NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on October 4 referred to the security problems in southern and eastern Afghanistan and underlined the necessity to increase the number of NATO forces in the country.
Although the United States led the foreign military forces that attacked Afghanistan after 9/11, it convinced its allies to help finance the conflict through its justification of the war.
NATO’s role in Afghanistan was not so significant in the beginning, but since the U.S. allies in the Afghanistan war were mostly NATO members, they formed the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to fight against the Taleban. Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Canada, the Netherlands, and Australia were the active members of ISAF at that time.
At the September 17 conference of NATO defense ministers in Berlin, France and Germany once again agreed that ISAF and U.S. forces should be under separate military command structures, and all members underlined the necessity to increase the number of ISAF forces in Afghanistan.
At the insistence of Britain, Canada, and the Netherlands, the North Atlantic Council (NAC) –- NATO’s top decision-making institution -- issued a statement on October 4 ordering an additional 6000 troops to Afghanistan to reinforce the 12,400 ISAF troops currently in the country.
NATO took over command of ISAF forces in Afghanistan in August 2003, but NATO is now apparently seeking an independent role in Afghanistan.
U.S. officials are pursuing two important objectives in the decision to give NATO a more significant role in Afghanistan. First of all, they want to implement their military plans under the banner of NATO in order to deflect criticism of the U.S. military presence in the country. The U.S. also seeks to reduce its troop deployment in Afghanistan in order to make more forces available for Iraq.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO members got the opportunity to realize their dream of eastward expansion. NATO was able to station forces in Central Asian countries by concluding cooperation treaties with regional states without accepting a commitment toward the host countries, in contrast to the NATO primary principle, i.e., that an attack on one member is regarded as an attack on all members.
The Afghan government’s welcome of the presence of NATO forces has paved the way for NATO to use Afghanistan as its strategic base in the East. Thus, NATO is expanding its operational area to Russia’s sphere of influence in order to limit its old rival’s scope of maneuver in Central Asia and South Asia.
In 1994, NATO established the Partnership for Peace project with over 20 European countries and former Soviet republics, including Uzbekistan. Some of the original signatories have since become full members of NATO.
The European Union’s ban on weapons sales to Uzbekistan that it imposed after the Andijan massacre will definitely have a negative impact on NATO relations with the strategic Central Asian country. With NATO losing its foothold in Uzbekistan, Afghanistan is considered the best choice to replace it as a regional center for NATO operations.
Although the United States unilaterally initiated the current war in Afghanistan, due to heightened sensitivities about the foreign military presence in the country, ISAF and NATO are now being given a more prominent role in a cosmetic change in the appearance of the occupation, which is part of the plan to impose U.S. and Western hegemony over Central Asia.
SA/HG
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MNA
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