Warsaw Pact

Calling for growth in the defense budgets of the North Atlantic allies, NATO defense ministers on Friday struck a harmonious note at the conclusion of a two-day meeting of the alliance's Defense Planning Committee. But they warned that arms negotiations ahead could strain the allies' unity as they try, according to U.S. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, to "remake the military map of Europe." At the end of a meeting held every six months, NATO leaders acknowledged that disputes over which weapons would be covered by East-West negotiations in Vienna could slow progress toward an agreement limiting non-nuclear arms in Europe.

In the current orgy of commemoration, Ronald Reagan's steely resolve in the face of the communist threat is taken as an article of faith. The Great Communicator, we're reminded, put the world on notice that he was serious about bringing down the "Evil Empire." And that he wasn't afraid to spend big to win. But the burnished vision of Reagan as St. George, single-handedly slaying the fire-breathing dragon of totalitarianism, is an exaggeration.

Warsaw Pact foreign ministers concluded their two-day meeting Wednesday after hearing Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze brief them on the Iceland summit. The Romanian news agency Agerpres reported that the seven foreign ministers left for home and made no mention of any communiques.

In NATO parlance, new members of the alliance must not only be "consumers of security," they also must be "providers of security." As this former communist nation approaches the end of its second year as a member of the Atlantic Alliance, it is still, overwhelmingly, a consumer. The problem, not surprisingly, is money. It's not just a matter of buying more and better equipment, streamlining the armed forces and trimming waste.

The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the nominal parliament, Friday ratified the 20-year extension of the Warsaw Pact and claimed that socialism has preserved peace in Europe for 40 years. "Members of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. unanimously ratified the protocol, signed in Warsaw on April 26, 1985, on prolonging the period of validity of the treaty of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance," the official news agency Tass said.

The Warsaw Pact has accepted a NATO invitation to discuss prospects of new talks on conventional arms in Europe, but the two sides are already divided over who should take part in such negotiations. Western diplomats say the 16-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization wants to negotiate only with the seven members of the Warsaw Pact. The Warsaw Pact wants to invite all 35 countries that signed the Helsinki Final Act on European security and cooperation.

Leaders of the Warsaw Pact called today for a review of the organization's aims and its transformation into a grouping of states "based on democratic principles." Pact leaders, in a statement issued after a one-day summit, said political change in Europe had made it possible to overcome the division of the continent. "We therefore consider it necessary to review the character and functions of the Warsaw Pact," the statement said.

Welcoming East Germany's leadership changes as an important step toward political reform, the Soviet Union said Thursday that it will accept a non-Communist government there and in other East European countries if they remain members of the Warsaw Pact. Gennady I.

The Warsaw Pact military alliance will meet in Moscow after this weekend's Soviet-U.S. summit off Malta, a Polish government spokesman said Wednesday. Deputy government spokesman Henryk Wozniakowski did not say when the meeting would occur, but sources said it will be on Monday, Dec. 4. It will be the first full Warsaw Pact meeting since the recent leadership changes in Poland, East Germany and Czechoslovakia.

East Germany, once the front-line state in the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact, formally withdrew from the alliance today as it prepared for unity with West Germany. With 10 days remaining before the merger, a protocol on the pullout of East German troops from the Warsaw Pact was signed in East Berlin by Defense Minister Rainer Eppelmann and the Warsaw Pact commander-in-chief, Soviet Gen. Piotr Lushev, the official news agency ADN said. The two Germanys will unite Oct.

New and lower limits on tanks and other nonnuclear weapons in Europe would be imposed under a framework agreement reached Wednesday in Vienna by negotiators for 30 countries, including Russia and the United States. With NATO due to expand eastward, absorbing three former Russian allies, the negotiators agreed to set limits on the military equipment that could be stockpiled in Central Europe.

Re "Add Poland, and NATO Is No More," Commentary, April 16: Edward Luttwak asserts that "Poland never joined an alliance that didn't collapse." This is not only deeply insulting to the millions of Poles who lost their lives or loved ones fighting in World War II on the same side as American forces, but it is also a gross historical distortion. Almost a quarter-million Polish men in arms were part of British and American forces. An additional 400,000 Polish troops fought clandestinely on the home front.

In the vibrant center of Budapest, cafes are crowded with businessmen chattering into cellular phones during working breakfasts. Manhattan on the Danube. But, in a rustic tavern nearby, there's an exotic touch of Transylvania, with musicians trading mournful riffs over a bottle of Tokay wine. The old still mixes with the new as Hungary and its Central European neighbors strive for more identification with the West and struggle for free-market economies after decades under Moscow's hard thumb.

When the United States and its allies begin deploying 60,000 troops for peacekeeping duty in Bosnia in mid-December, the NATO-led force will include several thousand soldiers from six former Warsaw Pact countries, once the war machine of the Eastern Bloc. The Czech Republic will provide 850 officers and soldiers. The Nordic Battalion will include Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians. Poland is likely to send some ground forces.

More than 900 soldiers from countries on both sides of the former Iron Curtain are in Poland this week, taking part in the first military exercises between NATO troops and soldiers of the now-defunct Warsaw Pact. The five-day training program is getting under way today at Biedrusko, a village north of Poznan in western Poland.

Russia will develop an alternative to the Partnership for Peace program and offer its proposal at a meeting of NATO and other European defense ministers in Brussels on May 24, Defense Minister Pavel S. Grachev said Friday. Grachev suggested a new Asian-Pacific collective security agreement, with Russia acting as a bridge between Europe and Asia, but he offered no details.

Gen. Vladimir N. Lobov has been appointed chief of staff of the Warsaw Pact joint armed forces, replacing Gen. Anatoly I. Gribkov, the army newspaper Red Star reported Saturday. Lobov, born in 1935, was chosen by the member states. First deputy chief of staff since 1987, Lobov is regarded as a supporter of Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev's policies of cutting defense spending and the size of the army.

The Hungarian Parliament voted unanimously today in favor of Hungary's withdrawal from the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact by the end of 1991. Parliament approved a motion submitted a month ago by the liberal Free Democrats, and amended later in two parliamentary committees, with 232 votes for and none against. There were four abstentions.

In an announcement meant to end mixed signals from the Kremlin, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that Russia plans to go ahead and sign on to NATO's Partnership for Peace program by the end of this month. President Boris N. Yeltsin's spokesman had warned last week that Yeltsin was having second thoughts about joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's loose affiliation designed for former Warsaw Pact members.

Senior officials of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the former Warsaw Pact nations will gather in Germany this weekend for a privately organized defense studies symposium. Called the Wehrkundetagung, the annual session traditionally attracts some of the finest military thinkers and strategists, including defense ministers, for private discussions.