Military - in brief (1)
01 March 1998
Turkish, Greek credits will end: The USA will terminate Foreign Military Sales (FMS) credits to Turkey and Greece in the financial year 1999. With the end of the Cold War in 1991 the USA converted its aid into concessional credits - the burden for Turkey is estimated to be around $9 billion. In recent years the USA charged about 10.5 per cent annual inter-est, almost equal to market rates. Jane's Defence Weekly, 4.2.98.
Tartan Strike: Members of the UK Royal Marines and the US Marine Corps participated between 1 and 5 February in manoeuvres in western Scotland to practise counter-insurgency skills and crowd-riot-control procedures. About 60 representatives from each service took part in the exercise "Tartan Strike". Jane's Defence Weekly, 4.2.98.
Double crisis test for NATO: From 9-21 March NATO conducted its first major exercise involving two simultaneous crises in separate geographical regions. "Strong Resolve 98" took place in Norway, Portugal and Spain, with more than 50,000 personnel from 15 NATO countries. "Crisis South" simulated a "peace support" operation out-of-area including "peace enforcement" (that is war fighting) and evacuation. "Crisis North" consisted of the defence of Norway. Jane's Defence Weekly, 11.2.98.
USA's covert squads to counter WMD: The US military has covert action teams to combat terrorism and counter-terrorist use of weapons of mass-destruction (WMD). The so-called Special Mission Units are under the control of Joint Special Operations command at Fort Bragg, north Carolina. The teams operate under two classified contingency plans that address counter-terrorism and counter proliferation. Barbara Starr, Jane's Defence Weekly, 11.3.98.
NATO Balkan training exercise: NATO has completed a training exercise for its strategic Reserve Forces (SRF) as a demonstration of SRF's ability to rapidly reinforce the Stabilisation Force (SFOR) in Bosnia. During exercise "Dynamic Response `98", a Combined Task Force 503 formed by US and Italian naval ships deployed units of Poland, Romania, Turkey, the Netherlands, Italy and the UK using troops stationed in their home countries. Jane's Defence Weekly, 8.4.98.
BALTBAT proves ineffective: Plans for the tri-national Baltic Battalion (BALTBAT) to go on independent duty in Bosnia later this year have been cancelled on the advice of West European advisers who considered the unit unready after major exercises in November last year. In a face-saving manoeuvre a company-sized formation will be sent under Danish command. There were linguistic problems (by inadequate knowledge of English the troops were forced to fall back on Russian, a language the international instructors did not understand) and the reluctance of the troops to take the field drill seriously. V. Rich, Pointer, March 1998.