Security Alliances and Security Concerns: Pakistan and NATO

By

Shahwar Junaid [*]

Abstract

With the end of the Cold War, NATO’s role has undergone a radical transformation from providing collective defence to Western Europe against a possible Soviet-led ground attack to dealing with threats such as those emanating from global terrorism and sub-national militancy.  Today issues such as energy security and even the fallout from climate change are also in the NATO agenda. The thrust of the Organization has accordingly become more global than transatlantic.  Consequently NATO has evolved from a geographical concept of security to a functional approach. Thus in the mid-1990s after the Srebrenica massacre, the US and NATO made serious efforts to end the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina which led to the Dayton Peace Accord of December 1995. NATO deployed troops and this was its first ever out of area deployment thereby establishing a precedent. Subsequently in March 1999, NATO forces moved to end the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. This signified a transformation from being primarily a deterrent force to using its military capabilities to achieve humanitarian goals. The way was thus paved for other interventions. All NATO members along with a number of its partners have contributed troops to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) which is operating in Afghanistan. There have been declarations that ISAF will remain in Afghanistan for decades in the fight against global terrorism. Pakistan’s continued cooperation in this effort should be on the basis of a formal association.

–       Editor).

Before embarking on a discussion of specific issues concerning the activities of multilateral security alliances in South Asia and the adjoining region, as well as Pakistan’s concerns and interests in this regard, it is necessary to examine the purpose, origin, terminology and culture of strategic alliances – particularly those transatlantic and European strategic alliances in the economic and security fields that emerged after World War II and operated exclusively within the transatlantic arena for about four decades. Thereafter they began to extend operations to other regions through modified mutual defence arrangements under the umbrella of NATO and the United Nations.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Economic Community emerged after World War II in response to concerns about the economic, political and territorial future of a weakened Western Europe that shared several national borders with the vast territories of the Soviet Union (1) and the emerging communist East European countries that were its allies. The primary purpose of NATO was the collective defence of Western Europe against a possible USSR-led ground attack by communist states. An attack on one member state was to be considered an attack on all NATO members. Enhancing the stability of the region through a collective security system was expected to foster and protect the economic reconstruction of war-torn Western Europe. A collective security system had become necessary because of a series of events that took place in post-World War II Europe.

Between 1939 and 1945, communist governments had been installed throughout Eastern Europe and territorial demands were made by the Soviet Union (2). Moscow was reported to be a party to destabilizing political developments in Greece and Iran. The Soviet Union was also known to have acquired competence in atomic technology.  These developments prompted the signing of a common defence treaty (the Treaty of Dunkirk) between Britain and France as early as 1947. However, it was clear that the combined forces of both countries would be no match for the forces of the Soviet Union in case of an attack.

Thereafter the European Recovery Plan (3) was rejected by East European states and

Cominform (4), a European Communist organization, was created. The 1947 establishment of Cominform led to the signing of a collective defence treaty known as the Brussels Treaty (1948) by most European states. It was again clear that the combined forces of all the Western European states would be no match for the forces of the Soviet Union in case of an attack. In January 1949, the USSR established COMECON, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, in order to coordinate the rebuilding and expansion of the economy of the USSR and the war-ravaged East European states on strictly socialist lines. It was considered the Soviet counterpart of the European Recovery Plan (5) and the European Economic Community rolled into one. COMECON branched into international trade and commerce. Subsequently it supplied aid to the communists in China who were eventually victorious and established the Peoples Republic of China. The blockade of Berlin began in March 1948. It led to common defence negotiations between Western Europe, Canada and the United States. As a result of these negotiations the North Atlantic Treaty was signed on 4 April 1949. NATO was created through the North Atlantic Treaty.

The Treaty itself consisted of a preamble and 14 articles. Its purpose was to promote the common values of its members and “unite their efforts for collective defence” (6). Article 1 called for the peaceful resolution of disputes. Article 2 pledges the parties to economic and political cooperation. Article 3 deals with the development of defence capacity. Article 4 calls for joint consultations when a member state is threatened. Article 5 promises the use of members’ armed forces for collective self-defence. Article 6 defines the areas covered by the Treaty. Article 7 affirms the precedence of members’ obligations under the United Nations’ Charter. Article 8 provides safeguards against conflict with any other treaties to which members are signatories. Article 9 creates a Council to oversee implementation of the treaty. Article 10 stipulates admission procedures for other nations. Article 11 covers the ratification procedure. Article 12 allows for the reconsideration of the Treaty. Article 13 lays down withdrawal procedures. Article 14 calls for the deposition of the official copies of the treaty in the US Archives.

The North Atlantic Council was designated the highest authority within NATO (7). It was composed of permanent delegates from all member states, headed by a Secretary General to run the secretariat and handle all the non-military functions of the alliance. The Council was the decision-making body of NATO and responsible for general policy, administration as well as the organizations’ budget. The secretariat, various temporary committees and the Military Committee were expected to report to the North Atlantic Council. The temporary committees were for specific assignments determined by the North Atlantic Council.

The NATO Military Committee was expected to meet twice a year to consider overall policy. It consists of the chiefs of staff of the armed forces of member states. Between these meetings, the Military Committee remained in permanent session with representatives of the members attending, in order to define military strategy on a day to day basis. These representatives were often the Military Attaches of the embassies of member states stationed closest to NATO headquarters. In a number of cases they were special appointees. Below the Military Committee various regional commands are responsible for deploying armed forces in their areas. Policy making within NATO was, and still remains, a matter of continuous consultation and accommodation: the national interests and political priorities of member states may not always coincide. When the original purpose of establishing a purely transatlantic collective defence organization became redundant with the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, NATO began to look into issues of political consolidation of former Warsaw Pact states and the expansion of its membership. A series of new threats to the transatlantic alliance were identified. These included, among others, global terrorism and sub-national militancy. Today, energy security and even climate change are on NATO’s agenda and its thrust is more global than transatlantic (8). Allies in the pursuit of this agenda include former adversaries such as Russia and China.

The original signatories of the North Atlantic Treaty were twelve in number (9). The Western European powers relied on the massive nuclear arsenal of the United States to deter a Soviet ground invasion. Eventually NATO technology rendered the power of Soviet ground forces irrelevant. The NATO arsenal included sophisticated psychological, electronic and information warfare capability as well as non-lethal weaponry sourced from member states. Greece and Turkey were admitted to the Alliance in 1952, West Germany in 1955 and Spain in 1982. In 1990, unified Germany replaced West Germany as a NATO member. In 1955, six years after NATO was established, the Warsaw Pact, a Communist military alliance was created by the USSR to counter NATO, signalling the beginning of the Cold War. This was also the signal for the creation of a powerful defence industry on both sides of the ideological divide. The global defence industry is an important partner in any military arrangement in the world – it has a vested interest in war because its wares, from the sale of which it derives its income, are only utilized in conflict situations (10).  Similarly strategic alliances have a vested interest in continuity.

In order to understand the raison d’etre, the organizational culture and military capability of NATO during the Cold War it is necessary to consider the sheer size of the military adversary the transatlantic allies were facing and the intensity of the threat they felt during the period. The boundaries of the USSR (11) changed from time to time until the end of World War II in 1945, when the last major territorial annexations of the Baltic states, eastern Poland, Bessarabia and some others took place. Initially established as a union of four soviet socialist republics (Russia, Trans-Caucasian Russia, Ukraine, Belarus ) the USSR grew to contain 16 constituent republics of the union by 1956 (12).The Soviet Union’s growing global influence in the post-World War II era led to the establishment of a communist system of states united by economic and military agreements. COMECON (Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, 1949) was the Communist equivalent to the European Economic Community. The military counterpart to COMECON was the Warsaw Pact.

During the 1970s, the Soviet Union achieved approximate nuclear parity with the United States and subsequently overtook it. According to estimates the USSR had a stockpile of 39,000 nuclear weapons at the time of its dissolution. Despite its position as the second service in the armed forces hierarchy, the ground forces of the USSR were the most politically influential Soviet service. Senior ground service officers held all important posts in the Ministry of Defence and General Staff. In 1989, ground forces had 2 million men in four combat arms and three supporting services. This was the force that was exposed to attack in an unfamiliar theatre as a consequence of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in 1978.

The USSR was weakened by the failure of its military intervention in Afghanistan where its forces faced cross-border resistance from militants who were organized, supported and equipped by the United States and Pakistan. This enterprise was the first encounter between a new generation of local militants, born after World War II and the region’s decolonization, and United States technology.  It was brokered by Pakistan’s forces and sowed the seeds of future military and ideological confrontation in the area.  The entire region was flooded with technologically advanced arms which were freely traded by militants of different ideological persuasions. There was no common agenda to bind them into a cohesive force. Eventually an agenda did emerge: a conservative Islamic state supposedly based on Shariah law was established by the Taliban in 1996, about five years after the Soviets left Afghanistan. Initially it was accepted by the United States and its representatives were even invited to discuss cultural matters in Washington.

After the dissolution of the USSR and the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States in 1991, it was estimated that Russia, the successor state of the USSR, had an arsenal of 16,000 active and inactive nuclear weapons (13), as well as a large number of tactical nuclear weapons. Nuclear warheads based in Belarus, the Ukraine and Kazakhstan were transferred to Russia under the terms of the Lisbon Protocol to the NPT (Non- Proliferation Treaty), following the Trilateral Agreement (1995) between Russia, Belarus and the United States.

Russia’s strategic nuclear forces include land-based missile forces, a sea-based fleet and strategic aviation. The 1970s had begun with some agreements as a result of the Strategic

Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) but both the United States and the Soviet Union continued to build their respective military arsenals despite on-going efforts at détente. In 2002, the United States and Russia agreed to reduce their stockpiles to not more than 2200 warheads each in the START treaty. In 2003, the US rejected the Russian proposals to further reduce both nations’ nuclear stockpiles to 1500 each. This refusal was considered a sign of US aggression: Washington was accused of leaving the danger of US and Russia’s mutual destruction, in place. According to the Russian military doctrine published in 2003 tactical nuclear weapons could be used to prevent political pressure against Russia and its allies in Moscow’s “near abroad.” Russia continues to produce and develop new nuclear weapons. Since 1997 it has manufactured Topol-M (SS-27) ICBMs (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles). After the dissolution of the USSR the two million strong Soviet ground army, which had been hard hit by the war in Afghanistan, began to disintegrate. Under treaties signed with the United States and others, the defence industry of the former Soviet Union was wound down and plants were established with US funding to destroy stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. The protection of technology and related human resources in the territories of the former USSR and Warsaw Pact became a major concern during the period (14). Russian technology and arms were available on the black market at throwaway prices and they began to surface in Third World countries

During the late 1980s, political upheaval led to the removal of communist governments in Eastern Europe and East Germany was absorbed into West Germany to form the Federal Republic of Germany (FDR) in 1990. After the formal end of the Cold War in 1991 the original raison d’etre for the creation of NATO, the protection of territorial boundaries, practically ceased to exist. A great restructuring of military resources at the disposal of NATO began. Restructuring was primarily limited to the traditional transatlantic theatre. Consultations that took place between NATO members led to plans for a systematic reduction of troops and restructuring to create highly trained and technically competent expeditionary cadres that would be available to respond to crises anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice. The United State’s Missile Defence Program was introduced. Under this program secure and armed missile defence units, controlled by the United States, were to be established at strategic locations across the globe. States were offered incentives in order to provide territory for setting up these missile defence units.

In the London Declaration of July 1990, NATO heads of state and government called for “a process of adaptation commensurate with the changes that were reshaping Europe.” In an effort to foster better relations with the members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, NATO established the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. It was a forum for consultations between NATO members, East European states and the former Soviet republics. The adoption of the New Alliance Strategic Concept in November 1991 led to NATO’s Long Term Study to examine Integrated Military Structure and put forward proposals for related reforms (15). This provided guidance for defining the scope of missions for NATO with which the command structure would have to cope. By this time the process of enlargement of NATO was contributing to the development of the European Security and Defence Identity. Consultations culminated in the presentation of a proposed, new military command structure to Defence Ministers on 2 December 1997 (16). Implementation commenced in 1999. The Cold War Command Structure was reduced from 78 headquarters to 20 headquarters, with two overarching Strategic Commanders (Supreme Allied Commanders), one for Europe and the other for the Atlantic. Three regional commanders were assigned to the Atlantic SAC and two regional commanders were assigned to the Europe SAC. During this period new security challenges of the 21st century, were identified and further changes were made to the command structure to allow for an effective response to such threats. Consensus on the approach to tackling international terror and sub-national militancy as well as commitment of resources for the purpose, proved elusive.

Apart from setting up the North Atlantic Cooperation Council as a consultative body, in 1993 NATO members endorsed a proposal to offer former Warsaw Pact members limited association with NATO under the Partnership for Peace (PFP). This program was a means of extending the NATO umbrella of security cooperation throughout Europe. It was to include information sharing, joint exercises and participation in peacekeeping operations, with full membership as a possibility after the fulfilment of membership requirements with NATO military development assistance. In March 1999 Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic joined the alliance. In 2002 Russia became a limited partner in NATO as a member of the NATO-Russia Council. The PFP program has 26 participating members.

Between 1995 and 1999 two significant initiatives were taken by NATO. These followed a great deal of soul searching within the transatlantic alliance.  After the Srebrenica massacre, the seizure of UN peacekeepers as human shields, the failure of the United Nations mission and EU-led Peace Plans, the United States and NATO began serious efforts to bring an end to the continuing war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The genocide of Bosnians was threatening European stability. After weeks of air strikes, the Bosnian Serbs were ready to negotiate and eventually signed the Dayton Peace Accord (December 1995). At the height of the campaign, NATO deployed a force of about 80,000 troops from 32 countries. Thereafter NATO deployed another multinational Implementation Force (IFOR) to monitor and enforce the ceasefire in Bosnia. A year later this was replaced by a Stabilization Force which has helped rebuild Bosnian security institutions.  This was NATO’s first ever out of area land deployment and created a precedent.

In March 1999 NATO forces moved against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia which had begun the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo leading to the eventual exodus of over a million civilians from the province. Air strikes were launched after Yugoslavia refused to accept an international peace plan that would have put an end to ethnic cleansing and granted limited autonomy to Kosovo. Instead of capitulating, the Serbs intensified violence forcing the largest mass migration in Europe after World War II. A NATO force was sent in. The Kosovo peace keeping force (KFOR) at its height numbered 50,000 troops from 39 NATO as well as non-NATO countries. A force of about 16,000 is still in place to guarantee security. When Kosovo declared independence in March 2008, KFOR personnel were attacked by groups of ethnic Serbs and sustained one casualty.

The Bosnia and Kosovo interventions exposed differences of opinion within the expanded membership of NATO and the difficulty of sustaining military action that requires the consensus of the entire membership of an expanded military alliance. It highlighted the differences of opinion that can arise as a result of unique cultural and historical links, not shared by all members within the expanded membership. NATO had moved from being a primarily deterrent force to using its military capability to achieve humanitarian goals. This paved the way for other interventions and signalled a fundamental transformation within the transatlantic alliance: NATO moved from a geographical concept of security to a functional approach (17). In keeping with this a military transformation also took place: The reorganization of NATO, after the dissolution of the USSR, led to the development of expeditionary capability for operations at a distance from the alliance’s Euro-Atlantic theatre. This has led to a perception that long before the actual invasion of Afghanistan through ISAF (International Security Assistance Force), supposedly in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks on US territory, and the subsequent invasion of Iraq in pursuit of non-existent weapons of mass destruction, NATO was planning to expand its area of operation and sphere of influence through global interventions

After the dissolution of the USSR, there was a period during which US ascendancy in global affairs was a reality. It was no longer clear where US foreign policy ended and that of the United Nations, reflecting the interests of the international community, began. This preponderance of US influence in world affairs added a new dimension to the transatlantic alliance and collective defence concepts. An alliance is defined as a “formal association of states for the use (or non-use) of military force, in specified circumstances, against states outside their own membership” (18).

A strategic alliance is also defined as a formal arrangement between two or more independent parties engaged in the pursuit of common goals, or, working to meet common critical needs. Such alliances may be formed in any field of activity, including business and trade (19) and at the bilateral, regional or international levels. NATO, for instance, is strengthened by social, economic and trade ties between the states of the European Union, the United States and Canada. Such ties can create a fund of political goodwill that is helpful when governments take a position on international security issues that do not have a direct impact on their own country but do have an impact on allies. However, the transformation of NATO from a geographically limited alliance to a functional one (20), acting in consort with other multilateral and international agencies, with an interest in nation-building subsequent to military intervention, has altered the strategic concept within which the alliance functions: there is a need to review the political rather than merely military determinants of NATO in the present security environment (21). For instance views on the legitimacy of pre-emptive military action differ within NATO and the EU states. This is particularly important vis-a-vis the policy of the United States towards Iran’s nuclear program and the massing of battle- ready US warships off the coast of Syria and Lebanon (22). An American force is already stationed in the Gulf and these are reinforcements. Observers are concerned that this strengthened presence presages a US military operation in the region.

Post-Cold War security realities have been transformed by events in the regions in which NATO is operating today. Before making commitments under a new NATO agenda, member states may need to consider their domestic political agenda and the fallout of casualties and other losses during military operations that do not have a direct and immediate impact on their national security. A review of the political consensus within NATO which gave direction to administrative change and military policy after the dissolution of the USSR   has also become necessary. All NATO members have contributed troops to ISAF which is operating in Afghanistan. So have a number of NATO partner states.  A number of nations are now reconsidering their position as present policies fail to produce results (23).

Nevertheless, there have been declarations that ISAF will remain in Afghanistan for decades to come: the objective of such a deployment without policy change with the intention of securing outcome, is questionable. Some conspiracy theorists even believe that the repeated publication and reproduction of texts and cartoons that are offensive to Islam in NATO member states is deliberate and orchestrated to provoke violent reaction in conservative Muslim states in the region. Violence will provide an excuse for prolonging military intervention in a region that remains aloof and out of the sphere of influence of the transatlantic alliance regardless of NATO’s presence there.

The 18 March-1 May 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation of that country by a coalition of forces took place because Iraq was supposed to have stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. Not a single stockpile was found. Nevertheless, Coalition, United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) as well as NATO forces and a large force of American military contractors continue to occupy Iraq. As of 23 August 2006 twenty seven countries, including the United States, were listed as contributing troops to the occupation of Iraq. Australia, New Zealand and Japan, lying outside the geographical sphere of the transatlantic alliance, have contributed troops and consider themselves potential partners of NATO. The questions that need to be asked today are: What are all these countries getting out of the occupation of Iraq? What is the return on their investment in human and financial terms?

For the answer to these questions analysts will need to re-examine the meaning of various terms that have been used to describe strategic arrangements and the implication of the offshoots of these arrangements. These offshoots include the terms “international coalition” (24) and “strategic networks” (25).  These terms are used to indicate differences and gradations in the purpose of a strategic alliance, and its operational and functional limits. All these terms are current in modern security terminology and applicable to security alliances that are operating in various parts of the world at this time under various multilateral and international arrangements sanctioned by international law.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an example of a full-fledged regional strategic alliance with the collective defence of its members as one of its major goals. A “coalition” is simply defined as a temporary combination into one (26). The purpose of combining forces and resources on a temporary basis implies that the parties concerned share an immediate need but may not necessarily share long-term goals or a vision of the future. For instance, ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) is the name of a NATO-led security mission that was established by the United Nations Security Council on 20 December 2001 (27). A series of coordinated suicide attacks that had taken place on US territory on 11 September 2001 were thought to be the work of Al Qaeda, which was based in Afghanistan. ISAF was expected to remove the Taliban government, secure Kabul and the surrounding area from the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other militant factions and pave the way for the establishment of the Afghan Transitional Administration which was to be headed by Hamid Karzai (28). In October 2003, the United Nations Security Council authorized the expansion of the ISAF mission to cover the whole of Afghanistan. This expansion took place in four phases. The main headquarter of the mission continues to be in Kabul. There are five Regional Command Centres under which there are Provincial Reconstruction Teams that have a flexible mandate. On 31 July 2006 NATO-ISAF took over the administration of Southern Afghanistan.

Attempts to transform international coalitions into full fledged security alliances are not likely to be successful unless the objectives of all members of the coalition are served by such a transformation. This has not happened in Afghanistan and this is the reason why the United States, the senior partner in ISAF, is finding it difficult to muster troops from the original members of the coalition and has been trying to induce states in the region to come to its assistance one way or another.

Stages of Alliance Formation

The typical strategic alliance formation process involves a number of steps. These include strategy development, partner assessment, and negotiation of terms of association, command structures and operating procedures as well as the conditions for terminating the alliance. Apart from identifying objectives and rationale for creating an alliance, the feasibility of establishing it must also be examined. Selection criteria will have to be established in order to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of potential partners, their motivation for joining the alliance as well as their ability to contribute to it. These contributions will determine the status of various partners within the policy making and command structure of the organization. This will include an evaluation of existing arrangements dealing with the objectives of the proposed alliance as well as other issues and challenges to the establishment of the alliance.

As far as Pakistan and its contribution to ISAF in particular is concerned, it is essential for policy makers to remember that Pakistan has existing arrangements dealing with situations that the United States, NATO and ISAF would like to tackle in the Tribal belt of the country, in Balochistan and the North West Frontier Province, which share a border with Afghanistan. The government of Pakistan merely needs to perform its duties and fulfil its obligations to the people of the area as a guarantor of their freedom, security and sovereignty. When the people of the region voted to become part of the country that was to be Pakistan at the request of Quaid-e-Azam, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, they were counting on association with a competent federation that had the capability to negotiate with external forces and bring prosperity to their area.

A clear delineation of common goals and objectives makes it possible for partners within a security alliance such as NATO to arrive at arrangements for pooling resources and efforts for the achievement of those goals while remaining independent entities and pursuing independent policies in other matters. Partners within the arrangement may contribute funds, human as well as physical resources, knowledge and expertise, equipment and logistic support. Such individual contributions create synergy which multiples the strength of the collective effort, despite the divergent strategic cultures of members of the alliance (29).  A key component of pooled resources within strategic security alliances is the geographical location of partners within the alliance.  This element of strategic security alliance culture creates a unique and influential niche for associates and partners who may not qualify for full membership on the basis of other criteria for membership. Now that NATO is undertaking function-based tasks and moving out of its traditional geographic mode it may need to reassess established criteria for membership of its policy-making command institutions and the protection and support that is available to their members. Without the possibility of a formal association of this nature, countries like Pakistan should not even consider compromising their existing external policy arrangements.

The perception in Pakistan is that no good has come out of the collaboration between the United States and Pakistan’s military as a result of NATO’s counterterrorism presence in Afghanistan. There is little public support in Pakistan for association with US military initiatives anywhere in the world. Institutional support has been provided by Pakistan to ISAF initiatives secretly and without knowledge of the public (30). This is no basis for considering a formal partnership with a security alliance. Any windfall in the form of finances or hardware has been of limited and superficial benefit to some military institutions in Pakistan. On the other hand, association with US and NATO expeditions have wiped out grassroots public support for the institution as a whole and have weakened it. The militarization and brutalization of Pakistan’s territory bordering Afghanistan, where US guided missile attacks on so-called terrorist hide-outs without regard for massive collateral damage have become commonplace, and have created an untenable situation. This is the sum total Pakistan has gained from its military association with the most powerful member of NATO, the United States and its regional coalition, ISAF.

In fact Pakistan’s citizens have been facing the fallout of escalating violence as a result of US and NATO activities in neighbouring Afghanistan for some time now. In Afghanistan, the nature, size and capabilities of the adversary NATO forces are facing, is radically different from any they have encountered before. The mindset they are facing is alien to them. The terrain is different, so is the culture of the countries surrounding the theatre of war. For these countries, including Pakistan, the rewards of any cross-border military cooperation with an offshoot of NATO remain dubious. Just as the intent and purpose of NATO intervention in Afghanistan remains dubious. A great deal must change before there can be fruitful cooperation. Above all, Pakistan must make peace with its own people first.

References

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1 (i.) USSR : December 30,1922- December 26 1991 : Union of Soviet Socialist Republics : a constitutionally socialist state with a total land area of 22, 402,200  (1991) and a population density of  13.1 per sq. km, spanning the continents of Europe and Asia and including the Caucasus .

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2 (i)Frontiers: Territory and State Formation in the Modern World: Polity: October 20, 1997 : 272 pages, P. 38, p.142 etc.).

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3 (i.)The Marshall Plan.

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4  Cominform: officially referred to as the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers Parties, also known as the Agency of International Communism: established in 1947. It was dissolved by Soviet initiative in 1956: Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004.

5. The Marshall Plan

6. North Atlantic Treaty.

7. Ruhle, Michael: The Evolution of NATO: Expanding the Transatlantic Tool Kit: American Foreign Policy Interests, 29, 237-242: 2007: Copyright 2007 NCAFF

8 .Transatlantic Relations in the 21st Century: Frank Walter Steinmeier: Hampton Roads International Security Quarterly: Portsmouth : April 15 2007 : P. 39-42.

9. Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States.

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12. Armenia , Azerbaijan , Belarus , Estonia , Georgia , Kazakhstan , Kirghizstan , Latvia , Lithuania , Moldavia , Russia , Tajikistan , Turkmenistan , Ukraine , Uzbekistan . After the

2.

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14 Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism: Joint Fact Sheet July 2006: http://en.g8russia.ru/docs/7/html)

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ii)NATO Europe spends UDS 12 billion a year on research and development. See Stephen Flanagan, “Sustaining IS-European Global Security Cooperation”: Strategic Forum (No.217) September 2005 Pages 1-6.

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17. The Evolution of NATO: Expanding the Transatlantic Tool Kit: Michael Ruhle: American Foreign Policy Interests, 29: January 2008: ISSN: 1080-3920 Copyright 2007 NCAFP: Pg 237-242.

18. Snyder, Glenn: Alliance Politics: Ithaca , N.Y:Cornell University Press, 1997: page 4.

19. Strategic Alliances-An entrepreneurial approach to globalization: Yoshino and Rangan, Michael Y. and U. Srinivasa: 1995: Library of Congress Catalog ISBN 0-87584-584-3.

20. The Evolution of NATO: Expanding the Transatlantic Tool Kit: Michael Ruhle: American Foreign Policy Interests, 29: January 2008: ISSN: 1080-3920 Copyright 2007 NCAFP.

21. War Plans and Alliances in the Cold War: Threat Perceptions in the East and West( Cass Series on Security Studies): Editors: Vojtech Mastny, Sven Holtsmark, Andreas Wenger: Routledge: May 30, 2006 : Pages 324: P.73. etc

22. Kramnik, Ilya: Invisible US Forces in the Middle East : reproduced in The Nation, World Focus, March 16, 2008 .

23. Read:Benjamin Scheer, German Institute for International and Security Affairs and Asle Toje, Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies: Financial Times: March 12, 2008.

24. Porter and Fuller:1986.

25.  Jarillo :1988.

26. The Little Oxford Dictionary of Current English: compiled by George Ostler, Third Edition revised and supplemented by J. Coulsen: Clarendon Press: London 1941.

27. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1386 S-RES-1386 (2001) May 31 2001 (UNSCR 1386) retrieved 21.09. 2007.

28. The Nation: Page 9: Friday, December 28, 2007

29. NATO and European Security: Alliance Politics from the End of the Cold War to the Age of Terrorism: Alexander Moens, Loenard  J. Cohen and Allen G. Sens: 216 Pages: Praegar Publishers: March 30, 2003.

30. The Monks of War: Barnett Thomas P.M.: Esquire: March 2006: Pages 214-215.


[*] Shahwar Junaid, a former Communications Media Consultant to the Pakistan government, is an eminent writer and intellectual. Her latest book is titled Terrorism and Global Power Systems, Oxford University Press, 2006.

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