepare their militaries. At the April 23 Armed Services Committee meeting, Sen. John Warner mentioned his doubts concerning NATO expansion, suggesting U.S. GIs could get bogged down in a military quagmire. "If it's not broken, why try and fix it?" he asked.

"The United States has important security interests in Central and Eastern Europe," Albright replied in her presentation. If there were a "major threat" to imperialist interests in this region, "there is already a high likelihood that we would decide to act, whether NATO enlarges or not."

The secretary of state asserted, "If an institution such as NATO did not exist today, we would want to create one. We would want to build the strongest possible partnership with those European nations that share our values and interests... We would not make the old Iron Curtain its eastern frontier."

Ultrarightist politician Patrick Buchanan has been one of the more prominent opponents of NATO expansion. In his March 20 syndicated column, he wrote, "It is China, not Russia, that looms as our Great Power antagonist." Buchanan demands the imperialist war machine aim its tanks at "a rising China with eight times Russia's population," not at an "amputated Russia."

A few days earlier, he sounded a nationalist tone in an article the Conservative Chronicle headlined "The time is past to bring U.S. troops home." In it Buchanan declared, "What we have in NATO today are less American allies than American dependencies... The nations of Europe are pathetic shadows of their former selves. If ever our new NATO guarantees are called -to go to war to defend Poland and Hungary or, in the dreams of the more hubristic NATO expansionists, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovina, Finland, Bulgaria and Ukraine - U.S. troops can expect as much European help as they got in Vietnam."

Recognizing the dangers in Washington's war preparations, Beijing and Moscow issued a joint statement April 23, that declared, "No country should seek hegemony, practice power politics or monopolize international affairs." Yeltsin and Chinese head of state Jiang Zemin produced the document during their five-day meeting in Moscow. A five-nation border agreement was signed the next day by the presidents of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan aimed at increased military cooperation.

Meanwhile, according to the New York Times, trade increased between China and Russia by 25 percent last year, including trade in weapons.  
 
 
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