Battalion Brotherhood 

BIRD OF STRATEGY
 

Currently, Ukraine has only one operating joint battalion, with Poland. Its personnel totals about 600. The soldiers of Ukraine's Twenty-Fourth Iron Division of the Western Operational Headquarters make up half of it, and the rest are their neighbors from Poland's Fourteenth Army Brigade stationed in Przemysl.

The battalion has the status of a peacekeeping force, that is it can operate only under the UN or OSCE flag. One of its Ukrainian companies is now gaining peacekeeping experience in the Balkans as a part of multinational forces under NATO.

However, the main distinction of our initiatives concerning the formation of joint military units with other countries is that Kyiv does not have the possibility to set tasks for them which cements together all such entities. This involves laying a basis for effective military cooperation by countries which have opted to build their defense by joint efforts.

Currently, Kyiv can be satisfied only with gathering political dividends on its initiatives. In this regard the Ukrainian-Polish battalion has already accomplished its mission. This joint unit was supposed to become an advertisement for the strategic relationship between Ukraine and Poland. Because in 1995 neither Kyiv nor Warsaw, save for pompous declarations by their presidents, could confirm this strategic success by achievements in other areas of bilateral relations. It was then that the armies came to help.

We must not forget that Ukraine borders a country which is going to become a full NATO member this year, and extends similar proposals to all would-be NATO members and others coming under the Alliance's umbrella. Thus, this can be interpreted as our generals' wish to gain a bridgehead in NATO before Ukraine finally takes an official position on applying for membership

HOW UKRAINE, ROMANIA, AND HUNGARY JOINED HANDS

January 15, 1999, the Defense Ministers of Ukraine, Romania, and Hungary signed in Uzhhorod a protocol of intent to form one more joint battalion called Tisza, after the river in Transcarpathia, where they plan to station the unit. In the near future, the experts will agree on the number of its personnel, management pattern and equipment. The Tisza battalion will follow the same principle as the Ukrainian-Polish joint unit, and Ukraine's one-third of the battalion will be stationed in the town of Vynohradiv.

This unit, which will be composed of representatives of the armies of the three neighboring states, can be hardly called a military one in the full sense of the word, for it will be a combat engineers battalion for rapid response to disasters. The great flood in the Transcarpathia caused substantial damage to Ukraine and led Romania and Hungary to hesitate awhile, but the matter seems to have become quite pressing.

MILITARY-OIL UNITY

On January 20, one week following the signature of the protocol of intentions to create the Tisza battalion, Oleksandr Kuzmuk set off on an official visit to Azerbaijan. The Baku meeting discussed not only the future prospects of military cooperation, but also some broader issues. Actually, four Defense Ministers representing Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine had been expected. The Moldovan representative did not arrive, but this had no major impact on the talks. Azerbaijani Defense Minister Safar Abiyev, inter alia, said rather confidently that cooperation within GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova) is based on strategic partnership and it is necessary to join efforts to ensure security in the region, and "make the required contribution to the development of the Europe - Caucasus - Asia international transport corridor."

In the final communiquО based on the results of the talks, such a contribution can be discerned behind a rather vague formulation "the participants of the meeting supported cooperation in the field of the peacekeeping activity". It doesn't take long for one to grasp that this peacekeeping activity is closely related to the battle over huge volumes of Caspian oil, which has three ways to get to Europe: via Chechnya and Novorossiysk; via the Turkish port of Ceyhan and, finally the route most dear to Kyiv, through the Georgian port of Supsa, Black Sea, and Druzhba oil pipeline. All these routes require funds for construction. Another similarity is that they lie along or across regions of military conflict, either scarcely extinguished or potential.

Although in late 1998 there appeared political declarations stressing the advantages of the Turkish option, de facto oil transport is still associated with some uncertainty. Ankara still has to lay pipe to Ceyhan. Moreover, the disobedient Kurds could once again make their presence felt. An oil pipeline to Novorossiysk via Chechnya cannot be considered safe either. Such a situation gives Ukraine and Georgia an opportunity to maintain that they have a remedy, to make "their" route from Azerbaijan safe. Probably, even using joint military units, big or small.

However, after returning to Kyiv from Baku, our military avoids giving specific answers: they say that the progress in creating a joint military unit was limited to declarations of intent. Perhaps such reservation in appraising the results of the meeting can be explained by our past experience: two years ago Ukrainian Defense Minister Kuzmuk announced in Tbilisi (with no effect) that in 1998 there would be formed a joint Ukrainian-Georgian battalion which, among other things, would guarantee safety to transport corridor from Baku to Odesa (via Georgia).

On the other hand, if our executive authorities forget even about such important things as building the Odesa oil terminal, is there any guarantee that they will make the best of the general's decisiveness? As always, there are no guarantees. But otherwise the small joint force, even if created, will make no sense, only good enough to act as a parade regiment. Consequently, this time the men in uniform are not likely to be hasty, despite the fact that this is nearly the first time the generals have a chance to prove that Ukraine is able to uphold its economic interests with armed forces abroad.