From Operation Alba to Allied Force: Institutional Implications of Balkan Interventions

Mediterranean Quarterly

Volumn 10, Issue 4, 1999, Pages

  Kay, Sean ^a  

^a OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 0003519408     PISSN: 10474552     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (39)

1. At its 1994 Brussels summit, NATO approved the creation of Combined Joint Task Forces (CJTFs) to allow coalitions of willing states to utilize NATO assets when all members might not participate in a military operation. CJTFs would allow multipurpose and multinational forces of NATO, or WEU, members to integrate into command headquarters to facilitate crisis management. For further discussion, see Charles Barry, "NATO's Combined Joint Task Forces in Theory and Practice," Survival 38, no. 1 (spring 1996): 81-97.
2. In 1991, Italy (only about fifty miles across the Adriatic Sea from the Albanian coast) responded to an influx of Albanian refugees by organizing a one-thousand-person force (Operation Pelican) to distribute aid in Albania. Since then, some 150,000 Albanians have taken short- or long-term refuge in Italy and neighboring countries. Additionally, Italians were heavily invested in Albania. Italy may have also seen political leadership in crisis management as a means to strengthen its candidacy for inclusion in the European Monetary Union. See Ted Perlmutter, "The Politics of Proximity: The Italian Response to the Albanian Crisis," International Migration Review (spring 1998): 203-22.
3. For NATO this meant that a peaceful environment, including a formal agreement, needed to be in place before peacekeepers would be deployed.
4. A caretaker government, through which Albania officially requested international assistance, was agreed to on 9 May 1997.
5. Steven Lee Myers, "In Talks on an Airlift Out of Albania, Albright Rattled Her Saber," New York Times, 21 March 1997, A8.
6. The Netherlands supported Italy in NATO but subsequently did not contribute forces to Operation Alba.
7. Jane Perlez, "Albania Chiefs Associates Flee: Gunfire Halts Evacuation by U.S.," New York Times, 15 March 1997, A1.
8. This rejection came despite a recommendation by the WEU Parliamentary Assembly's Standing Committee of 13 March 1997 that the WEU Council of Ministers should ask its planning cell to draw up contingency plans for operations in Albania covering humanitarian and rescue tasks as well as peacekeeping tasks and peacemaking, including control over the restitution of arms and munitions. There was no official WEU response to this recommendation. See Assembly of the Western European Union, WEU Military Committee Report, doc. 1591, 1 December 1997, 6-7.
9. Quoted in Celestine Bohlen, "Cracks Emerge as West Europeans Celebrate Their Unity," New York Times, 26 March 1997, A16.
10. For its part, the OSCE did eventually agree in principle to authorize an aid operation in Albania. However, it did not formally approve the action due to Russian insistence that an actual mandate must come from the UN.
11. For example, the rules of engagement in Operation Alba closely mirrored those of NATO in Bosnia-Herzegovina. For further discussion, see Ettore Greco, "New Trends in Peacekeeping: *The Experience of Operation Alba," Security Dialogue 29, no. 2 (June 1998): 201-12. More broadly, NATO's military standards, procedures, and planning helped Italy prepare a coalition quickly. Nearly fifty years of training in NATO combined with three years of experience with Partnership for Peace countries helped the coalition prepare for the deployment.
12. Quoted in Giovanni de Briganti, "WEU Struggles to Define Role in European Security," Defense News, 19 May 1997, 14.
13. Printed in Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Daily Report, Western Europe (hereafter FBIS-WEU), FBIS-WEU-97-117.
14. At its maximum deployment, during general elections to a new Albanian parliament, troop representations included: Austria, one company (110); Belgium, one medical unit (14); Denmark, one company (56); France, one navy infantry regiment (938); Greece, one infantry regiment (797); Italy, one infantry regiment, one para regiment, one logistic regiment, two mechanized infantry regiments, two aviation battalions, one assault para regiment, one signal regiment, one military police regiment, one navy infantry battalion, and one field hospital (3,778); Portugal, one C-130 aircraft and crew; Romania, one mixed infantry battalion (398); Slovenia, one medical unit (24); Spain, one infantry battalion (342); and Turkey, one navy infantry regiment (758). Italy's contribution also included headquarters deployments, coastal patrol ships totalling seventeen units, two AMX airplanes, and two HH3F helicopters deployed daily for reconnaissance, research, and first aid.
15. The committee was chaired by a senior Italian official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
16. Italy encountered serious challenges during the mission. For some Albanians, the memory of Italian occupations during World War I and World War II was a lot to bear. Moreover, following authorization of Operation Alba, an incident occurred in the Adriatic Sea in which an Albanian refugee boat was sunk by an Italian navy vessel and eighty-three passengers perished. Further complicating the mission, the Italian government nearly fell when opposition forces in parliament opposed Operation Alba.
17. For further discussion, see Giovanni de Brigand, "Europeans Differ on Goals for Albanian Mission," Defense News, 21 April 1997, 72.
18. Operation Alba carried out 1,598 missions, covering a total of 2,735,764 kilometers. The forces performed 1,397 daily escorts, 65 route security missions, 27 dedicated escorts for long humanitarian missions, 151 reconnaissance missions, and 37 sanitary missions. During the elections, the force provided security to 238 OSCE teams, covering a total of 12,000 kilometers. Some 73 different locations received a total of 5,168 tons of food, 176 tons of seed, 339 tons of medicines, 63 tons of clothes, 10 tons of building materials, 4 tons of school supplies, and various vehicles and machinery for rubbish collection and water purification. For logistics support a total of 59 sea-lift missions were performed, covering 3,193 nautical miles, with 3,722 navigation hours; 943 airlift sorties were performed with 1,311 flying hours. Source: United Nations, "Eleventh and Final Report to the Security Council on the Operation of the Multilateral Protection Force in Albania," S/1997/632, 12 August 1997.
19. Luciano Forlani, interview with Luciano Guilli, Tirana, in FBIS-EEU (Eastern Europe)-97-189.
20. FBIS-WEU-97-106.
21. Statement by Bashkim Fino, prime minister of the Republic of Albania at the Meeting of NATO and Partner Countries, Heads of State and Government. Madrid, 9 July 1907.
22. Jane Perlez, "Deep Anxiety over the Coming Election in Albania," New York Times, 16 June 1997, A10.
23. Jane Perlez, "Italy's Troops in Albania Are Treading on Thin Ice," New York Times, 25 April 1997, A3.
24. FBIS-LAT (Latin America)-97-134.
25. The Partnership for Peace was inaugurated in January 1991 to extend NATO's institutional activities into Central and Eastern Europe. Albania was one of the first countries to join the PFP.
26. George Katsirdakis, "Albania: A Case Study in the Practical Implementation of Partnership for Peace" NATO Review 46, no. 2 (summer 1998): 22-6. The NATO learns focused on (1) conceptual issues such as national security, national defense, military doctrine, constitutional issues, a legal framework for the armed forces, democratic control of forces, and civil military relations; (2) structural issues, including the reorganization and function of the Ministry of Defense, the General Staff, and senior command structures of the armed forces, restructuring of armed forces at all levels, advice and training in military medicine, leadership, language training, logistics, command and control, communications, and information systems; and (3) technical issues, including storage and handling of ammunition and ordnance disposal, security of military depots, assessment of the state of existing military infrastructure, defense planning, and budgeting.
27. Ibid., 25.
28. Luke Hill, "Albania Tackles Ammunition Disposal Problem," Defense News, 8 March 1999, 28.
29. Previously, WEU support was limited to providing observation satellite data from its satellite center in Torrejón, Spain. This center costs about 811 million per year, which represents about 27 percent of the WEU's budget.
30. Under the MAPE, 2,143 Albanian policemen have been trained and courses have been given in ten of the country's twelve directorates with about 140 policemen per directorate participating. See Western European Union Information Service at 〈www.weu.int/eng/mape/info.htm〉.
31. Ultimately, the quality of the Albanian police forces reflects overall conditions in Albania. Albanian police are paid very little and often take bribes to make ends meet. The MAPE training center has found that some 30 percent of the police they have trained were dismissed from active police duly for political reasons, suggesting that local politics have a great influence over long-term police reform.
32. Each contributing slate has to finance its own involvement in the mission - thus, only the more advanced European economies send the most prepared trainers.
33. During Operation Alba, the border town of Kukes (which hosted many of the Kosovar refugees in 1999) was too dangerous for Spanish and Greek troops designated to accompany OSCE election monitors.
34. OSCE Observation Mission, Republic of Albania, Joint Preliminary Statement, 23 November 1998.
35. Stefano Stefanini, remarks at the conference "A Dialogue on Bosnia in the Balkans: Exploring Regional Approaches to Peace," sponsored by the United States Institute for Peace, Washington, D.C., February 1998.
36. The failure to collect weapons in Albania following Operation Alba contributed to the difficulty of police functions in KFOR, as many Albanian weapons filtered to the Kosovars.
37. Quoted in Andrew Higgins, "Here's the Hard Part: Rebuilding Kosovo, with No One in Charge," Wall Street Journal, 18 June 1999, A15.
38. For discussion of why such operations are a special challenge to the American military, see Ted Galen Carpenter, "Dangerous Diversions: The U.S. Military's New Missions," Mediterranean Quarterly 10, no. 1 (winter 1999): 1-14.
39. For an excellent discussion of the requirements and need for a comprehensive international approach to stability in the Balkans, see Jeffrey Simon, "Sources of Balkan Insecurity: The Need for a Comprehensive Strategy," Strategic Forum, no. 150 (October 1998).