Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Foreign Affairs
Issue 37 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Tuesday, May 11, 1999
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs met this day at 3:31 p.m. to examine the ramifications to Canada of the changed mandate of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Canada's role in NATO since the demise of the Warsaw Pact, the end of the Cold War and the recent addition to membership in NATO of Hungry, Poland and the Czech Republic; and of peacekeeping, with particular reference to Canada's ability to participate in it under the auspices of any international body of which Canada is a member.
Senator John B. Stewart (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, I call the meeting to order.
With us this afternoon is Dr. Dale Herspring, who is a professor in the Department of Political Science at Kansas State University. Indeed, he is the head of that department. Dr. Herspring has spent over 20 years as a Foreign Service Officer with the United States Department of State. He has had extensive contacts with the Soviet Russian military, both as a diplomat and as a captain in the United States Navy.
As I look over the list of his publications, I see that there are, as of the moment, eight books. The one that attracted my attention particularly is "NATO at Fifty: Perspectives on the Future of the Atlantic Alliance."
Dr. Herspring, we await with pleasure your opening statement. Please proceed.
Professor Dale Herspring, Head, Department of Political Science, Kansas State University: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The last time I was here in Canada was 1991; I had just returned from Moscow. I had been warned that it was cold here. After all, I had been to Moscow. However, I have never been so cold in my life.
First, I have spent most of my life dealing with the Russian military at all levels. I have tried to look at the world the way they look at it, not necessarily the way I look at it. First, a lot of their negativism and a lot of rhetoric that you have heard about NATO expansion is a result of their loss of power and face in the world. They have been humiliated and they are striking out.
Second, as far as their long-term reaction is concerned, much will depend on the struggle inside the Kremlin, how it turns out. If the radical right or left wins, NATO will become evil incarnate, and it will not matter much what we do. If the moderates emerge victorious, however -- and the jury is still out on this -- I believe that Russia itself may one day join NATO, or at least be willing to co-operate much more closely with it.
Third, we cannot determine the outcome of internal Russian politics. This is a problem that afflicts American policy-makers all the time, the American voters thinking that we can snap our fingers and make things work wherever we want. It is important to keep in mind that the whole NATO world can have an important influence on events. For that reason, it is critical that we avoid isolating Moscow. Instead, we should do everything we can to co-operate with them, when it is appropriate, and let them know that we really do care about their views. I feel this way regarding both the military and political arenas.
Let me talk about the political situation. For those of us who live in North America, our differences are rather minuscule. It is hard for us to understand how far the Russians have fallen since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Not only is the country a fraction of its former size, but also its economic and political systems are in shambles. Male longevity is at an all-time low, alcoholism is rampant, the birth rate is dropping, medical care is a disaster, crime is out of control, the country's social fabric has come unravelled, and Russian's ethical and moral structure is a far cry from what it was 15 years ago.
The same thing can be said for the economy. It is a mess. Workers are not paid on time, half the factories are not working, the country's laws are still not business-friendly, agriculture is a mess, and bribery is a fact of life. Just ask anyone who has tried to do business in Russia in recent months. I am not an economist, however, the people with whom I have spoken are very pessimistic about the future of the country, in spite of its rich natural resources.
To make matters worse, the country's political system is also a disaster. Yeltsin could well become the first major leader in recent years to be "pickled" while still in office. His primary focus, at present, seems to be on firing anyone who appears to be trying to get the job done. There are daily speculations as to how long Mr. Primakov will last. Relations between Moscow and the provinces seem to be deteriorating to the point that some observers have begun to suggest that a breakup of the country is not out of the question; in this case, the Russian Far East being one of the prime candidates.
The political parties are still in their infancy. The legal system has yet to take hold. Corruption is a way of life. Politics is highly personalistic as opposed to being system-oriented. The President and the Duma are at constant war, and anti-Semitism lurks just below the surface. Furthermore, few Russian citizens see any relationship between the ballot box and their daily lives, something that is critical to the functioning of any democratic policy. The temptation to vote for a man on a white horse may become irresistible. A situation in which we are seen as overly hostile, from our standpoint, will only exacerbate the situation.
The military situation is equally bleak. Morale is at an all-time low, soldiers are literally starving for lack of food. Sexual and physical harassment are rampant. In contrast to the past, generals are politicized and become active in the political process in a way that was never known before. Draft evasion has reached an all-time high. Even among those who do show up, a large number are rejected for physical and mental reasons, not to mention the increasing number who have criminal records. Suicides are increasing, ironically, especially on the part of officers, who know that the only way their families can be guaranteed payment every month is if they are no longer around because death benefits are one of the few things that are paid on time every month. Junior officers, those most critical to the future of any military, are leaving in droves.
In addition to personnel problems, the Russian military is falling further and further behind the west when it comes to weapons and equipment, primarily because the financial situation is getting worse year by year. In 1997, for example, the military received only 56 per cent of what it was actually budgeted. As a result, the military has been able to purchase very little in the way of weapons and equipment. By 1998, only 30 per cent of all weapons in the Russian inventory were modern, while in NATO countries the number stood at between 60 per cent and 80 per cent. If current trends continue, by the year 2005, only 5 per cent to 7 per cent of all Russian weaponry will be new and Russia's military will hold Third World status.
The Russian armed forces have not conducted a single division-level ground forces exercise since 1992. Similarly, Russian pilots are lucky if they get 25 flying hours a year, in contrast to the NATO norm of 150 to 200, which helps explain why Russian pilots are setting new records for crashing airplanes.
As a consequence, the Russian military is not in any position to fight a conventional war. Moscow has been threatening to send six naval combatants to the Adriatic. Obviously, one cannot dismiss that there are diplomatic reasons for not doing that. However, the fact is that I have been on most of these ships and they are so far behind. Technically, if they were to go to the Adriatic and experience equipment failures, those kinds of problems could embarrass Yeltsin, the military, and the country. Furthermore, if the military were called upon to defend the country, it could be a disaster. It is in no shape to handle even a break-away province like Chechnya, let alone a country like China.
What does this have to do with NATO? Simple. Like it or not, Russia is in chaos. If it did establish order, it could do very little to project power. For a proud people like the Russians, this is a tremendous blow. They went from being one of the world's two great powers to becoming relatively unimportant, almost a Third World country. To make matters worse, from their perspective, NATO -- their long-term enemy -- is expanding its previous sphere of influence. The Russians are weak and they know it. They deeply resent the situation they find themselves in.
In this regard, it is important to keep in mind that it took Britain almost 30 years to move from being a major power to the second echelon. The same could be said for France. Neither of them fell as far as the Russians have. Both have militaries that are small but highly professional and competent. Both countries are taken seriously when it comes to dealing with the world's problems.
For the Russians, however, the change in status occurred almost overnight. They talk openly about the horrible situation the country and its military finds themselves in at present. This is why I do not take arguments that try to explain Russian concerns with the situation in Serbia by pointing out that there are cultural and historical ties between the two. I do not take those seriously. There is no doubt they exist and they play a role in the mind of some Russians.
My point is that the Russians are wearing their feelings on their sleeves. They do not like what has happened to them, and every time they look at NATO's expanding membership, they are reminded just how impotent they are.
What about a military threat? Do the Russians seriously believe that the new NATO represents a serious military threat to them? The famous Irish churchman and philosopher Bishop Berkeley -- for whom city of Berkeley was named, but mispronounced -- once made the statement "to perceive is to be perceived." One's perception of reality is often more important in determining the action than is the real situation. It does not matter if it is raining outside if I think it is sunny. For me, it is sunny whatever the weather outside may be -- unless of course I am in Ottawa in the middle of December.
When it comes to a situation in which we have a senior leadership that was suckled on the NATO war machine, it is not surprising that they continue to see NATO through their old glasses -- even if the organization has changed significantly. After all, in their eyes, it remains a military organization and is engaged in a war against Serbia. Why would it continue to exist if it were not directed against Russia? Military reform, in terms of the people in charge, still has a long way to go in Russia. For many Russians, the situation is simple: The west has taken advantage of Russia's weakness to expand and thereby to contain and threaten Russia. The west, and particularly the U.S., is trying to be the world's policeman and is using NATO to keep everyone else in line.
It is important to note that Russians differentiate between countries such as the Baltics, Ukraine and those in Eastern Europe when it comes to NATO membership. If it chose to include the Baltics states, NATO would have a military presence inside what, according to the Russians, was once part of their imperial realm. East European states like Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic never fit into that role. Furthermore, the issue of Baltic or Ukrainian membership also brings Russian humiliation to the fore. Not only has the Kremlin lost control over these three republics, but if they join NATO, they would then become members of the former imperialist alliance. How could the embarrassment be any greater?
This brings me to another point, which, in my opinion, a lot of policy-makers have overlooked. I will go into detail on this, if there is interest. Because of the catastrophic situation the Russian army finds itself in, Moscow feels that it has no military alternative but to place increased reliance on nuclear weapons. Indeed, one reads articles on an almost daily basis about the Kremlin's efforts to modernize its nuclear forces. Unfortunately, there are very serious problems with these forces, which, if not taken care of, could wreck havoc both in Russia and around the world. The point is that these are the only usable weapons that the Kremlin has available at present. Here we go back to the question of perception. Permit me to posit the following: The greater the degree to which Russian decision-makers believe that NATO represents a real military threat, the greater the chances the Kremlin could decide to utilize these weapons in a crisis.
Please understand, I am not -- and I repeat, "not" -- suggesting that Moscow is about to engage in a nuclear war because of NATO expansion. I have more faith in the Russian leadership than that. What concerns me, however, is their possible behaviour in a crisis. Those of us who have been in governmental positions know that, in a crisis, perceptions become very important, especially if the information with which one is operating is incomplete and ambiguous. If Moscow believes NATO to be a serious threat, and if NATO went on an alert in a crisis, the Kremlin might feel it had no alternative but to use its nukes in a pre-emptory fashion. It is therefore in our own interest to improve our relations with the Russians to the maximum degree possible, if only to avoid a crisis situation in the future.
Let us admit, for the sake of argument, that Russian attitudes regarding NATO are a problem. What can we do to convince them otherwise? To begin with, it is important to keep in mind that there are some who will never be convinced of our peaceful intentions, regardless of what NATO does. For them, it will always be an aggressive organization.
It is also important to note that there are Russian politicians and generals who will cynically use the NATO threat for their own narrow purposes. If being anti-NATO will help them win votes, then I have no doubt they will play that card. Politicians like Vladimir Zhirinovskiy or Gennadii Zyganov are notorious for such actions.
Recognizing the problems noted above, there are still some things I believe we can and should do. First and foremost, it is critical that we not isolate the Russians. On this issue, NATO has been doing a good job in its efforts to keep the Russians involved in our joint search for a way out of the Kosovo impasse. Not only could they turn out to be useful as mediators, but also it demonstrates to them in a real way that, in spite of our differences over Kosovo, we value their views and diplomatic assistance.
There is an expression which all of us have heard that we must keep reminding ourselves of: "Don't kick a man when he is down." We all know that Russia is close to being a basket case. Indeed, the Russians know that much better than we do. Statements by western governments or politicians about how bad the situation is in Russia do us little good. It is also critical that we ignore the silly statements that some Russian leaders seem to thrive on -- ones that we all know are absurd, like "NATO is about to attack Russia," or "NATO is doing everything possible to keep Russia down." Part of this is nothing more than the inferiority complex they now face. Like most of us, Russians find it hard to accept the fact that they are their own worst enemy. NATO is not the danger. The real danger is the political and economic stability that the Russians themselves have created. This is why they find themselves in their current situation.
In addition to diplomatic and political sectors, there are also some important steps we need to take in the military sphere. At present, I suspect that these are moot points, but it is fair to say that Kosovo is not forever. When it is resolved, Russia will look to the west for closer ties. Russia received the IMF loan, and when we get beyond Kosovo, I suspect our relations will take a more positive direction in the military sphere as well.
What do I have in mind? First, I would suggest that we continue and expand our military-to military-contacts. I have been involved in all of the U.S.-Russian ship visits. I have no doubt they played a positive roll, not in convincing the Russians that we are better -- although one went through the land of golden door knobs and discovered that they were always impressed by the land of milk and honey -- but in having sailors talk to each other. As Churchill used to put it, "It is always better to jaw, jaw, jaw than fight, fight, fight."
I also taught Russians at the National War College when I was a professor there. They went through quite a transformation over a 10-month period. They learned to understand us and our crazy ways a lot better. This was an important accomplishment.
Second, I would strongly suggest that Canada in particular take a good look at co-operative peacekeeping activities. I was part of the U.S.-Russian exercise "Peacekeeper 95" at Fort Riley, Kansas. During that time, I learned that, first, the Canadians Forces, who are referees, are experts at this sort of thing. It was clear that they knew what they were doing. Second, it was also clear that the Russians knew more about the process at that time than we did. This experience was of direct benefit to some of our forces when they were sent to Bosnia. As far as I could see, it was a win-win proposition.
My son-in-law, who is a U.S. army captain and a former Canadian from Kamloops, B.C., just returned from six months in Bosnia. He worked closely with the Russians and found them to be professionals. I have found the same thing in dealing with Russian naval officers. Based on his and other comments I have heard, I see no reason why our co-operation in that area cannot be expanded when political conditions permit.
I would also argue that the closer we tie the Russians in a co-operative relationship, especially in the military sphere, the more impact we will have on moderating extremist tendencies within the Russian Government. I do not underestimate the problems involved. Russians can be very difficult to work with. I can attest to that. Much will depend on the degree to which our political interests coincide.
Having said that, what about setting up joint peacekeeping academies or training facilities under the NATO umbrella? Canada again is leader in this area, and I would expect it to play a major role. Just as we set up joint U.S.-Canadian units during World War II, I see no reason for not expanding the kind of co-operative relationship we have already achieved in Bosnia between our countries and the Russians.
The real question that faces us is simple: Do we have the patience and the will to go down this road? Frustration will be our constant companion. We will have to spend the necessary funds, which are always scarce in every NATO government. We may not see real progress for several years. What we are talking about is building the foundation, not the house; the house will come later. In the meantime, such actions would give NATO a new sense of purpose and meaning, and help relieve some of the fear and hostility that the Russians hold vis-à-vis the Atlantic Alliance.
Third, it is time for western militaries to step up to the plate by providing the kind of humanitarian assistance that the Russian military so desperately needs. I recognize the problems involved; however, I seriously believe there is something worth doing in this area. After all, the Russian military has always been more willing to interact with other militaries than with civilians of any kind, including its own. What about sending them MREs -- meals ready to eat -- with appropriate safeguards? They do fill you up. The U.S. has hundreds of retired military officers who have spent considerable time on the ground in Russia and know the game of corruption and graft à la Russki as well as they do. Russians still remembers the aid we provided during the last war. I cannot tell you the number of times I have encountered older Russians who have talked to me about the wonderful thing called "spam" or about the "Villies" they had seen. They remember.
What I am suggesting is that an open hand is always better than a mailed fist. Even if they turn us down in those areas, we will show that we tried.
Permit me to close with a personal note. My daughter is also a U.S. army officer. In two weeks, I will attend my son's graduation from a U.S. naval academy in Annapolis. Like every father, I am concerned about the world they will inherit. While I cannot predict the future, I would like to see one in which the confrontations of the past are replaced by a co-operative relationship, in which Russian, Canadian, American and other soldiers become a part of the solution rather than a part of the problem.
The Chairman: I want to refer to the title of the book I mentioned earlier. "NATO at Fifty: Perspectives on the Future of the Atlantic Alliance."
As I see the situation, the Cold War went a long way toward setting aside the isolationism that the United States of America displayed during the earlier part of World War I and World War II. The Cold War confronted the United States with the communist enemy, and to fight the communist enemy was a popular thing in the United States, and in Canada, too. The Cold War is over.
In that situation, is there a future for NATO? It would appear that what NATO has done under its new strategic concept is to bring forward the idea of peacekeeping. What we are seeing in Yugoslavia, Kosovo, as in other earlier instances, is an attempt to put content into that term "peacekeeping."
What happens if the Yugoslavia-Kosovo example -- which is attracting great attention in North America -- goes bad? We have had some instances to suggest that all is not going well. If it goes bad, is there a possibility that public opinion -- and I include Canada, but I am particularly interested in your views of the United States -- in North America will say, "Peacekeeping by NATO just does not work. We have examples to show that peacekeeping in general does not work very well, even by the United Nations. Think of Somalia. Think of our hesitation to enter into some terrible situations in Africa. So let us forget peacekeeping and NATO."
Mr. Herspring: In the United States, we have had an interesting phenomenon. When I was working in the State Department under Jimmy Carter, we set up the Office of Human Rights. A lot of us, myself, Henry Kissinger, argued that this was not what diplomacy was all about. We are on the ash heap of history. In the old days, when I grew up, we crawled under our desks in the sixth grade to shield ourselves from a nuclear attack. We grew up on anti-Communism. It was the right wing in the U.S. that pushed anti-Communism, or at least right of centre.
As that has gone away, there has been a rise in the area of human rights. The great irony now is that the missionary complex of the United States is now focused on human rights. It is the left that is pushing human rights, not the right. The right has been backing off. I could point to people in Kansas who are isolationist. People comment that the liberals always want a small military but use it everywhere, and the conservatives always want a great big military and never use it.
The thing that is pushing us now is the issue of human rights. We do not know what human rights are; we do not know what peacekeeping is; we do not know what peacemaking is. Peacekeeping is hard enough. Peacemaking is more difficult. That is what we are trying to do in Kosovo.
It boggles my mind when I sit down to read some of the great writers who have written about war -- there are many of them. And then I ask myself: Who has written about peacekeeping? The answer is "nobody." Peacekeeping, certainly from the American standpoint, is something we do from the seat of our pants, and hope it works. I have talked to too many of the people who have been involved in it. Armour officers, for instance, which my son-in-law is. When he was sent to Bosnia, what could he do with an M-1A tank in Bosnia? Nothing. They are not trained to do it. We are not trained in that area.
Kosovo, in my view, is a different situation. It was poorly handled, ineptly handled, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff went on record against moving into Kosovo in the way we did. They were overruled for political reasons.
You are raising the issue about whether NATO needs a new mission. The problem is that we have been doing what most governments do; -- that is, we always react to the latest crisis rather than trying to get two crises ahead of the situation and thinking through where we are going.
One of the reasons I suggested the need for a peacekeeping academy is for somebody to try to put some rationality on it. The Russians have set up a peacekeeping school. As far as I know, no one else has one. NATO has not tried to systematically sort this out, to ask what works and what does not.
The United States will always have a military that is primarily aimed at defence on the broadest fear, because it is a big country with a big military. It will always look at peacekeeping as a secondary occupation. That will cause us many problems.
What needs to happen now is for somebody to pick up the gauntlet and say, "We will become the leaders. We will make this thing work. We will rationalize and figure out how to work it." That leadership needs to come from NATO. I do not think that most members of NATO want Uncle Sam to tell them how to suck eggs. If they do not come up with their own answers, that is exactly what will happen.
The Chairman: Our ministers, particularly the Minister of Foreign Affairs, have talked a great deal in defence of the Yugoslavia-Kosovo exercise, about maintaining human security, the rights of the human being. This presentation evokes the following reaction: Are they not human beings in East Timor? Are they not human beings in Sudan? Do the Kurds not have human rights?
When we had officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs here last week, they seemed to be justifying the Yugoslavia- Kosovo exercises not in terms of human rights or human security -- although I am sure they would say that those are important concerns -- but rather in terms of security. How do you see the Yugoslavia-Kosovo example? Is it primarily because of the security of the membership of NATO that we are in there? Is it primarily because of human security and human rights?
Mr. Herspring: I follow the American system and, as such, I can comment on why I think the United States is in there. This is a difficult thing for me to say diplomatically. The President of the United States has had personal problems. When those kinds of personal problems surface, he does not focus on larger issues. One of the laws of a bureaucracy is that, if you want something to happen, the President must knock heads together. Otherwise the bureaucracy will go off in their various directions.
On January 19, 1999, there was a meeting in the White House. The President was worried about whether he would be impeached. Madeleine Albright was pushing for bombing Kosovo, that if we just went in and dropped a few bombs, Milosevic would take off the other way. We knew that that was not about to happen. The military said that it would not happen.
The United States stumbled into it. You could argue very justifiably, from a European standpoint, that what happens in Kosovo -- and we have all heard the stories about Sarajevo and World War I and World War II -- is important. It is critically important. If NATO cannot solve it, what can NATO do? Why even have NATO? In the American case, it is all jumbled up in American internal politics. There was no one at the helm when we thought of moving into this. I think it is jumbled up with Europe being a bit embarrassed because they were unable to handle the problem. They could not figure out how to deal with it. It is tied to the collapse of the Soviet Union and Russia. It is tied to the collapse of Yugoslavia and its very unique and different internal problems, the issue of ethnicity, which we do not have to the same degree here.
I cannot come down into one answer. It is because of a number of issues. The problem is that we stumbled into it rather than thinking our way into it.
Colin Powell came up with a great doctrine. Every military person I have talked to agrees with it. He said, "Do not send us in until you tell us where we are going, why we are going, and what we are supposed to do. Tell us how we will know that we have done what we have to do, so we can leave and move out." That is what happened in Vietnam. That is what is haunting the American military right now, because nobody is telling them what they are supposed to do. Nobody claims that using air power alone is a rational way to try to fight this kind of war, if you are going to fight it.
Senator Grafstein: Your comments have a certain resonance with us because some of your concerns have been shared by members of this committee in our previous studies. I want to confirm that I have met with Vladimir Zhirinovskiy and Gennadii Zyganov. I confirm what you have said. They are politicians and somewhat demagogic. They will play it for whatever it is worth, in terms of how they feel they can gain public support. They are not committed intellectually to any position. They are quite volatile. That is a huge danger.
The first danger that you raised here, the clear and present danger of, if not the largest, at least the second largest establishment in the world, and that is the Russian nuclear establishment. We have heard that there is a serious problem, primarily because of the lack of military payments made to those members of the military who are responsible for guarding the various nuclear missile bases and establishments. This increases the danger of theft and putting those weapons in more dangerous hands.
Can you confirm or assist us in this? It was my understanding -- and I heard this in Europe -- that when President Clinton made his last visit to President Yeltsin, about whom American people were quite critical, one of the side agreements that he reached with the Russian government was to support and provide remuneration, if you will, or maybe even some guidance, to securing nuclear installations, so at least they would be secure and the military would be guarding them properly.
Mr. Herspring: I am not part of the U.S. government anymore. I am in Kansas. I can tell you that there is no question that we have been paying, for some time, for scientists to stay in Russia, not to go work for other people. Russian nuclear weapons traditionally have been better guarded, more tightly held than American nuclear weapons. There are tighter controls on them traditionally.
I was at a conference in Washington last November. I talked to friends of mine, CIA people whom I have known for years, and they confirmed that they do not know of a single case where a warhead has been taken out of the country. We know the case of the Polish border guard whose Geiger counter goes ballistic when the Lada drives up. The border guard determines that the driver has uranium in his trunk. That kind of stuff has happened, but I do not know of a single case of a warhead being taken out of the country.
Almost all nuclear weapons are guarded by marines. If you want an experience, be on a navy ship when they go through a nuclear weapon's alert. I do not care how high you rank, the marine will deck you where you stand to run that exercise. Russians have used the KGB. Servicemen themselves have not had control over that kind of thing.
There has been a lot of concern about that, and a lot of it is because we are not certain what is occurring. All we know is that, so far, it has not collapsed. When I was here in 1991, I said that there would be flexibility in the system for the next four or five years. Here it is 1999, and they are still flexible and uncertain as to where they will go.
When I had the Polish Desk during the crisis in the State Department, one of the things I was always asked was when I thought the Polish economy would collapse. I have since found out that economies do not collapse. They just work their way down and get worse and worse.
I think this is the same sort of case. People are worried, people are concerned, but that is not my major concern. My major concern is that the systems themselves are deteriorating to such a degree that there is a danger of a major nuclear accident. The radars associated with their command-and-control system, for example, are not working. In the first place, the Soviet Union lost half of its radars in the break-up. Second, we know the story of the Norwegian weather missile. The Russians took it as it was coming to Moscow. They could not read it. They should be able to read it.
When we were on Russian ships in 1989, they were 10 years behind us in technology. They had first-generation computers; we were using third-generation computers. They were using electronic pencils. I knew they were in trouble when I asked the people at the command-and-control centre, "What do you do to take care of a ship's three threats, sub-surface, surface and air?" They replied, "We talk to each other." If you are talking to somebody, you are sunk. Computers talk to one another, which is how a determination is made that a missile is coming. They were that far behind back then.
They are now experiencing problems in terms of storing nuclear weapons. The components must be stored at certain temperatures. The Russians are now saying that these refrigerated and temperature-controlled buildings are no longer temperature-controlled. The Russians are not properly testing the system with respect to their MXs.
What I am more concerned about is an accidental misreading of a situation, not so much people stealing the weapons. Nevertheless, I think what Yeltsin and Clinton agreed to is prudent. That is not my major concern at the moment.
Senator Grafstein: We have had a quite a debate in the last few months in Parliament with respect to NATO's strategic posture for first strikes and de-alerting nuclear weapons. of fomenting a review of NATO strategy as a Trojan horse, if you will, not just to disarm or reduce nuclear stock piles, but also to remove the first-strike notion and go further by de-alerting missiles. The advocates of that position were Secretary MacNamara, who came to a joint committee of Parliament. He was abetted by General Butler, and Ambassador Graham, I believe.
Where do you stand on that issue, in terms of the paramount nuclear strategy and the arguments that this is something that we should get rid of? I only say that in light of the very strong case that you have made, that the Russians, if they are weak in terms of their regular forces, will intensify as a strategic idea the utilization of their nuclear forces.
Mr. Herspring: Right now, not to sound like an old retread bureaucrat, we have more important fish to fry. We must get out of Kosovo. Once we do that -- and what I applaud this committee for doing, as I understand it -- we must decide what NATO is. I do not want people talking about the family jewels, such as nuclear weapons, until we decide what we are doing. We do not want to open a Pandora's box, and have everyone moving in 18 different directions at once.
First of all, we must decide what we, as an alliance, want to be in a post-Cold War period. The problem is that, when you pull back the NATO first-strike idea, you are putting the United States in a much more pre-eminent position, because within NATO there is -- not control -- but a certain vehicle for influencing what the United States does vis-à-vis nuclear weapons. If you take out the NATO card, then it becomes the United States deciding when and where to use these nuclear weapons, and all you have left to play with are Britain and France, who do not really count in the larger equation.
Therefore, I would be a little afraid of it until I knew where NATO was going, simply because you would magnify the influence of the United States, which, in my opinion, would have a negative influence on relations.
Senator Forrestall: I share the opinion that the last remaining military devices that speak loudly in the possession of the Russians are their remaining nuclear components, primarily in that central system out under the ice. I am concerned about that. They have been there so long, without testing, without coming ashore, without examining their guidance and control systems. Were they to come out from under the ice, even to practice-shoot, something disastrous might take place. I would ask you to expand on that.
I put the question, because, in a sense, as they sit on these destabilizing munitions and as time goes by, they become more attached economically and commercially to the Western European Union. There is no doubt they must get that cycle of goods and money flowing again. It does not make that part of the world an attractive target, should they decide, out of fear, to use them. Where is the next target of opportunity? I do not think I need ask you where that is, but it very obviously gives us reason to be deeply concerned.
You have suggested in your paper that a pre-emptive strike is a possibility because that is the only way they have to say no or to speak at that table. They no longer have the great fleets they once had. They do not have the underwater capacity they had. They do not have the air capacity. We no longer see Russian aircraft, the Bear's aircraft, in the skies over northern Canada, which was once a regular phenomenon. We no longer see the submarines off the coast of Newfoundland or off the coast of Nova Scotia.
I would ask you to expand a little on those two areas, because your concern is real. It is certainly one that is shared here.
I would like to hear your views on joint peacekeeping, the academics of peacekeeping, how that might be set up, but there will not be an opportunity to discuss that today. Canada has made quite a pitch to do this, as you are very much aware, in recent years. The trouble is that every other country wants to spend the money in their country, and that is understandable as well.
However, with respect to the destabilizing situation and the nuclear weapons, could you just generally expand?
Mr. Herspring: There are some things we can do something about, and some things that we cannot. There is very little we can do about deterioration of nuclear weapons. There is very little we can do about the fact that the Russians are reliant on them, per se. What it is extremely important for us to do is to fight one school of thought that is prominent in the United States, and that is: "The worse the better. Let them fall into the mud and collapse. Who cares?"
I am arguing for the alternative viewpoint, which is that we do not want to let them fall into the mud. We want to pick them up, jointly, together, so they are not put in a position where they feel they must use those weapons. To the degree that they will work they will use them; there is not much we can do about that. As long as Chernomyrdin is conducting shuttle diplomacy, that is a plus.If the day comes that we have senior Russian military officers interacting with us, that is a plus. That tends to show them that it is not a crisis situation and that there is more to be gained by co-operating with us than there is by ignoring it and falling into this trap. Whether or not they would ever push the button, I can have no influence on that. What I can influence is the environment and the psyche that goes into whether they use or do not use that.
You asked about peacekeeping. I am not familiar enough with the intra-bureaucratic politics of NATO resource allocation. My simplistic lay reaction is that, if you are about to do it, you will need some turf. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that Luxembourg does not have room to do peacekeeping training. Canada is the country that has the wide-open spaces and mountains to climb. There is also the expertise in Canada. I do not know if the Danes have been to Cambodia. I do not know if the Norwegians have been to some of the places that the Canadians have been to. I was impressed in talking to people to learn about some of the phenomenal experiences Canadians have had. Somebody must take this seriously.
Every military in the current day has a two-sided function. Their first function is to protect their country and the vital interest of the country. On the other hand, according to Henry Kissinger a military force is nothing but a foreign policy vehicle. You want to be able to use that to maximize the interest of your country on an international scene.
I may be being presumptuous, but from a Canadian standpoint, you have an opportunity, for a minimum outlay of money, to have a maximum amount of international impact. It is that simple. At this point, nobody else is really doing it. Once somebody starts doing it, the Swedes or whoever set up something, the door is closed.
I hope I am answering the questions.
Senator Forrestall: Just keep Cornwallis in the back of your mind, and send troops.
Mr. Herspring: I have just finished a chapter in a book I am writing, and I have Cromwell in it. I do not know if that will help any.
Senator Stollery: Professor Herspring, you have brought an important aspect into this, that is to say, the Russian part of it. My memories are not really of hiding under the table so much, because I was born before World War II. My memories are of the period of 1945 to the Korean War, and what brought about NATO in the first place. I read historians writing about it and they receive their information second-hand. I remember very well the Trieste crisis, the Berlin airlift, the rise to the Suez Canal, the collapse of the pound, the withdrawal of Britain from India, the Stern Gang in Palestine.
What I recall from that tremendously important period in this century is the total confusion. Dean Acheson, in his great book Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department, refers to it. Nobody knew what they were doing. They were learning as the various crises took place. That will probably stay with me for the rest of my life, the absolute confusion. For example, Senator Vandenberg and the isolationists, Senator Taft, who opposed NATO in the 1940s. Taft was an opponent of NATO. It is particularly relevant because NATO was set up.
It is interesting, as you describe to us, the total reversal in the balance of power in Europe. The reason for nuclear deterrence was that the Russians had overwhelming land strength and could invade Western Europe. They would be impossible to stop. Therefore, great discussions took place about the nuclear tactical weapons, and all that kind of stuff.
That period has now ended. It is interesting because you describe the total reversal. It is now the Russians who do not have the capacity to dominate Western Europe, and NATO does. The Russians lost their capacity to dominate the Eurasian landmass. There is a danger now of the Russians -- and I am not trying to be silly, but one can see that the opposite has taken place. They have all of these nuclear weapons, and they do not have anything else. They do not have the Red Army anymore.
Mr. Herspring: Their army is so bad that, when they went to Chechnya, the shoes and the hats worn by Russian soldiers were paid for by a Russian bank.
Senator Stollery: Your whole argument here is that NATO should be working on its relationship with Russia, as I understand your brief. How important do you see the NATO-Russia Founding Act as the beginning of NATO's engagement with precisely the problems that you have raised in your paper?
Mr. Herspring: The Cold War was always a lot simpler than we thought it out to be. The world was pretty simple with the Cold War. We balanced them, they balanced us. We fought in the periphery, Angola, someplace like that.
To put what you said into my own thinking, it is like the Chinese philosopher who said, "May you be condemned to live in interesting times." We are living in both interesting and confusing times, and unstable times.
I have been asked to give a presentation in July on American security interests in the Far East. I was not a Far Eastern specialist, but the more I work on it, the more I realize that this is one big hotbed of instability out here. Nothing is the way it should be, the way it was 15 years ago.
As far as the NATO-Russia Founding Act -- and here some of my students say that my patron saint is Machiavelli -- the heck with the Founding Act. I will modify and change it, if I need to do that, in order to make it work. I am a diplomat. I am a problem-solver. What we need to do is to find a way to get Russia into NATO. If it makes sense, then pass an amendment; change it so that Russia can become part of NATO. Any institution, any organization that does not adapt and modify itself basically dies.
Senator Stollery: You have raised an awful lot of questions in your 12-page brief. In particular, I refer to page 10, where you say, "I see no reason why we cannot expand the kind of co-operative relationship we have already achieved in Bosnia between our countries and the Russians." I am not saying this in a critical way. I am curious to what extent the NATO-Russia Founding Act answers some of the questions that you have raised in your brief.
Mr. Herspring: I do not know. I do not know the NATO-Russia-Founding Act. A diplomat is a specialist in the art of obfuscation. If I must obfuscate to bring the Russians into it -- because Russian troops are in Bosnia right now, they are serving as part of the force -- if we what we have to do is modify the NATO-Russia Founding Act, fine. Sometimes it is better to do things, not move ahead and make changes to formal documents, which may lead to all kinds of ramifications and spinoffs. They are there. It is working. I would just leave it. Let it go ahead and work.
Once we figure out what NATO will be, in the end, sans Kosovo, Russia has the option of co-operating with NATO, which is what the Poles, the Czechs, the Hungarians did, and what other East Europeans are doing. Let us go ahead and see if that works. Once we figure it out, we will go back and worry about the document later. That is my personal bias.
Senator Meighen: I was particularly taken by your obviously well-founded and familiar analysis of the situation in Russia. On a lighter note, when you were describing this situation of the Russian military, talking about late pay, poor equipment, and what not, it made me think of the Canadian reserves, if not the permanent force we have here.
What I wanted to explore with you was why you think we failed to involve the Russians more than we did in this last go-round. I would ask you to tie that in with what importance you place on the interaction between NATO and the United Nations, and the fact that, this time, unlike the Gulf War, if I am not mistaken, Canada and some other NATO countries were instrumental in persuading President Bush that it was advisable to have some sort of blessing from the United Nations before taking the ultimate step of armed intervention. We did not do it this time. What sort of impact and what sort of importance does that have vis-à-vis Russia, or more generally?
Mr. Herspring: I have outlined why Russia is where it is in terms of this whole incident. I do not know vis-à-vis the Russians if we could have done much more or anything different in the Kosovo incident, simply because I look upon this primarily as a function of internal American politics. I do not think, in terms of the Russians, there was much we could have done. As far as going to the UN, that was a dead-on-arrival type of situation, because the Russians and Chinese would have vetoed it.
If you make the decision that you want to use air power against Kosovo, then the worse thing in the world is to take it to the UN because it will be vetoed. If you take it to the UN, it is like international law, you use it when it maximizes your self-interest. You do not use it when it does not. I learned that the hard way, working for Les Aspen. I suggested doing something one time for a particular reason, and Mr. Aspen said to me, "What is right is in the American interest; it is best for you to learn that right now." I learned it the hard way from a major architect of American foreign policy, certainly American security policy.
Primarily because of Strobe Talbot, who has been the primary architect of our Russian policy, we have managed to pull back a lot. If I were an advisor -- and I am not -- and I was asked about going to the UN, in this circumstance, given what I think is our goal, it would be silly to go to the UN. We will not get here from there if we go through the UN.
The case of the Persian Gulf was a different situation. It was not a country invading itself, it was a country invading another country. From the standpoint of most member nations of the UN, that was clearly an obviously unacceptable type of behaviour.
Now you have raised a much more fundamental question about national sovereignty. If a country decides to use its own internal security forces, however beastly and hideous their actions may be, is it anyone else's business?
That is something the Chinese do not want to have to put up with, because it raises Tibet and all kinds of internal problems in China. The Russians do not want to do it, for many reasons.
A lot of other countries in the UN are very uncomfortable with this idea that we are telling Serbia that they cannot use their own forces in their own country -- admitting the rapes and the tortures. I teach courses on Eastern Europe, and I am rather intimately familiar with some of the things that have been done. I focus on a lot of those. I am not justifying anything the Serbs have done. However, in the world community, a lot of countries become very uncomfortable when you tell them that they cannot normalize their internal situation by getting rid of a minority, by beating up on a minority, whatever the case may be.
Senator Meighen: Has the attitude in the United States towards the payment of so-called peacekeeping dues changed at all, or is it evolving?
Mr. Herspring: You mean UN dues?
Senator Meighen: They are made up, in a significant part, by peacekeeping expenses, I believe.
Mr. Herspring: I can only tell you what is coming from the heartland of America, where we have people who refuse to serve in the American military if they have to wear the blue patch. They will be court-martialled before they will do it.
The American psyche is hung up on the idea of non-Americans commanding American forces. There is not a problem in one area -- and this is one reason why you come back to this issue. Nobody has a problem in NATO. If a Canadian colonel commands American troops, Americans do not become upset. When you take it outside of that, because of the different calibre of military, the quality of the officers you are dealing with, you cannot be sure what they are doing, you cannot be sure about the orders they will give, and people become very uptight.
In terms of American involvement in peacekeeping, it is much easier to do it in a NATO context, partially for that reason. Most Americans do not object to putting money into NATO. A lot of Americans object to NATO for problems of birth control, moral-social issues. Those issues upset them. They are also upset because they think the NATO organization is bloated, that a lot of money is sliding down the slippery slope into the sewer. They object to that. They object to many things that NATO wants to do. There is that segment that sees it as a one-world government, to which there is no argument because it is an irrational argument.
The Chairman: Am I correct in understanding that it is your position that what was going on in Yugoslavia, however horrendous, was properly the concern of the Yugoslavian authorities and of the Yugoslavian people? If so, what are the implications of that for peacekeeping?
If, for example, the Government of Turkey decided that what the Kurds were doing was utterly reprehensible and decided to engage in ethnic cleansing -- perhaps some people would call it genocide -- would NATO have any reason to attempt to intervene militarily?
Mr. Herspring: You have raised the kind of question that I do not have an answer for, but we need to start taking the time to think about it. The United States has 173,000 marines. You cannot send them to East Timor, to Kurdistan. In short time, you run out of marines.
What we must start doing that we have not done is to try to decide which battles we should be fighting. We cannot spend our life as world policemen, correcting every wrong. I am not in favour of Chinese policies toward women, not in support of Jakarta's treatment of minorities. We must decide when the situation warrants it, when it is in our interest to become involved -- and maybe in the case of the Kurds, it would not be.
The Chairman: Were you saying, in effect, that we should not have sent military forces, in any form, to Yugoslavia, a sovereign state?
Mr. Herspring: No. First of all, there are a lot of people in the UN who hold to that principle. That is what I was originally trying to say.
What I am saying is that if we have decided, as an alliance, to send troops in, then we must be up front that this one is different from another one, that it is not the same as Rwanda or Somalia, or whatever. It is different for "this" reason. I would prefer to see it defended, not just on a human rights basis, but have it defended on the basis of, if it is not solved here, we will have the Turks and Greeks involved, we will have Macedonia collapsing, Bulgaria will get in the middle of it. NATO will end up ripping itself apart. I am more comfortable with that than I am on the human rights basis, simply because I do not have an answer as to why the life of an Albanian is worth more than the life of somebody from Rwanda. However, the fact is that we cannot fight them all. We must get away from the "feel good" missionary complex.
There was a famous bumper sticker at the time of the Gulf War in Washington. I would love to have a copy of it. You all remember George Bush and his feeling about certain vegetables. The bumper sticker read, "If broccoli were Kuwait's main export, would we be in the Gulf?" The fact is oil is more important. People do not like to say that oil is more important than the life of a person in Brazil, Jakarta, wherever.
Senator Andreychuk: You started out by saying that the Americans had made up their minds and that it was more of a political decision to use an air strike and no other means.
Mr. Herspring: Yes.
Senator Andreychuk: Consequently, however they went about it, the Americans included NATO countries, and NATO countries now are in this altercation?
Mr. Herspring: Yes.
Senator Andreychuk: The justification has been because of our altered mandate from 1991. Do you think with this expanded NATO definition that we made it easier for the Americans to control NATO than previously?
Mr. Herspring: No. What do you do with a 200-pound gorilla? The answer is "Whatever it wants to do." There is that problem with the United States, however you want to deal with it, because there are now no other superpowers, simply the United States. If we had not gone into Kosovo, there would have been tremendous problems in Europe on the part of Germans, on the part of others who would say that we cannot have our front doorstep coming apart at the seams. That was the worry about Bosnia. Get inside Bosnia, because then we control the situation in Kosovo.
What I am critical of is those in the American administration who acted for their own self-interest or out of stupidity. For example, Al Gore, who argued that we should not, under any circumstances, have ground troops, because "not only do I have to run against Clinton's sexual legacies, I will have to run against body bags coming back from Kosovo." That was not the basis upon which that decision should have been made.
I feel very strongly that the civilians should control the military. I also feel that, when a military action is contemplated, one is foolish not to listen to the advice of the military advisors. The vote, as I am told, went like this. The CNO said, "No, do not go and use only air." The Chief of Staff of the Army said, "No, do not go." The marine commandant said, "No." General Shelton said, "No." Only the Air Force Chief of Staff said that it was a great idea. Shelton was leaned on, and even with him it was a three-two vote. It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that, if it is a three-two vote, and your top military men are saying, "You cannot get from here to there," you ought to listen to them. That is what I am objecting to. If you make the decision to go, then listen to them and say, "How are you going to do it?"
Senator Andreychuk: The way we are structuring NATO at this time, all of that took place with the Americans. Now we move and shift to decide to do it in NATO. Where were the fine military minds or the fine political minds to say exactly what you have said, to prevent the kind of stupidity or the kind of self-interest that you pointed out?
Mr. Herspring: I do not know, because I was not in NATO. I was not there. I was not privy to the inside policy. Some of it is power relationships. A lot of it will be done, whether or not you or I like it. It simply is a power relationship. I do not think the United States was the Lone Ranger on this one. The United States may have pushed very hard for a certain action. However, as I understand it, other members of NATO also do not want ground troops to be sent in. A lot of other countries were uncomfortable. but from the American standpoint, I object to that for the reasons I have given.
Senator Andreychuk: Going back to your paper, you are simply saying that there are political problems in Russia, as well economic problems, and you have characterized those rather grimly. Despite all of that, you are saying that NATO needs to continue to work out its relationship with Russia, that that is the key to its success?
Mr. Herspring: Absolutely. I would rather over-embrace than under-embrace. I have spent my life dealing with Russians. I can tell you one horror story after another of what it can be like trying to deal with the Russians. I know the problems and pitfalls.
Having said that, we have too much at stake, in terms of your grandkids and my grandkids, in terms of the future of both of our countries. There comes a time in life where you get tired of being insulted by somebody, but you say, "I will not let you get away with that but there are bigger fish to fry." In this case, that is what is happening. As much as I am critical of the American administration, I am strongly supportive of the administration for the way they have done it; for NATO, not just the Americans. I think Tony Blair deserves credit, as well as Schroeder. The French as well has done a magnificent job of bringing the Russians into this. If anything good comes out of Kosovo, anything, it has been bringing the Russians back into Europe from where they were before.
Senator Andreychuk: I think you answered a question that you are less preoccupied with the principles in NATO's charter than you are with the fact that you think it must be flexible and adaptable; is that correct?
Mr. Herspring: That is correct. My daughter is a lawyer, and she would say that that is why I am not a lawyer. I have a problem to solve, within the ethical boundaries that I try to operate within, I am always looking for ways to manipulate the system to get the problem solved, if that is what is really important.
Senator Andreychuk: Perhaps that is why we got into our present problems with NATO. We knew clearly what NATO was. East-west collapses. A number of our constituencies were saying that we do not need a military defence alliance, in Europe particularly, so what we did is fudge.
Mr. Herspring: You are ore diplomatic than I am, but that is exactly what we did.
Senator Andreychuk: We decided to have a peacekeeping mission. That is where that lack of clarity came from. Now some people are arguing that we should go back and revisit the issue and re-establish the true principles for NATO.
Mr. Herspring: I have no problem with that, but not now. Too much is unstable, too much is up in the air right now, in terms of what is occurring with Kosovo, what is occurring with the Russians. I do not have problems with doing that.
What you have raised is a very critical and very important question. Should NATO be allowed to die on the vine because the reasons that it was originally set up do not make sense anymore? My response to that is no, for the simple reason that there is no other vehicle within which we can carry out military operations with such smoothness and inner connectivity. Carrying on military operations is very complex. The fact that American soldiers do not have problems in Macedonia working for a British general, and the fact that the Germans do not have problems working alongside Czechs, whatever, is very important. It helps teach co-operation. It teaches people to go beyond nationalism, which is what we are starting to do in some cases. We are building foundations, not houses.
I would argue that throwing out the NATO baby with the bathwater would have been worse than setting up a new one. The minute you set up a new one, you open up a Pandora's box. Somebody's ego will come out on one side, another's ego on another side. You will spend six months trying to negotiate the most simple thing, which is what we already have. What we do not have is a clearly defined new mission, because we are still trying to figure out what it is.
Senator Stollery: I just wish to point out that, in Paris, on 27 May 1997, the NATO-Russia Founding Act was signed by the Secretary General and the heads of state of governments of the North Atlantic Alliance and the President of the Russian Federation. I am not talking about the Charter. I am talking about what was signed on May 27, 1997, and whether it has been effective or not.
Senator Andreychuk: Was it your opinion that we should have expanded into countries like the Czech Republic, Poland?
Mr. Herspring: I have done a careful study of the Czech, Polish and Hungarian militaries, none of which has paid their own way. The Czech military is an absolute disaster. The Hungarians are no better. The Polish have been trying. I can give you the facts and figures.
I did not think that it was fair to the American, Canadian or German taxpayer to bring these countries into NATO and expect us to pay to modernize their militaries. In my opinion, they should have to modernize their militaries first. I lost, and I can tell you why I lost. There were two factors: the Germans, and Madeleine Albright. Madeleine Albright is Czech. Come hell or high water, the Czech Republic was going to get into NATO. The Hungarians at least have given us their airfields. The Poles have sent troops. The Czechs are now complaining, every time we do bombing in Kosovo, that we should not be bombing Kosovo. To answer your question, it was a political decision over which we had no control.
To this day, I do not think that, the Czech, particularly, and the Hungarian military are doing their fair share in terms of modernizing and operability. The Polish military has put a tremendous amount of money into creating operability, in an economy that does not have the money to pay for it. However, they are doing their best. The Czechs and the Hungarians are doing very little, 1.2 per cent of GNP, something like that.
The Chairman: What you are advocating, and I do not mean to suggest that it is wrong, is a highly pragmatic approach, not the legalistic approach that some diplomats and some lawyers might adopt, by reason of their training.
Earlier you told us that the nature of U.S. participation in the present NATO operation in Kosovo was, largely, a function of U.S. domestic politics.
Mr. Herspring: Certainly the American involvement, in the way it was carried out, is a reflection of American domestic politics.
The Chairman: Let me state a position, and then I will ask you to comment on it. We have NATO, and it is valuable to retain those structures, fine. The United States is the overwhelming leader in that organization. Inevitably, given the nature of the U.S. Constitution, it is more difficult for the U.S.A. to give the leadership to the alliance than it might be for some other countries. Then, of course, you have U.S. domestic politics.
Given the facts, we must be pragmatic. We want to retain NATO, regardless of what might be regarded as certain disabilities or disfunctions within NATO. We better learn to recognize those disabilities and learn to live with them. Is that your overall view? Is that a reasonably accurate statement?
Mr. Herspring: I would modify it to say that, if you do not have NATO, from your standpoint, the Americans will be out on their own. NATO does not give you the ability to control the Americans, but it gives you the ability to heavily influence the direction in which they are heading. The degree to which members of the Canadian government want to moderate American action in A, B or C, then the fact that you are within NATO -- for example, let's assume that the Americans wanted to send the marines in and to do much more than what has happened. The fact that they can or cannot receive NATO approval acts as a hindrance on their freedom of action.
Last night, I listened to someone on Canadian television who was very critical of the Americans. I feel like saying that, if that is your position, then you better not want to get rid of NATO, because then you have made a 300-pound gorilla into a 3,000-pound gorilla who will not pay any attention to you at all. NATO has a restraining influence on the United States. NATO is very important for small countries, absolutely critical. For big countries, it is necessary.
Senator Mahovlich: Gwynne Dyer is a Canadian-born writer based in London. He is one of the world's foremost authorities on war history. He says you cannot get World War III out of this Kosovo incident. Do you agree with him? Could the Kosovo situation be the beginning of WW3?
Mr. Herspring: Semantics. You are asking me whether Kosovo can lead to a conflict involving 20 or more nations.
Senator Mahovlich: A nuclear war?
Mr. Herspring: Not at this point, I do not think.
Senator Mahovlich: This statement can be proven wrong.
Mr. Herspring: It can be questioned. I do not know if it can be proven wrong, because who knows what it will be like in two months. Suppose Kosovo spreads over into Northern Greece and that moves into Macedonia.
Senator Mahovlich: If Russia would have said to Milosevic, "We do not agree on you moving into Kosovo, or stop your rape and murder and everything else," do you think that Milosevic would have gone into there?
Mr. Herspring: Yes.
Senator Mahovlich: Without the consent of Russia?
Mr. Herspring: The person most embarrassed by this whole thing has been Chernomyrdin. Let me tell you why. The idea of ethnic cleansing is not something the Serbs dreamt up. When I teach this segment to my students, I pull out something written by Milovan Djilas, the famous dissident Yugoslav writer.
He tells about the story, in approximately 1923, of the Hungarians occupying part of Serbia. The Hungarian Army comes into a village, rounds up the men, sets them up on one side, and takes all the women into the barn and is in the process of raping them, when a Hungarian sergeant comes out and says, "Hey, open the door so they can see how we improve their stock."
This has been happening for a long time. Between the wars, 600,000 Serbs died because of the Croatian movement. I do not think the Russians are not aiding and abetting. This is not in the Russian's interest. They do not want it.
Senator Mahovlich: The Russians and the Serbs fought together in two world wars.
Mr. Herspring: One of the arguments that is made is that this is ethnic brotherhood. There are religious ties here. They use the same alphabet. The Russians helped to liberate the Serbs. The Russians are not stupid. They have been put into a situation that they do not like. When Chernomyrdin went to Belgrade, he laid the law down to Milosevic, as others have. Milosevic basically said, "We will do this, like it or not." The only way that people in that part of the world feel they can take care of 1,000 years of this kind of stuff is simply to get rid of them.
It would be analogous to Canada deciding that the only way to have solved the problem in Quebec was to send all French people back to France. It may be horrendous, it may have been one of the greatest travesties of justice of all human kind. It would have solved the problem.
In the Balkan sense, that is how you solve a problem. The Balkans think that raping Muslim women makes lots of sense. Once defiled, the family is destroyed. It is a very simple way of solving the problems. That is the way you make the whole society dysfunctional. In this part of the world, that has been the accepted way of handling these kinds of problems. I do not think that this is something that Russia encouraged. I think, in fact, that the Russians said "stop."
Senator Mahovlich: I do not think they encouraged them, but when the time came to say no, the door was open.
Mr. Herspring: Diplomats always talk on two different levels, privately and publicly.
Senator Mahovlich: We are not looking at it in the way it might really have happened, because Gwynne Dyer blames Moscow and China.
Mr. Herspring: There are different levels of support.
Senator Mahovlich: They were left out.
Mr. Herspring: As far as I know, they have not been providing weapons. In the first place, they cannot get them there. The Romanians will not give them over-flight, the Hungarians will not let them send anything through.
The Russians, on occasion, have been providing verbal support. The Chinese support is much more principled. They are fighting for the principle. If they allow the Kosovo argument, they allow the Tibetan argument, so they will fight you on that.
Senator Mahovlich: Do you think that NATO can solve this problem? Do you think that the United Nations can solve this problem?
Mr. Herspring: I do not think the United Nations has any chance of solving this problem.
Senator Mahovlich: Somebody must come in, from outside the perimeter.
Mr. Herspring: One of the most influential political scientists that I ever read said that there are no solutions or answers to political questions. A solution to a political question begets another problem. The fact is, there are no solutions. One of the problems we have is that we think that, because we can design a tank to do certain things, engineering-wise, we can design the same thing in a political sphere. We cannot. The minute we try to solve the problem -- human beings are too complex.
My son-in-law's reaction is that we will have eternal peace in Bosnia as long as our troops are there.
Senator Bolduc: You did not talk about the relationship between the Russians and the Chinese. It is partly outside of our mandate, but because you have been in Russia for a long time, I imagine you have seen that relationship change. I remember when there was nearly a state of war between both of them. What is the state of that relationship?
Mr. Herspring: The Russian military sees China primarily as a place to sell weapons. They have now demarcated their border, which is a positive development because they fought for years over it. When it comes to Chinese, Russians are racist. They have been for years, and they will continue to be.
There are Russians sat telling me, "You Americans immortalize Chinese; that whatever the Chinese say, it must have some great philosophical content." They will never be close, from my perspective; on the other hand, however, they will have a co-operative relationship. From the Russian standpoint now, whatever you can sell the Chinese that brings in currency. If they can sell them MiG-29s and MiG-31s, that is fine. It brings hard currency into Russia.
Senator Milne: Dr. Herspring, I am very interested in what you are saying, particularly that peacekeeping is hard enough and peacemaking is even harder. This is something that I agree with very much. Your suggestion about setting up some kind of academy for peacekeeping here in Canada is a very interesting one.
I was at the Council of Europe last week. Canada is an observer there. The point that we were making as Canadians, the only non-European members of NATO who were there, was basically to get the Russians involved, to get them in there and get them talking. However, since the Council of Europe is 50 years old and was set up primarily to champion the cause of human rights, when you say you do not know what human rights are, that concerns me, because it seems to me that NATO, by moving into Kosovo, has, in effect, gone in there as a champion of human rights. So NATO, at any rate, is perhaps doing, through the back door, what it has not addressed directly. I wonder if you can say why you think we do not know what human rights are.
Mr. Herspring: We do not know what human rights are on a universal basis. The Chinese society tends to be very collectivistic, we tend to be very individualistic. Does that mean everybody in a collectivistic society has the same rights as everybody in the individualistic society? In Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed to drive. Do women have a universal right to drive? There are hundreds of other examples.
The EC is playing one of the most important roles right now, which nobody is noticing. The biggest problem in Eastern Europe right now, more serious potentially than Kosovo, is what to do with the Romani, the Roma people. The Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary want to become part of the EC, but an article -- I am not sure which one -- stipulates that certain human rights must be adhered to and guaranteed.
Every one of these countries despises the gypsies. They do not want any part of them, particularly Romania and Hungary. Yet these countries are being told, to gain membership to the EC, they must work out a way to deal with the Romani. That is different than going to other countries around the world and telling them to practice certain human rights. By doing that, you trample on other people's religious and cultural values.
We can agree because our societies are so much similar. I doubt seriously that, if I were to argue women's rights or ethnic rights in Canada, I would get a much different reaction than I would in the United States. However, I would certainly receive a different response if I were to argue ethnic rights in Zaire.
The Americans have to think carefully about sending marines to different countries around the world. Our ships used to go out for three months at a time, and then be back for three months. They are now out eight, nine, twelve months at a crack. Families are being ripped apart.
Most politicians use the wonderful cop-out, which is, "We are not going to make that hard decision. We will just send them." People are killed. You use a tremendous amount of tax dollars, and you do not end up with a coherent policy. We need to think these issues through very carefully.
Senator Milne: Yet NATO is in Kosovo right now primarily because of human rights.
The Chairman: Senator, we discussed this matter right at the beginning of the meeting, and it was concluded that this was probably wrong.
Senator Milne: I do not recall it at the beginning of this meeting, and I was here. I recall Dr. Herspring saying that he did not know what human rights were. I was asking him to expand on that.
The Chairman: I thought that both at the last meeting and at the beginning of this meeting I had asked questions that established that there was another consideration that operated in Yugoslavia-Kosovo, and that was NATO security, as understood by NATO. I was worried by the universality of the commitment suggested by Mr. Axworthy when he talks about our concern being human security. That is a globalized undertaking.
Senator Milne: Yet at the Council of Europe last week, which is a human rights organization, I was astounded frankly, quite surprised, to find the unanimity of support amongst the 41 countries of the Council of Europe for the NATO actions there. It was almost unanimous, except for Russia and some of the countries in that sphere.
Mr. Herspring: You have hit on an important point. I do not want to belittle it in anyway at all. The American administration has been all over the map. Human rights is one of the reasons why we are there. In the days of CNN, anybody who can sit and watch CNN and not feel an incredible sense of outrage at the fact that about 30 per cent of the men are not back, the fact that the women are raped and tortured, and the fact that people are paying $1,000 to the Serbian militia to get out of the country. No one can say that is okay.
I spent a lot of time between 1933 and 1945 working in Germany, and they said "fine" in that part of the world. It is hideous. In terms of evoking a policy and committing troops, we need more than outrage. We need to ask ourselves: Is this really in our interest? We cannot take care of all the human right abuses in the world. There are too many of them, unfortunately.
Senator Di Nino: I am impressed with your clear, forthright responses.
Mr. Herspring: My students tell me that they never know where I stand on issues.
Senator Di Nino: I am tempted to join in the debate that just took place, but I will not.
Do we need a NATO or not? You articulated your position in the affirmative. However, NATO, in the last number of months, has taken on a different role, at least to my mind. What impact has this had on the future of the United Nations?
Mr. Herspring: That is a very hard question to answer, and I wish I could be articulate and brilliant in answering it. I am not certain I can.
The future of the UN is on hold until we figure out what will happen with NATO. That is a cop-out, but it is a real answer. Until we can figure out where NATO is headed, at least in our countries, for most of the policy-makers, NATO is more important than the UN.
Now, having said that, once NATO gets past Kosovo -- and let us hope that that is not eternal, that we have some sort of peace force, in whatever form it may take, in there -- then we must solve the NATO question before we can solve the UN question. As you go up the chain of less and less sovereignty, which is what you are talking about, in terms of NATO you give up less sovereignty, certainly in the public mind, than you would in the UN. I would argue that UN in front of NATO is putting the cart in front of the horse. We must solve the issue of NATO and what it is before we can move on to the next level.
Senator Di Nino: I gather you would agree with the statement that NATO would operate in a very clearly defined geographic area?
Mr. Herspring: We thought that, and that is what the Germans did, area of operations. Now the Germans are now operating out of NATO guideline areas. We were not set up to go into Kosovo and Bosnia. We are now there. The Germans had to have a major vote on the issue, and it was in question as to which way they would go. The Germans are now there, because this is an out-of-area operation. Whether that means out of Europe, that is another question. I am not certain that NATO is equipped or should be equipped to operate out of Europe or, I presume, North America.
For example, if there were a problem in Lebanon, should NATO be involved? I would have problems with the principles. NATO was never set up to go into Lebanon. Someone would have to make the argument to me as to why it was of absolute critical importance, a life-or-death survival issue, and then maybe I would be willing to listen.
This raises the issue that was raised earlier about the Kurds. Turkey is a NATO member, but we are out of Europe now. It is a Muslim country, which raises all kinds of other issues.
Senator Di Nino: The future of NATO, I heard you say, is really more important than the future of the world, if we look at it from a purely selfish geographical, local standpoint. Is that what you said a moment ago?
Mr. Herspring: Maybe that is the implication, but what I was trying to say is that you cannot come to the future of the world till you discover the future of NATO. That is one of the steps on the way to worrying about the future of the world. We, like it or not, are the strongest military power in the world, within the NATO context. I do not think you can work on the issue of "What is the future of Latin America?", which is a side show, with all due respect to our Latin American friends, compared to the future of NATO. NATO is where the action is right now.
There was a famous comment that I heard in Eastern Europe many times about the Germans. They would say, "The Germans are back again, this time with D-marks." The Germans are basically taking over Eastern Europe, but they are not using guns anymore. They are using D-marks and getting away with it because they are buying the place.
We must realize that the economic, military, and political power of the world right now is in Europe, certainly Western Europe, NATO. That is why this must come first. That does not mean that I do not think that the morality of what is happening in Guinea-Bissau, in Paraguay, in Sri Lanka is not important. Of course it is. In terms of manipulating, in terms of solving problems and getting things done, this one must be done first, then we can worry about the other ones.
It may be that we decide to take NATO out of area. I am not saying that we should, but we may decide that. We cannot decide that until we know what NATO is. We cannot decide that until we get out of Kosovo, and we may never get out of Kosovo if my son-in-law is right.
The Chairman: Has he given you some time estimate in terms of centuries?
Mr. Herspring: All he said was he thought he would be retired when they come out of Bosnia.
Senator De Bané: You have given many reasons for your opposition to that intervention in Kosovo. Some of them I would not discuss, because they are self-evident; for instance, that they have not taken the opinion of military people and Vice-President Gore had his own priorities. Put that aside for a moment.
The bottom line of what you have said is that we should remain idle when someone, namely, Milosevic, is fuelling his fourth war in 10 years in this country. You are saying that your bottom line is that we should still do nothing.
Mr. Herspring: No, sir, that is not my bottom line. If that is what is coming through. then I am not doing a very good job of articulating. What I am saying is that we must pick and choose. It is not the holocaust. The Germans were much more systematic when they decided to do something. However, it is a moral equivalency working its way up to that level. I have no problem with us saying that this one is important, and that it is important to us for "this" reason and therefore we decide we will commit forces as opposed to the universal principle.
Senator De Bané: Here is a guy who is fuelling the fourth war in 10 years time, after 300,000 deaths, and you say that that is not yet of a magnitude that should bring us to have a proactive stance.
Mr. Herspring: I am not saying that. I do not like us stumbling around in the dark and ending up sending troops in. In the United States, the public did not even know where Kosovo was. We were into Kosovo before we figured out why we were going there.
Senator De Bané: I do not want to enter into the details; I agree with your analysis there. The part that I have difficulty with is what you are saying is the bottom line, that it is better to do nothing than to become involved, because if we become involved in that one, what about the thousands of other violations of human rights elsewhere in the world.
Mr. Herspring: I am trying to say that we must be selective. I work in a university, which is a bureaucracy. All of us who work in a bureaucracy must decide which fights are worth fighting.
Senator De Bané: Do you not think that if, as Ms Albright and President Clinton said, we remain idle and do nothing, in the face of what is going on in the middle of Europe, history will record that we have done nothing; that after four wars by the same guy, who has fuelled hatred in this country, we would have lost all credibility?
Mr. Herspring: Senator, I understand what you are saying. I am less concerned about the moral legitimation we will have lost and more concerned about the fact that, if NATO allows this kind of thing to go on in its own backyard, then NATO as an alliance will cease to exist and have any kind of significance. That bothers me more. For that reason, I would have gone along, I have no problem supporting what we are doing in Kosovo. However, do not take the ground option off the table. That just gets people killed.
I approach it, not from the moral standpoint that I am hearing, but from the fact that if NATO will exist, if it will have any kind of a meaning, then it cannot allow this to go on in its own backyard. That is different than, Rwanda because that is not NATO's backyard.
Senator De Bané: So finally you would have concurred with the decision to intervene and to say to Milosevic, "Enough is enough"?
Mr. Herspring: Yes. If I gave the impression that I would not have agreed, I did not mean that at all. It was handled in a very amateurish way. I do not know if it was political stupidity or political self-interest, but it was handled in a very poor fashion.
Senator De Bané: Frankly for me, despite all that you have said about the interoperability of NATO, what we have realized is that Ms Albright was right when she said that the U.S. is the indispensable nation. Sure, Canada and the U.K. and Germany and France are involved, but frankly there is only power.
Mr. Herspring: That is because the United States has those big-ticket items.
Senator De Bané: We realized, through that small war against one small country, that there is one indispensable nation, and I am not sure that that is a healthy situation.
Mr. Herspring: I understand.
Senator Stollery: My question concerns the declaration of war by a President of the United States. Congress passed the War Powers Act in 1973. I had always thought that the President had the power to declare a war but that it was always challenged by the Congress. I thought there was a question about the constitutionality of the War Powers Act After all, the act was passed in 1973, and the U.S. Constitution certainly predates 1973. Would you clarify that for me, please?
Mr. Herspring: I am not a constitutional scholar. There has always been and will continue to be a battle between the executive branch and Congress. The War Powers Act was enacted following the Vietnam War. The executive wants maximum flexibility to deploy force when it feels necessary; it does not want to be held captive by the legislative branch.
The causal factor has long since gone away. Generally, it is brought up by those who do not like what the administration is doing. It will be given a narrow interpretation or a broad interpretation, depending on who is arguing what.
Senator Stollery: The implication, Mr. Chairman, is that before the War Powers Act the President could declare war. I will leave it at that.
Mr. Herspring: The Congress declares war. Period. The President goes to Congress and asks for a declaration of war.
The problem is that politically, once the President has done that, he is locked in. The problem in a situation like Korea is that you did not want victory, because it probably would have involved using nuclear weapons. Oftentimes, when military conflicts are involved, something less than total victory is the best way to work your way out of a situation.
If we were to declare war on Serbia, I would postulate that Slobodan Milosevic must be dead and gone in the end. We know now that what kept the Germans fighting so long in World War II was unconditional surrender. Hence, it may be that many lives will be saved by the fact that we did not declare war.
The Chairman: We recognize that the United States is by far the lead member in NATO. It is important, therefore, for us to understand how it makes its decisions regarding these important questions. Then, of course, we have the problem of comparing your constitutional situation with our own in Canada, where, Her Majesty, as advised by her Canadian ministers, has the right to take certain acts of state on her own.
However, as I used to say, the Queen owns the car but she has no gas. Parliament must provide the fuel.
Mr. Herspring: It is the same with Congress. Any administration can rather adroitly play the game: "We have our troops in action in place X. Are you, Senator, or, Congressman, not going to provide the money?
Senator Grafstein: Many of us believe strongly that NATO is an important and almost indispensable structure for peace. It is invaluable. You have made that point four or five different ways. I agree.
Having said that, NATO's purpose as a military alliance was to be in a state of readiness to respond quickly both to offensive and other strategic issues. My understanding -- and correct me if I am wrong -- is that there is somewhere between 400,000 and 500,000 troops of all services available in this ready posture. I say that because there are 50,000 Americans stationed in Frankfort, even after the reduction. Having said all that, is there some deep flaw in the primary purpose of NATO as demonstrated by their preparedness for Kosovo?
Let me give you the evidence we have had before this committee and another committee of Parliament. We have had our senior air officers tell us several weeks ago that it would take six months for land troops to be deployed in Kosovo. We have had indirect evidence, but this was confirmed by our other senior military people, that the head of the military committee has said that it would close to four months to deploy land troops.
I compare this situation to the Colin Powell theory, which I except.You missed one element of it, however, which is, not only have the engagements clearly defined, the entry and the exit point, but also make sure you use overwhelming force. Here is NATO, with 400,000 to 500,000 standing troops, against an army that has moved south in Yugoslavia having anywhere from 25,000 to 45,000 troops, paramilitary and military. In effect, we are told by the senior military people in Canada and through NATO that they cannot mobilize a stand ready force of some 400,000 to 500,000 in under three to six months. Is that not a damning criticism of the military effectiveness of NATO?
Mr. Herspring: Senator, that is a good question. We have very good capability of reacting with limited force in limited areas in a very quick time. There are 10,000 marines close by who could be brought in overnight.
Senator Grafstein: I am talking about NATO. I do not want to confuse this with American forces. I am talking about NATO allocated forces in Europe.
Mr. Herspring: The problem with moving NATO assets is that the countries that belong to NATO have not given their military the kind of financial support they need. Moving an Abrams tank is a major occupation. One or two can be moved on a C-5. We are the only ones who have C-5 aircraft. Other countries are not doing this. The infrastructure is not there. Military budgets have been drastically cut back. The Americans are asked to do it again and again.
Senator Grafstein: Some historians, perhaps you, shortly after the Kosovo problem is solved, will do an analysis of how the United Nations, under General Powell, moved within three months 3,000 miles further into the heart of the Middle East with tanks, support weapons, and all the rest of it, and the number of forces -- I am just doing this from memory -- exceeded 150,000.
Mr. Herspring: There is a reason for that. We had 1.2 million American reservists at the time of Desert Storm. We have about 800,000 now. The cutback has been severe. We do not have the sea and air assets. We could not do another Desert Storm right now. The cutbacks have been severe.
Senator Grafstein: You are saying, in effect, that NATO, because of American budgetary cuts, has been effectively disabled?
Mr. Herspring: Military cutbacks have occurred everywhere, not only in America. If you want the ability to put a division-size organization, with tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, and artillery tubes, in place within a week or two, then you better quadruple your military budget, because you better have a logistical capability to move them.
Senator Bolduc: The Americans were convinced by the Europeans that they had to come to Europe to solve the problem. Is that correct?
Mr. Herspring: That is my understanding.
Senator Grafstein: Last week, I was told -- and this was subsequently confirmed in the international press -- that one of the problems with respect to an immediate suspension of bombing in Kosovo would be the inability of the NATO-led forces to be able to respond quickly to move into Kosovo to take over a peacekeeping mission; that in fact they have not done their game plan to move in correctly. So if, in fact, there was a suspension of bombing tomorrow, NATO, after all of this, after weeks of bombing, would not be in a position, simultaneously with suspension of bombing, to move in, to ensure that in Kosovo, for example, there is not a further cleansing during this period.
Mr. Herspring: The decision was made -- and I told you that I disagreed with this -- to make this a politically low-cost operation, without body bags; to keep it strictly in the air. The only ground assets we have put in have been the 24 -- 22 now -- Apache helicopters, with about 5,000 ground troops. We have about 20,000 marines sitting in the Adriatic. There are the British-led forces in Macedonia.
The decision was made by politicians, not by the military, to avoid anything that smacks of ground forces. If you had wanted to be in a position do that, then simultaneously with air strikes, recognizing the incredible problems that the refugees pose if you are trying to move forces right through the middle of refugees, we should have started the ground buildup. We would have the troops sitting on the ground ready to go. However, because the political decision was made to avoid anything even smelling of ground troops, there are no ground troops there.
Senator Grafstein: If there is a suspension of bombing tomorrow, even if Milosevic agreed to send in the NATO forces, we would not be in a position to do so.
Mr. Herspring: We could send what is in Macedonia; we could send the marines out of the Adriatic. As well, we have the 82nd airborne doing guard duty. We could send them in, providing we had a benign environment to go into. If it is not benign, I would not send them in.
The one thing that is absolutely critical in putting in ground troops is artillery. There is not a single piece of artillery in Macedonia or Albania. If you want to use ground troops in a hostile environment, you must have artillery.
Senator Grafstein: So Milosevic has outwitted NATO.
The Chairman: I do not think we want to record that as a conclusion.
Senator Grafstein: It is a fair comment on an interesting afternoon.
The Chairman: We had a very interesting meeting, principally because of Professor Herspring's articulate, very candid, perhaps even bold answers. We understand now why professors are superior to diplomats as witnesses.
The committee adjourned.