May 10, 2002	Friday	Safar 26, 1423

LONDON, May 9: Nation-building and economic reconstruction are as important as military might if the United States is to win its self-styled war on world terror, a leading think-tank said on Thursday.

Since Sept 11, US President George W. Bush has been slow to make long-term political and economic commitments abroad, preferring to focus on fighting wars, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

“In the campaign against terrorism, victory means bringing the fruits of the democratic capitalist system to those who have not yet fully enjoyed them,” the London-based group said in its annual Strategic Survey.

“That task is ultimately one not for generals but for political scientists. The United States, as the ranking superpower for the foreseeable future, must provide both.”

The IISS said Washington had failed to make a major commitment to lasting stability in Afghanistan.

It said that was despite warnings against repeating the mistake the West made at the end of the Cold War — to leave the volatile, impoverished country to fend for itself.

Bush, however, did support the Bonn political process establishing the interim government of Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan.

“But deeper military diplomatic or military commitment was foresworn on the grounds that US assets would be more urgently needed in Afghanistan to finish off Al Qaeda and the Taliban and elsewhere — Iraq in particular — to combat other terrorist and weapons of mass destruction threats,” the report said.

The United States should also avoid equating victory in Iraq with the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein and the destruction of any weapons of mass destruction the country may have, the IISS said.

“It (Western policy) also calls for spawning and nurturing a new Iraqi government that is stable, unthreatening to its neighbours as well as the US and capable of serving the needs of all of Iraq’s people, including the Shia and the Kurds.”

The IISS added that in Iraq, military strategy and political science could not be divorced, and that a plan for the establishment and maintenance of a government was required.

“In some cases, a refusal to engage in nation-building could constitute a gross case of strategic negligence,” it said.

The IISS argued that US engagement in the Middle East was vital to its priority of attacking Iraq, as heightened violence in the West Bank and Gaza posed political risks to surrounding states and could weaken Saudi Arabia’s support for any campaign.

KOREA: Political engagement, however unpalatable, may also be the best way to reduce the threat of weapons of mass destruction from North Korea, the IISS said.

While the US administration may be tempted to write off Pyongyang as a “hopelessly opaque enigma, impervious to political persuasion...such a dispensation would throw out the baby, the bathwater and the bath itself”.

North Korea’s need for humanitarian aid gave Washington significant leverage over the country, while military action against Pyongyang was fraught with difficulties.

“Although the US and its allies would certainly prevail in the end, North Korea could inflict very heavy damage and casualties on South Korea...(and) has a far more robust arsenal of ballistic missiles than Iraq,” the IISS said.

SOUTH AMERICA: Washington could find it hard to avoid a deeper political commitment to South America, most notably Colombia, as it seeks to crack down on the flow of illegal drugs, the report said.

But there were countries — the Philippines, Yemen and Georgia — where the US military was active and where it should not get too immersed in local politics, the IISS warned.

NATO: About NATO, the report said that slowed by expansion and sidelined during the US-led offensive in Afghanistan, the alliance faces an identity crisis which could see it reduced to a “military tool kit”, a leading think-tank said on Thursday.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) review said that Kosovo was probably the last war fought by the United States under the rules of the alliance.

“NATO, as the main instrument of transatlantic security cooperation, risks suffering an identity crisis,” said IISS director John Chipman.

“The (US) decision to keep NATO at arm’s length (since September 11) points to a profound reluctance on the part of the US to have its military objectives confused by the necessary bargaining inherent in coalition warfare,” he added.

The report raised the possibility of NATO becoming less of a military alliance and more of a military services organisation on which members could draw according to their requirements — a “kind of military tool kit”.

The United States has given signals it would like to see Romania and Bulgaria brought into NATO, raising the prospect that up to seven ex-Communist countries could be invited to join the 19 current members at a summit in Prague in November.—Reuters