Novak's accusation came a week before the latest deployment of troops to Afghanistan and was based on the fact "that without a state of war being declared, the decision cannot be made without parliament, while the government is yet to send its proposal to MPs." His letter additionally warned that "the new Slovenian military mission to Afghanistan will not be peacekeeping and defensive any longer, and that it will be a war mission...." [13] Slovenes are also learning that the popular will and parliamentary procedures are overridden by demands imposed under NATO membership conditions.
After NATO's 78-day air war against Yugoslavia in 1999, 50,000 troops marched into Kosovo under NATO command and the U.S. build the colossal Camp Bondsteel and its sister site Camp Monteith there, the first foreign military bases on Yugoslav soil since World War II.
Earlier this week Bulgarian Defense Minister Anyu Angelov announced that the draft of his nation's National Security Strategy is "in total harmony with the draft Strategic Concept of NATO" and, contradicting a recent claim by President Georgi Parvanov, said "We should not make wrong conclusions from the contents of the draft National Security Strategy - such as concluding that the Bulgarian armed forces can protect the country in a large-scale military conflict on their own, and without NATO's collective security system."
Angelov also stated: "I personally think that Bulgaria must stick to the US missile shield....Our commitment to active participation in the missile defense of the US and NATO in Europe must be part of the Strategy." [14]
After a seven-day visit to Washington beginning in late June during which he met with Pentagon chief Robert Gates, NATO Allied Command Transformation officials in Virginia and missile shield coordinator Ellen Tauscher, the defense chief "confirmed Bulgaria's firm position that it will participate in the US missile defense in Europe, and that the shield must be a crucial project for the entire NATO."
He also disclosed "that the United States has confirmed its plans for deploying its troops in Bulgaria and Romania in the so-called Joint Task Force East....Under an inter-governmental agreement, the US will be able to use together with the Bulgarian Army four military bases on Bulgarian soil, with a total of 2,500 soldiers, to go up to 5,000 during one-month rotation periods." [15]
Last month Angelov revealed why he does not believe that Bulgarian troops can defend their nation without NATO support - because their purpose is not to defend their country but to assist NATO in wars abroad - when he "announced that Bulgaria was going to change the functions of the Bulgarian troops in Afghanistan, and that instead of guard units it was going to send a 700-strong combat regiment by the end of 2012." [16]
At the beginning of this month Angelov flew to Poland to meet with Defense Minister Bogdan Klich for discussions concentrating on "the US missile shield in Europe." [17]
On September 19 the Bulgarian defense minister "expressed strong support for his colleague, Economy Minister Traikov, who invited US companies to consider investments in Bulgarian military plants." Traikov was in the U.S. at the time where he "invited Boeing to study opportunities for the privatization of the ailing Bulgarian military industrial giant VMZ Sopot." Angelov applauded the offer as an effort to "breathe life into the Bulgarian defense industry." [18]
A new member state doesn't only turn the nation's military bases over to the Pentagon and NATO and offer them combat troops for wars thousands of miles away, it is also compelled to cede national defense industry assets to the U.S. and its main NATO allies as well.
Immediately afterward it was reported that a NATO team led by Frank Boland, director of NATO's Defense Policy and Planning Department, was arriving in Bulgaria "to review the level of implementation of the agreements between Sofia and Brussels," in particular to examine, adjust and approve the nation's aforementioned new National Security Strategy. [19]
In neighboring Romania, last week it was announced that Frank Rose, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Defense Policy and Verification Operations, was in the capital for a "third round of negotiations centered on Romania's participation in the US missile defence system," [20] following the Supreme Defense Council approving U.S. Standard Missile-3 deployments in the country on February 4 of this year and official negotiations on the agreement led by Ellen Tauscher in Bucharest on June 17. On September 16 Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, fresh from a meeting with his American counterpart Robert Gates in Washington, said of U.S. interceptor missile plans in Eastern Europe: "They tell us their missile shield is not aimed against us, but we tell them our calculations show it is aimed against us." [21]
The year after Romania's NATO accession, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice secured an agreement with the nation for the acquisition of four military sites: The Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base and training bases and firing ranges in Babadag, Cincu and Smardan. The air base had been used in 2003 for the invasion if Iraq, a year before Romania joined NATO, and has been employed since for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In 2006 a similar pact was signed with Bulgaria for the use of the Bezmer Air Base, Graf Ignatievo Air Base and Novo Selo army training range. The seven military sites were the first the U.S. gained access to in former Warsaw Pact countries. They have been used not only for air operations but for the training of a Stryker regiment, special forces and other combat units for "downrange" conflicts like those in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pentagon's Joint Task Force-East, "the largest U.S. military contingent operating in Eastern Europe," [22] spends much of its time training at Romania's Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base and Babadag Training Area.
It was announced last year that the U.S. will spend $110 million to upgrade a base apiece in Bulgaria and Romania as 2,000 American troops were completing military exercises with the armed forces of both countries that ran from June to the end of October.
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