Wednesday, June 20, 2001

Bush, in Europe, plays Havel's tune on defense U.S. president backs NATO enlargement By Christopher P. Winner Had the Czech Republic chosen to script a first European visit by a neophyte U.S. president, it could hardly have written lines more widely opportune than those delivered by George W. Bush on his first official visit to the Continent. Bush, who met with European Union, NATO and a bevy of individual national leaders, including Russia's Vladimir Putin, during a five-day, five-nation trip, appeared to lock step with Prague in his approach to a variety of nettlesome issues. He imagined an extended, free-market European "union" that would eventually stretch into Ukraine, insisting it was time to "put talk of East and West behind us." He energetically supported NATO expansion, giving resonance to recent remarks by President Vaclav Havel that an uneasy Russia should stand down in its opposition to the inclusion of the Baltic nations in the Atlantic alliance. The former Texas governor -- derided as the "Son of Star Wars" by some protesters -- also received the implicit backing of Havel for a controversial missile shield plan that has been assailed angrily by a number of Western governments and by Moscow. The U.S. president forged what seemed, at least at first sight, a strong working relationship with Russia's Putin -- the leaders met June 16 in Ljubljana -- calling him a "remarkable leader" and an "honest, straightforward man who loves his country." In a typically folksy manner that alternately enraged and endeared him to Europeans, Bush added: "I wouldn't have invited him to my ranch if I didn't trust him." Putin, in turn, carefully avoided lashing out at the missile plan, warning instead that "unilateral actions" would complicate ties between the two nations. Perhaps as crucial as the Putin encounter was Bush's emphatic assertion, in Warsaw, that NATO "even as it grows, is no enemy of Russia. Poland is no enemy of Russia. America is no enemy of Russia." Earlier, during a meeting of NATO leaders in Brussels, Havel was said to have rallied support behind the plan and behind Bush himself -- who at times was challenged by widespread alliance resistance to a still-theoretical defense system that many left-leaning officials think is a license for 21st century U.S. hegemony. "The new world we are entering cannot be based on mutually assured destruction," the CTK news agency quoted Havel as saying in a closed-door NATO meeting. "An increasingly important role should be played by defense systems. We are a defensive alliance." Last month, Havel called for the creation of a security zone running from "Alaska in the west to Tallinn [Estonia] in the east." While there is lingering domestic debate over the wisdom of Prague's expected entry into the EU and even its NATO role, the evolving relationship with the two European bodies has profound symbolic implications for a nation that spent nearly four decades under communist rule. NATO, which the Czech Republic joined in 1999, is set to hold its next annual meeting in Prague, the first time alliance leaders will assemble in a former communist nation. Bush all but pledged that the 19-nation alliance would expand its membership during that November 2002 session. "As we plan the Prague summit," he said, "we should not calculate how little we can get away with, but how much we can do to advance the cause of freedom." Slovenia, which hosted the Bush-Putin summit, and Slovakia are considered public frontrunners for admission, but Baltic Lithuania has also been mentioned prominently. Havel said he was "surprised" at the extent of NATO's support for the Baltic nations, but added there was no consensus choice. "Southern countries," he said, "were talking about Romania and Bulgaria. In other words, seven countries can be considered." Throughout his trip, Bush did his utmost to strategically redefine the importance of post-1989 Central Europe. He called Poland -- another 1999 NATO addition -- the "center of Europe." Bush paid significantly less attention to the EU, whose leaders decided during a protest-marred Goteborg, Sweden, summit that they would round out negotiations with candidate nations in 2002. The unexpected move made it increasingly likely the Czech Republic would enter the union by 2004, in time for the body's parliamentary elections. EU membership, coupled with the NATO role, would all but certify the nation's transformation from Warsaw Pact ally to full-fledged European partner, giving Prague the kind of status it has not enjoyed since Nazi troops shattered its democracy in 1938, leading to World War II. For Bush, whose speeches heeded the multi-ethnic character of the United States and its link to divinely inspired Manifest Destiny, a supreme "author of dignity" had assured that "Europe and America will never be separated." "We share more than an alliance," he said, speaking to college students in Warsaw. "We share a civilization. Its values are universal." -- With wire reports Christopher P. Winner's e-mail address is cpwinner@praguepost.cz