ALLIES SUPPORT U.S. REQUEST FOR NATO MILITARY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 USNATO 000143

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E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/22/2018
TAGS: MOPS NATO PARM PREL
SUBJECT: ALLIES SUPPORT U.S. REQUEST FOR NATO MILITARY
ADVICE ON IMPACT OF OSLO CLUSTER MUNITIONS BAN


Classified By: Ambassador Victoria Nuland, for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) SUMMARY: At an April 22, NATO Permanent
Representatives coffee, Ambassador Nuland raised the issue of
the Oslo process aiming to ban cluster munitions (CMs) and
its potential for criminalizing military interoperability
among NATO Allies. She stressed that the U.S. shares the
humanitarian concerns about the impact of CMs, that the Oslo
process is not the same as the Ottawa Convention to ban
landmines, and that the U.S. cannot militarily support Allies
who sign up to something that criminalizes interoperability.
Allies supported Ambassador Nuland's suggestion of tasking
the NATO military authorities to provide advice on the impact
of the Oslo process on NATO operations. END SUMMARY


2. (C) Raising the issue of CMs under any other business in
the Secretary General's weekly coffee discussion, Ambassador
Nuland urged Allies not to take any action in the Oslo
process that would jeopardize Allies' collective security
efforts and current operations, and to consider the impact on
ISAF if the current draft declaration to ban cluster
munitions under consideration for the Dublin Conference in
May were to move forward. She asked participating Allies to
delete any text in the draft that would criminalize cluster
munitions or interoperability with militaries who use them
given the impact on NATO. She noted that a workaround
similar to what was done for the Ottawa Convention on
landmines will not work since CMs are heavily integrated into
our arsenal and the Oslo draft does not allow for exemptions.
Lastly, she requested that NATO military authorities (NMAs)
be tasked to provide their assessment on the potential impact
of a ban on cluster munitions and criminalization on NATO
interoperability.


3. (C) Of the Allies who spoke, at least ten Allies (Czech
Republic, France, United Kingdom, Denmark, Canada, Poland,
Turkey, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and the Netherlands) expressed
strong support for the interoperability issue and a tasking
to the NMA,s to provide advice. The Czech Republic noted
that they had no reservations about leaving the Dublin
Conference if the interoperability issue is not properly
addressed and called for closer coordination of the
"Like-Minded States." Likewise, the UK firmly supported
getting military advice to feed into the Dublin Conference
stressing that they do not support an outright ban and would
never sign up to anything that could endanger the lives of
British military personnel. Poland (along with Turkey),
noting the complete absence at Dublin of major cluster
munitions producers and users such as Russia, China, and
Israel, stated that the Oslo process was flawed and that they
fully support ongoing negotiations in the Convention on
Conventional Weapons (CCW).


4. (C) Norway, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Portugal,
while acknowledging that there needed to be a solution to the
interoperability problem, questioned the need for NATO to be
involved in a process that they view strictly as a
humanitarian and legal issue. Germany and Norway said that
they remained unconvinced of the need for NATO military
advice and that the upcoming Dublin Conference would address
the interoperability concerns. The German PermRep emphasized
that nations could better use their time focusing on the
drafting of the text in Dublin, where Germany was playing a
role in helping to craft language. Although not supportive
of a tasking to the NMAs, the five Allies did not block it.


5. (C) Ambassador Nuland struck back with incredulity that
Germany and other Allies who had pushed for a major
initiative to increase NATO,s role in arms control issues at
the Bucharest Summit were now saying that NATO has no value
to add to a major arms control issue which clearly impacted
NATO operations. Further, Ambassador Nuland took the
PermReps through an operational scenario in which Canadian or
Luxembourg personnel in Afghanistan would face the prospect

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of penal sanctions if they were to call in U.S. or other
non-signatory states, air support since the U.S. could not
guarantee that cluster munitions would not be used. It could
be "game over" for ISAF if such a scenario were to develop.


6. (C) NATO,s Chairman of the Military Committee (CMC),who
was in attendance, remarked that the Oslo process does have
considerable implications for the Alliance operations since
approximately 20 to 40 percent of combined Alliance fire
support holdings delivered from the air are cluster
munitions. SecGen concluded the meeting saying that based on
the discussion and CMC's remarks, he would prepare a NAC
tasking to the NMAs to provide military advice on the impact
the Oslo declaration could have on NATO operations.
NULAND