Europe Defense

Three and a half years after President Clinton first proposed enlarging the Atlantic alliance, NATO on Thursday finally got down to the gut question: Who gets in first? Although U.S. and alliance officials stressed that a final decision on the sensitive question is still weeks away, the first formal discussion among the foreign ministers pointed strongly toward offering NATO membership to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, with Slovenia having an outside chance.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met Friday with a thin but alert Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, finding him mentally "sharp" and "very much in charge" but making no progress with him in softening his stand against the eastward expansion of NATO. Albright--the first American official to visit Yeltsin since his heart surgery in November--received a warm Kremlin welcome from the ailing Russian leader, who wore heavy makeup for their brief appearance before television cameras.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Thursday gave Russian leaders their first detailed look at an Atlantic alliance offer to unilaterally cut arms levels in Europe, but it remained unclear how far the proposal would go toward dampening Moscow's opposition to an eastward NATO expansion. Albright spent an hour with Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin and more than three hours with her Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Yevgeny M.

The United States and its Atlantic alliance allies are ready to offer unilateral reductions of their conventional force in Europe as a concession to soften Moscow's opposition to the eastward expansion of NATO, senior NATO officials said Tuesday. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has been authorized by the alliance to explain and discuss the offer on arms when she meets a skeptical Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov on Thursday in Moscow, U.S. officials said.

Behind the self-congratulation and talk of "historic steps" that surrounded NATO's decision to give its European members a new role in the Continent's defense lie substantial hurdles to making the concept a reality, analysts said Tuesday. The changes agreed to by NATO foreign ministers here Monday will enable the Europeans to "borrow" U.S. military assets for independent missions in the region--clearly one of the most significant shifts ever made in North Atlantic Treaty Organization doctrine.

Half a decade after the end of the Cold War, Western European nations have embarked on a new round of defense cuts. In France last month, President Jacques Chirac announced the most sweeping overhaul of the country's military since Gen. Charles de Gaulle was president in the '60s, including a 30% cut in the size of the armed forces. Four days later, German Defense Minister Volker Ruehe signed off on a report reaffirming a 10% cut in the size of the Bundeswehr that had been agreed to last year.

In a development rich in potential for the future of both the Atlantic alliance and the larger U.S. relationship with Europe, France announced Tuesday that it will resume an active role in NATO's military affairs after an absence of nearly three decades. "The French minister of defense will be able to take part regularly in the work of the alliance alongside his colleagues," declared Foreign Minister Herve de Charette.

It has been billed as a de facto constitutional convention for Europe, a major event that proponents of a more unified Continent hope will bring a single defense force, a united foreign policy and a dominant European Parliament. But as the leaders of the European Union's 15 member states gather informally today and Saturday on the Spanish island of Majorca to consider agenda options for the convention, signs point to a much more mundane affair.

Against a backdrop of growing concern about the health of America's most successful security alliance, leaders from several European nations Saturday called for a broader U.S. commitment to defending the Continent against new threats. "Given the instability in Eastern Europe, we need the strategic backing of America," declared German Defense Minister Volker Ruehe.

German Defense Minister Volker Ruehe has withdrawn an invitation for his Moscow counterpart to visit Germany in February after the Russian insulted leading critics of the war in Chechnya, the Itar-Tass news agency reported Sunday. It was the sharpest diplomatic rebuke of Russia over the war to date and threw into question German-Russian military cooperation on European security issues for the immediate future. Russian Defense Minister Pavel S.