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http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=7491 Stars And Stripes March 28, 2002 Retiring Army colonel looks back on his close-up view of NATO's evolution By Gregory Piatt, Belgium bureau European edition, Wednesday, March 27, 2002 [From:"When I arrived in ’94, there were people who jokingly said that NATO stood for ‘Not at the Office.’" To:The Balkans crisis helped NATO maintain its relevancy, Sundstrom said. And:While there isn’t NATO-led operation, 16 of the 19 members of the alliance are supporting the war with personnel, ships and airplanes, he said.] BRUSSELS, Belgium — In the last eight years, Col. Fred Sundstrom has seen NATO go from a Cold War alliance to one that is dealing with its purpose and relevancy, a search that has intensified since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Sundstrom, who has served the last five years as the U.S. military delegation’s chief of staff to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Military Committee, retires Thursday after 30 years in the Army. He’s been at NATO since 1994. His job with the Military Committee — the top military authority in the alliance — puts him at the crossroads of where military policy and foreign policy meet. And he has seen the alliance change from a sleepy defense organization to one that now is involved in a variety of missions from the Balkans to Central Asia. "When I arrived in ’94, there were people who jokingly said that NATO stood for ‘Not at the Office,’" Sundstrom said last week in his Brussels office. "It was a place where you came to work on your [golf] handicap because you had more holidays than workdays," said Sundstrom, whose first job at NATO was as executive officer on the military planning staff. The Balkans crisis helped NATO maintain its relevancy, Sundstrom said. In the 1990s, the alliance began asking itself whether it would stay strictly a defense organization or would also get involved in crisis-response and peacekeeping missions, he said. To adapt to the post-Cold War world, the alliance took on those missions and reorganized its command structure. But Sept. 11 proved that was not enough. "The relevancy issue is still here," Sundstrom said. "There are those that say the alliance is irrelevant in the war on terrorism because there isn’t a NATO-led operation in Afghanistan." While there isn’t NATO-led operation, 16 of the 19 members of the alliance are supporting the war with personnel, ships and airplanes, he said. "What is overlooked is that there is NATO support, but not as a [collective] NATO operation." But the United States caused friction by picking individual allies to use in its fight after NATO ambassadors invoked Article 5 of the alliance charter after Sept. 11, Sundstrom said. Article 5 says an attack on one is an attack on all. "The U.S. didn’t ask [in the weeks after Sept. 11] because it was trying to come to terms with what it was going to do." As NATO kept waiting, friction mounted, Sundstrom said. Alliance officials complained about the lack of a U.S. plan to include NATO collectively. The United States was taking the alliance for granted, NATO officials said. For now, the United States is happy dealing with allies individually because it doesn’t want to be restricted by NATO collectively picking and choosing what it does in the war on terrorism, as happened during the Kosovo airstrikes in 1999 when the many NATO nations had to agree on a target before it could be hit , Sundstrom said. "The U.S. wanted NATO to play in its war on terrorism, but it wanted to be sure that whatever it asked for, it would gain a consensus in the Council," Sundstrom said. "The U.S. didn’t want to say ‘Give us your planes and military personnel to fight under U.S. rules of engagement’ and have the alliance say ‘no’ if the war takes a different turn. "The U.S. didn’t want to see a separation in the alliance. The U.S. doesn’t want to see NATO fail." So the United States asked for the things it could easily get under a consensus — AWACS surveillance planes, the standing naval force in the Mediterranean Sea, bases and air space, Sundstrom said. As he leaves the Army and the alliance, Sundstrom sees the coming months as the most difficult time for NATO since he arrived. NATO is trying to forge a new relationship with Russia. At its November summit in Prague, it will look at enlarging the alliance and restructuring its forces to be more effective, especially in the battle against terrorism, Sundstrom said. "There is going to be some big changes in November, and I think that will be good for the alliance," he said. "It’s going to be painful, but if NATO is to remain a relevant collective defense organization, it is going to have to change the way it does business." __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Movies - coverage of the 74th Academy Awards® http://movies.yahoo.com/ --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
