Partnership for Peace (PFP): After the Washington Summit and Kosovo

Abstract

Conclusions * The NATO Washington Summit and the war in Kosovo pose serious challenges for the Partnership for Peace (PFP) in implementing reforms among its 24 partners and dealing with the expectations of the nine partners seeking NATO membership. * Because the nine partners of the Membership Action Plan (MAP) have heightened expectations of NATO membership, the continuing lack of an invitation could lead to disillusionment. This could lead to cleavage among MAP partners. * Lessons learned by Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic suggest that the nine MAP partners may find their human and material resources overwhelmed in harmonizing NATO Standardized Agreements (STANAGs) to their defense establishments and in responding to the NATO Defense Capabilities Initiative. The result could develop two-tier armed forces in the MAP states, one tier designed to function within the PFP, the second developed according to national defense, but neither able to function well as a whole. A security earthquake shook Europe during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Limited crises reappeared and began to haunt Europe, making NATO look outward and take steps to project stability--its new mechanism was cooperation. The North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC), formed in November 1991, brought former adversaries together to talk and to begin multilateral cooperation, not partnership. The emerging political dialogue helped Central and East European (CEE) politicians to better understand defense requirements; they slowly began to realize that defense encompassed more than just military issues (e.g., civil emergency planning, air space management, etc.) PFP Genesis and Evolution Partnership For Peace has undergone enormous change since its inception at the January 1994 Brussels Summit. Though some in CEE initially saw PFP as a palliative (no enlargement), PFP did move non-NATO members beyond dialogue and into practical partnership. PFP developed a framework and process; it established the norm that partners should be contributors and marked a shift from purely multilateral dialogue to bilateral (partner and Alliance) relationships in the form of Individual Partnership Programs (IPPs) and self-differentiation. It marked the establishment of a wide environment of cooperation, to include the Planning and Review Process (PARP), transparency, civil control/oversight of the military, and peace support operations. The July 1997 Madrid Summit made PFP more relevant and operational by introducing enhanced PFP and a second PARP cycle. It also marked the introduction of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC)--which replaced the NACC--and creation of the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council (PJC) and NATO-Ukraine Commission to keep Russia and Ukraine engaged in the partnership. It was also marked by the invitation of three PFP states to join in membership talks with NATO. By the April 1999 Washington Summit, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic had joined NATO. The summit introduced programs to make PFP more operational and approved the new Alliance Strategic Concept, which for the first time mentioned PFP (para. 35) as an Alliance activity. It launched a Defense Capabilities Initiative to improve interoperability among Alliance forces and, where applicable, between Alliance and partner forces. The Membership Action Plan (MAP) and a third PARP cycle were intended to establish closer relations among partners and the Alliance for common operations. NATO is developing an operational capabilities concept (OCC) that should help to engage partners in future military operations by identifying national or multinational forces that can be used in non-Article 5 activities. The OCC should be developed by autumn 1999 and will result in a pool of forces that can augment NATO forces. The MAPs, a practical manifestation of the NATO (Article 10) Open Door policy, identify five partner activity areas (political and economic, defense/military, resources, security, and legal) that develop the capabilities needed for membership. …