The United States will withdraw from NATO peacekeeping missions and will encourage European countries to "step up to their responsibilities" if George W. Bush is elected president, a top Bush adviser said Saturday.
"When it comes to nation-building or civilian administration or indefinite peacekeeping, we do need for the Europeans to step up to their responsibilities," Condoleeza Rice, the Republican presidential candidate's senior national security aide told the New York Times. "We don't need to have the 82nd Airbone escorting kids to kindergarten."
The Bush plan would instead focus US military efforts on traditional combat missions to deter trouble in hot spots including the Gulf, Asia and elsewhere.
"The United States is the only power that can handle a showdown in the Gulf, mount the kind of force that is needed to protect Saudi Arabia and deter a crisis in the Taiwan Straits," Rice said. "Extended peacekeeping detracts from our readiness for these kinds of global missions."
Under a possible Bush administration, US forces would be excluded from continuing peacekeeping efforts in the Balkans.
The United States sent in 25,000 troops to bolster the Dayton peace accords on Bosnia in 1995 and last year dispatched troops to keep the peace in Kosovo. Some 11,500 troop remain in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Rice stressed that US forces would not be immediately withdrawn from the Balkans, but a Bush administration would inform NATO that its goal was to turn over the entire responsibility of stationing peacekeeping troops to its European allies.
If the Republican governor of Texas is elected president, Rice said, the United States would still provide limited logistical and intelligence assistance to the NATO mission in the Balkans after withdrawing its peacekeepers.
Longtime NATO supporters, including retired US Army general Wesley Clark who commanded the NATO operation in Kosovo, argue that the United States needs to maintain a presence in peacekeeping operations if it wants to remain a leading force in international diplomacy.
"When allies are putting in more than 80 percent of effort, there is not much room for an argument about burden-sharing," Clark said. "If we want to be part of this, we can't do much less" -- NEW YORK (AFP)
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