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A Transatlantic Conference on

NATO and Southeastern Europe: Security Issues for the Early 21st Century

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NATO || Pictures Here || Kokkalis Foundation

On April 25-27, 1999, with official NATO cosponsorship, the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, Inc., and the Kokkalis Foundation convened a conference entitled NATO and Southeastern Europe: Security Issues for the Early 21st Century.

The conference brought together a distinguished group of over three hundred participants drawn from NATO, the Partnership for Peace (PfP), the academic community, industry, and the media. Because of the ongoing Kosovo crisis, the conference had a dual focus.

First, the conference participants examined the results of the just-completed Washington Summit.
Second, they discussed the progress of NATO's air campaign, weighed the lessons of Kosovo for future Alliance activities, and discussed ways to stabilize Southeastern Europe over the long term.

The conference was originally an opportunity to discuss post-NATO Summit issues and to reflect on the summit itself. With the events that unfolded in Kosovo in the early months of 1999, we necessarily adjusted our agenda with the opening session being entirely devoted to Kosovo. The broader issues that the Kosovo crisis raised for NATO and for Euro-Atlantic security in the early twenty-first century were also addressed.

In addition to Kosovo, much of the conference focused on the Euro-Atlantic relationship in the twenty-first century. Emerging security challenges beyond Kosovo in and around Southeastern Europe were addressed. These included intra-Balkan relationships, the Cyprus question, and the Aegean. Emphasis was placed on questions of institutional development, together with force planning and modernization priorities. Regional initiatives and confidence-building measures that might help stabilize Southeastern Europe were discussed. There was extensive consideration of a division of labor among Euro-Atlantic institutions and how such a division of labor would affect the respective roles of the United States and its allies and coalition partners.

While the conference focused extensively on present events, an effort was made to look beyond the Kosovo crisis. There was general agreement that regional cooperative initiatives should be developed, together with democratic institutions and market economies. This publication, like the conference, is intended as a contribution to a greater understanding of the challenges and opportunities, as well as dangers and pitfalls, in the complex setting of Southeastern Europe.

Major issues covered were:

The Euro-Atlantic community's interest in fostering stability and security in Southeastern Europe by promoting regional cooperative initiatives to integrate the Southeastern European countries into Euro-Atlantic institutions; most participants agreed that it was important to avoid consigning the region to the European periphery.
The Balkans are not doomed by history to eternal conflict. If the European Union (EU), NATO, and other institutions embrace Southeastern Europe, the region may transcend its history of ethnic and religious strife. Several participants underscored the usefulness of preventive diplomacy and defense for this purpose.
Integration should encompass a broad-based effort. Many speakers linked prospects for economic development - led by the EU - and democratization to regional stability and security. In the wake of Kosovo and the spillover effects from the war, regional reconstruction and development will take on even greater importance.
No clear, rational division of labor exists among the various international organizations active in Southeastern Europe. Hence NATO, the EU, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the UN, and the other institutions should devise procedures to coordinate their activities, to avoid duplication of effort while enhancing effectiveness.
The EU should accelerate the development of the European Security and Defense Initiative (ESDI) within the Alliance. This requires the European states to retool military capabilities for expeditionary and collective-defense missions. Some participants suggested that specific missions be assigned to individual states as a division of labor leading to greater complimenarity of capabilities.
NATO should plan for the admission of Southeastern European states. Meanwhile, the Alliance should work with individual governments to improve their ability to operate with NATO forces. This would involve assessing current force structure; examining its force-planning efforts and defense spending; and suggesting which capabilities states should procure first in order to boost interoperability with the Alliance.
Several participants were skeptical the Alliance's ability to integrate force and diplomacy effectively, bring the Kosovo conflict to a successful conclusion, or implement a durable postwar settlement. First, they questioned the legal legitimacy of the air war in the absence of a UN Security Council resolution. Second, NATO officials were urged to reorient their rhetoric to stress negotiation rather than victory and defeat. They should emphasize accommodating the legitimate interests of Serbs and Kosovar Albanians rather than the pursuit of military victory and territorial dismemberment. Third, some participants called on Western powers to come to grips with the failures of previous postwar settlements and forge a bold plan for rebuilding Southeastern Europe rather than settling for a compromise solution.
The Kosovo air campaign also provoked contentious discussion of military strategy and coalition warfare. First, citing political sensitivities and other domestic factors, many participants questioned whether an alliance of nineteen nations could sustain the unity of purpose needed to wage war effectively. Others countered that the Atlantic Alliance was conducting its first large-scale military operation and thus was undergoing an unavoidable learning process that would pay dividends in terms of future military effectiveness. Second, many - though by no means all - participants asserted that air power alone could not prevail against a determined foe. Some form of ground commitment was necessary to drive the Serbian army from Kosovo.
Concern over American political culture and the future of U.S. engagement in Europe also surfaced. First, the reluctance to accept casualties has exerted a major influence on U.S. strategy as exhibited in Washington's unwillingness to deploy ground forces and implementation of extraordinary measures to safeguard U.S. combat pilots. Second, the United States may experience a limited turning inward in the wake of Kosovo if the public and Congress question whether the U.S. should bear a disproportionate burden for European security. Some realignment of transatlantic security burden sharing may be necessary, particularly as the EU begins to develop its own defense capabilities.
The direction of the Greek-Turkish relationship has far-reaching implications for the stability and prosperity of Southeastern Europe. There was general agreement that (a) their joint efforts to provide humanitarian relief to Kosovar Albanian refugees could serve as a platform for broader cooperation, and (b) their disputes should be resolved without recourse to arms. Nonetheless, it was plain that longstanding problems remain in the Greek-Turkish relationship.

continued...

While conference participants differed on many issues, sometimes dramatically, several broad areas of consensus emerged. First, the Balkans is not uniquely prone to ethnic and religious violence. Indeed, many Balkan peoples have coexisted peacefully for centuries. Thus it is essential to combat the fatalism accompanying conceptions of Southeastern Europe as a region of eternal warfare. To counteract these misperceptions, international institutions should launch a broad-based effort to stabilize the region encompassing economic integration, preventive diplomacy, and collective security. Enmeshing the region in international institutions and initiatives, many speakers contended, would be the best means to that end.

Second, many participants recommended coordinating the efforts of regional and global institutions active in Southeastern Europe to prevent inefficient redundancies and contradictory policies. To that end, several speakers advocated collaborative mechanisms between the EU, NATO, the OSCE, and international financial institutions. Third, many speakers connected regional security to economic development and the growth of democratic institutions. Making greater resources available to Southeastern Europe, they maintained, would allow the region to attain a measure of prosperity to dampen violent impulses. In turn, prosperity would make it possible to cultivate democracy in the Balkans. Fourth, the international community should act to alleviate spillover effects from Kosovo that could undermine efforts to stabilize the Balkans. Pointing to the successful UN operation in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, several speakers stressed the importance of discouraging unrest in states such as Albania through preventive diplomacy.

Fifth, the Atlantic Alliance should continue to refine its Membership Action Plan to promote interoperability between NATO and aspiring members from Southeastern Europe in the short term. Over the longer term, closer cooperation would boost their chances of admission to the Alliance. Sixth, recommendations emerged that favored improving NATO's decision-making process prior to future Kosovo-like interventions. It is suggested that the requirement for a nineteen-nation consensus hampered the air campaign's strategic effectiveness. Lastly, several conference participants emphasized that an improvement of strained Greek-Turkish relations was crucial to the stability of Southeastern Europe. Located adjacent to the embattled Balkans, and boasting considerable economic strength, these two nations together could be a force for stability and prosperity. However, a settlement of the bitter Aegean and Cyprus disputes is a prerequisite for joint initiatives of this magnitude. While there is some cause for optimism, stemming from their bilateral efforts to provide humanitarian relief to Kosovo, much remains to be done to mend fences between Athens and Ankara.