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Nato plans stronger military ties worldwide

Nato plans to strengthen its strategic and military ties with Australia, New Zealand, Finland and Sweden a move that could give it a role far outside its traditional geographical influence. The initiative, led by Washington and supported by Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Nato secretary- general, would help reinforce the US-led alliance's political and military credentials at a time they have come under scrutiny.

The US would like to see regular Nato forums with other countries such as Australia, New Zealand and, later, Japan and South Korea. However, this plan has run into opposition from France, which sees the move as a gambit to bring in countries more likely to see strategic issues from Washington's point of view.

Last week, ambassadors from Natos member states discussed a US proposal to create a global partnership to rationalise Natos current web of partnerships and pave the way for advanced partnerships with Nordic, Asian and Australasian countries. We want one big box, so that countries can go at their own pace and not be the victims of their geography, said a senior Nato diplomat, who also identified the possibility of an advanced partnership for developed democratic countries that helped with Nato missions. We want to give those countries that are putting blood and treasure on the line with Nato a greater say at the table.

Stronger ties with countries with established democracies and accomplished militaries could help Nato generate the troops it needs for difficult missions such as Afghanistan. Natos James Appathurai said: It makes sense to consider making this community stronger. We need as many countries as possible that share our values and have effective forces on the same team to face all the challenges we are seeing in places such as Afghanistan.

The plans are set to be discussed at a Nato foreign ministers meeting in Sofia this month and at a summit in Riga in November, which Washington hopes will endorse the idea of a more flexible global partnership for countries that co-operate with Nato. But the idea of a special status for participating Asian and Australasian countries may have to wait until 2008.

The alliance already operates a Partnership for Peace programme with 20 countries, including several from the former Soviet bloc, and has formal ties to seven Mediterranean countries and six Gulf states.

But, while some partner nations such as Sweden and Finland provide troops for Nato's Afghanistan force, others such as Belarus and Uzbekistan have much frostier relations with the alliance. By contrast, New Zealand and Australia, neither of which has formal partnerships with Nato, have sent troops to Nato operations and are present in Afghanistan, either as part of Nato forces or under the US coalition banner. Some Nato officials hope that Japan can also be persuaded to send troops to Afghanistan when it redeploys forces from Iraq.