The “Partners Across the Globe” international conference was organized by the Hungarian Youth Atlantic Council, the youth section of the Hungarian Atlantic Council as a side event of the informal NATO Defence Ministerial Meeting in Budapest which took place between October 8-12th, 2008. The summit consisted of a series of events mainly focused on the NATO global partnership concept and ISAF mission in Afghanistan. It was a unique opportunity to discuss security issues with young delegates from NATO member and NATO partner countries. The official program included lectures and model NATO simulation training.
The three days conference began on Thursday and was officially opened by the President of the Hungarian Youth Atlantic Council (HYAC) András Hlács, who expressed his thanks to all participants and his pride of Hungarian Young Atlantic Council. The opening speech was presented also by Colonel Dr. András Ujj, the Vice President of Zrínyi Miklós National Defence University (ZMNDU). The opening session was concluded by the address of Amb. György Banláki, the president of the Hungarian Atlantic Council. Jean-Francois Bureau, the NATO Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy, who is responsible for NATO policy, cooperation, development and public opinion of NATO delivered a speech on new security challenges, including terrorism through cyber-defence up to energy security issues. He emphasized the need from people to support the activities of the Alliance. The risk of the new world war has diminished but the reasons that can lead to many local or regional conflicts persist: “The end of the Cold War has not meant the end kind of the war, even the character of the wars has changed“. The most important precondition for successful collective defence and cooperation are common security interests and shared values which are very helpful for nations in providing their security.
As he said, NATO develops relationships not only with member states, but also with other organizations. Today, NATO cooperates with 43 nations working together on ISAF mission in Afghanistan to prevent insecurity and prepare capabilities to improve the situation in instable region such as Afghanistan. Member countries of the NATO have to help them to build an army, to build political parties in order establish a democratic regime in Afghanistan.
Jean Francois-Bureau determined NATO´s duty as very specific due to restriction of the impact of NATO. He pointed out that NATO as an international organization can’t replace the United Nations and the most important asset of the NATO is its transatlantic link. From the historical perspective, we can find some differences between the situation during the Cold War and after the war. The period of the Cold War stood for use of nuclear deterrence, territorial defence and static warfare as well. The end of the Cold War has lead to increased efficiency of cooperation and partnership on security issues, the development of the crisis management concept, which could be helpful to protect projection of security out of territory. NATO provides a chance to discuss some issues to the states without diplomacy relations as well.
Alex Brooking, Ambassador of Australia to Hungary, presented a lecture in which he was dealing with “Australia and NATO, Australia within ISAF and the Future of Global partnership”. At the beginning of the speech Mr. Alex Brookings defined the NATO as the institute focused on security challenges and military cooperation. The Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs paid an official visit to NATO Headquarters in Brussels in 2004 for the first time and since then official high level Australian contacts with NATO have begun. He marked Australia as the adopting the “triple NO policy”, which means not an applicant, not a member and not a partner country. Australia had been marked as a contact country, which is sharing common values and willing to work together with the Alliance in common areas.
In 2006 Australia´s interest to cooperate with NATO in the issues of peacekeeping and decision-making has arisen. The agreement had been already signed in September 2007 to meet the target of sharing data and information in order to cooperate with NATO. Alex Brookings emphasized that Australia doesn’t seek for further institutional links but is only trying to cooperate flexibly in tasks of common interest. The extensive sphere of his interest was focused on ISAF mission in Afghanistan in connection with NATO global partnership. Mr. Alex Brookings observed that Australia has its own part in the decision-making process in Afghanistan as part of the ISAF forces.
As mentioned before, NATO collaborates not only with the 26 NATO members, but also with the 14 non-NATO member countries. The Australian contribution to NATO cooperation resides in its encourage of NATO member countries to raise the number of troops which are needed in achieving strategic success in Afghanistan. To sum up the lacks of effective cooperation, it is necessary to mention particularly the absence of need for comprehensive approach, imperfection of cooperation in military and non-military efforts. To praise the function of Australian effect in NATO, Australia has 8th or 9th largest contribution, because of its 1 100 troops in Afghanistan at the present time, although Australia is a non-member country.
The main discussed issues of the speech of Professor Tamás Magyarics (American Studies of ELTE), were the differences between the main candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. Barack Obama is often criticized because he speaks in general terms. In connection with NATO, Obama calls for the rehabilitation of the Alliance as well as of the United Nations. He advocates close cooperation, more talks to partners and attempt to persuade Europeans to share more borders that NATO is expecting, to invest more in reconstruction of capabilities from the Europeans. Higher contribution to the military budget from NATO member countries would ensure – apart from more troops in Afghanistan – also increasing security and defence. Although John McCain is considered to be between the realists and neo-conservatives, his opinions are a bit closer to the realists. The idea of revitalizing the transatlantic relationship and promoting more active role of the NATO in Afghanistan has to be effectively applied.
Mr. Tamás Magyarics emphasized that the solidarity of NATO towards the Baltic states presents an added value for more efficient collaboration. Currently one of the most discussed problems is the enlargement of NATO in connection with Georgia and Ukraine. Considering Georgia´s participation in the NATO global partnership, a question has to be answered: Is the door into the NATO still opened? If Georgia was the member country, NATO would invoke Article 5, which means that in case of a conflict with other countries such as Russia are other member countries obliged to get involved and help because Article 5 is supposed to deal with collective security.
Trine Flockhart, Head of Defence and Security Unit at the Danish Institute for International Studies was talking about “NATO and global partnership”. The main problem is to be or not to be global. Ms. Trine Flockhart has emphasized that NATO has to be global so she adumbrated two conceptions of being global. At the beginning of her lecture she made a difference between the situation before the Cold war and after it. During the Cold war NATO acted only in transatlantic region, which means that out-of area presented a taboo. The first conception “NATO as a global actor” is mainly based on strategy of integration which relies on forging of closer relationships emerging from common values. On the other hand, conception “NATO as an actor acting globally”, which is based on strategy of intervention, relies on solving practical problems in order to increase the legitimacy and effectiveness of the Alliance. The first conception leads to a community of values reinforced by language, but the second conception follows the aim to support a community of values reinforced by practice.
George McLean from University of Manitoba (Canada), presented a lecture entitled ”NATO and Afghanistan: the future of the Alliance”. He was emphasizing that the NATO is an Alliance based on cohesion and convergence of national interests and after the Cold war it was institutionalized. Although there are difficulties with the enlargement caused by deepening and widening the organization at the same time, NATO pursued global actions against threats from outside of the Treaty area. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was created in accordance with the Bonn Conference in December 2001 after the ousting of the Taleban regime. Currently, there are 50 700 troops in Afghanistan from 42 countries. ISAF is a hybrid mission under the NATO´s control providing mostly military operations, counter terrorism operations and is trying to develop peacekeeping process , economic development, cultivate diplomacy and public affairs. NATO is facing new challenges to improve the situation in Afghanistan such as weak Afghan government, low public support, domestic security, drug problems connected with poppy production.
Multilateralism in NATO provides a way to keep a “check” on US power. Mr. George McLean specified the “3 D approach” of Canada: Defence, Diplomacy and Development, which involves three governmental departments with little history of effective inter-relations. He finished his presentation with describing possible terminations of the ISAF mission in Afghanistan that have to inevitably entail the situation with good governance, economic development, stability in neighbouring countries and the reduction of violence.
Nipa Banjeree from the School of International Dev. and Global Studies, Canada, delivered her speech on drug problem in Afghanistan. The focal point of the speech was the drug problem in Afghanistan connected with huge poppy production which represents 90 percent of its economy. Strategy aiming to eradicate drug production in Afghanistan was supported by the USA. The idea of eradication before the harvest hasn´t been successful due to subsequent next-year poppy production, but moreover it would have a negative impact on farmers. Financial income from poppy production is much more higher than from other crops. The relationship between farmers and drug lords represents a vicious circle because farmers take seeds from lord as some kind of loan and resources must be returned to them.
An alternative income for Afghan farmer´s livelihood has been applied in the wrong way. To improve situation in Afghanistan, it is necessary to provide facilities and develop the standard of farmers´ lives. The next significant step, which has to be adopted, is to apply integrated rural development program for agricultural development and to provide an access of Afghans to the education.
Antonella Cerasino, Head of the NATO Countries Section, NATO public diplomacy, focused on NATO and the Georgian conflict. In association with its membership in the NATO, the NATO – Georgia Commission was established to support the integrity, provide helping guidance and to set Georgia´s priorities in military sphere. The main task of the Commission is to bring forward the membership of Georgia, to supervise the political process, economic and defence reforms. In spite of Russia´s actions towards Georgia, there also exists a contribution of Russia in Afghanistan by way of counter-narcotic operations and transit agreement that provides transition of non-military material. Although there are no NATO-Russia Council meetings on the level of ambassadors, the practical cooperation on the level of sub-councils continue.
Finally, the Slovak delegation appreciates the contribution of the whole event: special thanks belongs to the organizator of this event- the Hungarian Youth Atlantic Council- for arranging very unique event consisted of series of the lectures focused on NATO global partnership and especially ISAF mission in Afghanistan. We are looking forward for the next volume of “Partners Across Globe 2009”.
