By Serhiy ZGURETS, The Day
Ukraine is fascinated by the idea of creating joint military units with
foreign countries. While the generals keep telling the public this is a
feature of contemporary international military cooperation, this is only
part of the truth. In fact, all Kyiv initiatives concerning the creation
of multinational battalions have been implemented only to solve specific
problems, both foreign and internal, political and economic.
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.







