Allies Like NATO Strike Force Idea

The United States on Tuesday prescribed expensive medicine for aging NATO, pressing alliance defense ministers to build a new military strike force for the war on terrorism and other challenges worldwide.

At an informal ministerial meeting in Poland's capital, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld unveiled a proposal for a rapid-reaction force of up to 20,000 troops to be on call for quick deployment anywhere in the world.

A senior defense official said that in a private session at NATO meetings in Poland, Rumsfeld said that failing to create the force would send a "harmful signal to the world" about the alliance.

The mixed units of troops from both Europe and America, including rotating brigades of about 5,000 members each, would bear high-tech arms such as satellite-guided bombs and could protect themselves against chemical and biological attack.

"We feel that that would be a good way for NATO to assure its relevance going forward," Rumsfeld told reporters traveling with him ahead of the two-day meeting.

The defense source said at least a dozen of the 19 NATO ministers offered support for the new force.

Opening the first day's session, NATO Secretary-General George Robertson echoed the U.S. call for continued relevance of the alliance, formed in the throes of the Cold War with a now-defunct Soviet Union.

Robertson said the world was changed by last September's terror attacks on America.

"We need...to think very carefully about the role of this alliance in the future, not least in protecting our citizens from criminal terrorists and criminal states, especially where they are armed with weapons designed for massive and indiscriminate destruction," he said.

Rumsfeld and Robertson both warned that improving alliance military capabilities would be painful for Europe at a time when the continent is bogged in economic woes. NATO has also been traditionally reluctant to operate out of its own territory.

European defense budgets are shrinking at a time when Washington's military spending is steadily growing to nearly $400 billion a year.

The new strike force would take at least two years to form. If approved here, the idea would be presented to NATO heads of state at a November summit in Prague.

European allies have responded cautiously to the U.S. plan.

Struggling with tight budgets and reluctant to spend more on defense, some see the force as a relatively low-cost way of enhancing NATO's ability to strike at new security threats.

But there is also concern that the NATO force could undermine the European Union's 60,000-strong Rapid Reaction Force, an as-yet untested project which is due to become fully operational next year.

"I think this is a very good idea," Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino told Reuters as he arrived for the meeting in Warsaw.

"It must be evaluated in the framework of all the other commitments we have with NATO and the European Union. The idea of increasing the readiness of our forces to be ready in days or weeks rather than months is important."

Charles Goerens, Luxembourg's defense minister, was lukewarm to the idea, saying the EU's plans had to be taken into account.

The United States insists that it is not trying to elbow aside the EU, and says it merely wants to give NATO — which has so far played a minor role in the U.S.-led war on terrorism — the means to respond quickly in far-flung trouble spots.

The EU force, on the hand, could be dedicated to peacekeeping and conflict prevention missions in Europe's neighborhood.

One NATO official said a NATO strike force would give Washington some assurance that its allies could engage at short notice in a military operation "without some of the great soul-searching that's been going on in relation to Iraq."

He said the idea would deflect defense ministers' attention away from "hard capabilities," a reference to old-fashioned spending on military hardware that few European countries can afford right now.

The Washington Post last week quoted Richard Kugler, one of those behind the plan, as saying the force would absorb only 2-3 percent of total European defense spending.