Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 23, 1990 TAG: 9005230255
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM LENGTH: Medium
The proposal, presented by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, could provide a significant vehicle for further reductions of U.S. forces in Europe, according to Western officials here, as well as lowering the profile both of U.S. forces and the combined armed forces of a united Germany.
Cheney, attending a two-day meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization defense ministers, told his counterparts in closed session Tuesday morning that he welcomed their "creative thinking" on the creation of multinational forces, which he said "needs emphasis" in the overall strategic review the alliance has undertaken in response to the collapse of the Soviet-Warsaw Pact military threat.
Cheney said the U.S. preference for creating multinational forces would be to break down the single-nation NATO corps structure, in which each corps contains several divisions under the same flag. The multinational proposal would group divisions of various nationalities under realigned corps headquarters. Cheney's example was a corps composed of American, German and British divisions.
The idea of combining more European armed forces as a means of submerging nationalist tendencies and giving NATO a more pan-European cast at a time when the future of the Western military alliance is being debated was warmly greeted here by defense ministers. The idea was particularly well received by West Germany, whose government is seeking to speed unification with East Germany while allaying Soviet security concerns over how to limit the size and alignment of the German military.
As the defense ministers were meeting, it was announced that Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze would meet German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher in Geneva to carry on what Western officials here said would be high-level discussions on future security arrangements in Central Europe following German unification.
NATO operates with an integrated command structure under an American four-star general, but national forces generally perform separate military roles and have been deployed along the East-West confrontation line in national zones of defense.
Cheney, asked whether the proposal was designed to mute nationalist tendencies in Europe as it prepares for a unified Germany, said, "I think it is one more way to give a political dimension to our military arrangements."
In addition, he said, "We will have to be more sensitive than we've had to be in the past about how the host nations look at the troop presence of NATO forces in their areas, and one way to emphasize the multilateral nature of the NATO alliance is to have units composed of troops from various nations."
A U.S. official traveling with Cheney said the idea of more multinational forces within NATO has been discussed at high levels in Washington since January. In recent weeks, he said, the idea, backed by the Pentagon, was endorsed by an inter-agency review as a "very promising idea to promote" during this meeting and other NATO discussions in advance of a London meeting of NATO heads of state scheduled for July.
by CNB