US President Barack Obama with Croatian President Stipe Mesic and Prime Minister Ivo Sanader at last week's Strasbourg meeting of the NATO member states"Last week's NATO summit demonstrated without a doubt in the example of Turkey that membership in NATO and alliance with the USA significantly improves the international position of an EU membership candidate country. Croatia has to be aware of this because, as a member of the NATO alliance, it is now in a position to adopt its own action plan and play on the card of American support in unblocking the negotiations with Slovenia," Nacional was told by a source close to the Croatian foreign ministry.

And it was the recently held NATO summit in Strasbourg and Kehl that demonstrated, with the example of Turkey, just how much NATO membership can help in improving a country's position as regards EU accession. Turkey, namely, objected to the choice of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the new NATO general secretary, objecting to the fact that he refused to apologise after a caricature of the prophet Muhammad appeared in the Danish press in 2006.

US President Barack Obama, however, personally deflected the Turkish reservations towards the Danish Prime Minister by some political bargaining that involved a deal with the European allies to unblock two Turkish negotiation chapters on the road to the EU. It was also agreed that one of Rasmussen's deputies be a Turk and that a Turkish general take an important seat in the NATO military command.

This outcome of the recent meeting of the alliance's member states has confirmed several important facts. Every member state, regardless of its influence and power, has the same voting rights as the most powerful member and can affect the will of the others, which was demonstrated with the selection of the new NATO general secretary. This was also demonstrated in the case of the Slovenia ratification of the agreement on Croatian accession to full membership. No one could challenge its right to hold a referendum on Croatian accession.

Consensus is, then, the fundamental principle the allies function on and there can be no dictating from any member country. What can be crucial to every decision is, certainly, the influence of powerful members of the alliance on other countries, but that happens on an equal footing, that is to say something is always offered in return by way of compromise. Another important fact is the strong influence of the US on its European allies, even in issues that concern only the EU.

This is possible because almost all European members of NATO are also members of the EU, which makes dialogue between the EU and the US much easier, even when it comes to EU membership issues. This was demonstrated in the case of Bulgaria and Romania who were unprepared for accession to the EU, but enjoyed the strong support of the US. All in all, accession to the EU has a great deal in connection with accession to NATO and Croatia will have to make use of its new, stronger, international position as soon as possible, for which there are several reasons.

Relations with the US are the best they have been in the past decade, which is the opinion of all relevant diplomats, both domestic and American. Excellent military cooperation was the motor of good relations. And another important fact must not be forgotten, which is related to the Croatian Armed Forces and their relationship with the current administration of US President Barack Obama.

Retired Marine Corps General and the former NATO Supreme Commander for Europe James Jones is US President Barack Obama's National Security Advisor, effectively the number three man in the USA. General James Jones has excellent relations with the Croatian military and national leadership, has a very high opinion of the Croatian Army and a very good knowledge both of Croatia, and of the situation in the entire region.

And the former US military attaché to Croatia, Brigadier General John Adams has, with the arrival of the new US administration, been assigned to a key post in the US defence department.

Perhaps the time has come for Croatian Government to once again engage the services of Croatian Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Josip Lucic, the military envoy to NATO and the EU, Major General Drago Lovric, and Brigadier General Mate Paden to bring their close friendship with these US generals to bear in furthering Croatia's strategic foreign policy goals through the military diplomacy. Furthermore, the stabilisation of the situation in Kosovo, Macedonia and in Bosnia & Herzegovina is very important to both the US and the EU.

In this regard Croatia is the US's key ally in the region, a fact which has been confirmed several times in prior bilateral meetings between American and Croatian officials. As a member of the NATO alliance Croatia should make use of the new wind in its sails in the relations with the US and the EU brought on by the election of US President Barack Obama and his position on the need to strengthen the Euro-Atlantic alliance, which was evident at the recent summit. It was clear that Obama is popular among European leaders, so that strengthening relations with the US is in fact a Croatian imperative.

But a bolstering of Croatia's international standing resulting from its accession to NATO and its position as regards the road to EU membership is not the only benefit of full membership. By entering the NATO alliance Croatia has become part of a collective security structure made up of 28 member countries. Simply put, by joining the alliance Croatia has achieved the highest possible level of security and protection of its territory and sovereignty at the lowest possible monetary cost. And, NATO membership secures Croatian companies access to a billion-dollar-a-year market.

Croatian companies will now be able to complete on an equal footing at all tender invitations issued by NATO, which are not all necessarily connected to the military industry, but also include the food, textile and construction industries. From the date of accession to the NATO alliance Croatia will be able to make use of the alliance's funds to build its own military infrastructure, which can be offered to the alliance for use when needed. And from the closing declaration from the summit it can be surmised that Croatia, as a member of the alliance, will play a very important role in stabilising the region. In the summit's closing document, namely, it is emphasised that NATO remains engaged in the Western Balkans, especially in Kosovo through the KFOR mission, and that its greets the progress in reforms achieved in the countries of the regions who are at different levels of integration in the alliance. The document expresses "deep concern that irresponsible political rhetoric and actions continue to hinder substantive progress in reform" in Bosnia & Herzegovina and calls on the political leaders of the three ethnic groups to strengthen the country's central institutions.

As regards Serbia, the leaders of the alliance point out that the development of cooperation with Belgrade will depend on the behaviour of the Serbian authorities, whom they called upon to contribute to the consolidation of peace and order in Kosovo. US President Barack Obama feels that the situation in the Balkans has stabilised, but warned that the global recession threatened peace in the region. Speaking at the closing press conference, Obama said that the moves made by NATO and the help of the EU have helped the Balkans, but that "the global recession could impede the efforts of countries in the region to resolve open issues through negotiations." It all points to NATO staying on in the Balkans for a few more years. When it comes to Afghanistan, the alliance's key military operation, NATO leaders agreed to send a further five thousand soldiers to Afghanistan, of which about three thousand would be for a limited period of time to provide security during the presidential and local elections this summer, while the remainder would provide assistance in training Afghan security forces. They also agreed to set up a 100 million dollar fund to train the Afghan army, 57 million of which will be provided by Germany.

The drafting of a new strategic concept has been launched, which should prepare NATO for the challenges of the 21st century – computer attacks, piracy, power outages and the security implications of climate change. The alliance's new strategy should be adopted at the next summit, scheduled for late 2010 in Lisbon.