NATO at 60: Towards a New Strategy?
Tomáš Valášek
My name is Tomáš Valášek, I am director of the Foreign Policy and Defence at a London based think-tank – The Center for European Reform and it is my pleasure to chair this, the first panel of our annual GLOBSEC Conference. Our topic is NATO at 60 - Towards a New Strategy. The reason for choosing this topic is obvious – the Alliance is expected at its April Summit to issue a task for the governments to produce a new strategic concept, a new key guiding document for the governments to inform and guide their decisions on whole range of security issues before the Alliance. The role of all grand strategies is to set up clear priorities and guide policy makers through the maze of daily decisions and it is obviously time for change because the old strategic concept from 1999 was written before the attacks on New York, Washington, London and Madrid. It was before oil, gas and computers have become a tool of interstate conflicts and before the Georgia war has brought the spectrum of pier pressure, of pier conflicts into NATO’s strategic assessment. On the face of it, the case for updating the strategic concept looks self evident - it is old, it is increasingly out of date and NATO must change it to remain relevant. Let me also briefly review the case against updating the strategic concept, because the arguments are surprisingly robust as well.
The case against an update is built around three questions: First, do grand strategic documents matter? They only serve their purpose if policy makers use them as points for reference, right? But we do not know who is doing that, and sometimes we do not know if they are doing that for the right reasons. The Alliance has gone into Afghanistan, because it was obviously the right thing to do and despite the fact, that the current 1999 Strategic Concept does not actually rank terrorism very high on the list of priorities. Pragmatism, rather than grand Strategy has driven our decision to go to Afghanistan. Should we not stick to pragmatism and a common sense as our guide for the future as well?
The second question, is it possible, the discussions on a new strategic concept may well do more harm than good? The Alliance has known for number of years now that Strategic Concept is out of date, but we have not started updating for a while for good reason. The reason was, that some governments held legitimate fears, that if we have opened up the discussions on a new strategic concept, we may revealed depth of disagreements within the Alliance and that we may end up the lowest common dominators kind of strategy particularly useful document for NATO. Now, clearly, some of the divisions from the early 2000’s or Iraq have healed by now but a new schism may have emerged since. A schism between those countries that focus on expeditionary mission like the one in Afghanistan and those which posed the war in Georgia would like NATO to refocus more of its attention back on Article 5 operations. Can any drafters make sense of these competing priorities? That is perhaps the second pillar of the case against the strategic concept.
The third one, is it possible to write any strategic documents in the middle of what is clearly a financial crisis of a century? The two things we know about what is fundamentally an unpredictable crisis is A) it is getting worse with every passing day and B) it is spilling from the financial into the political role. It will clearly affect the security of us all. It will eat into our ability to produce defense budgets and the capabilities we want. It has already toppled one government – in Iceland and may well topple others. It may well bring radical and extremist forces in a wake of those governments that have been toppled. Given the speed and the depth of change, is it wise to produce a strategic document now or should we wait for the dust to settle and produce a new strategic document for the world that will follow thereafter?
These are some but not all of the questions we had posed to our panelists. I have spoken long enough so let me introduce the panel. First, it is my pleasure to welcome the NATO Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy, Mr. Jean-François Bureau. His Excellency Bureau has had a long a distinguishing career in the French government, most recently serving as a City Director for Information and Communication and the Spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense. Welcome to Bratislava. Further, I am delighted to welcome Professor Adam Rotfeld, he is well known around the world, first and foremost as Poland’s former Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2005. For those of us in the academic community also know you as one of the longest serving - if not the longest serving - Director of the Stockholm International Peace and Research Institute (SIPRI). I also understand you are an advisor of disarmament issues to Secretary General of the United Nations and you are more advisory voice that could possibly be mentioned in the time that I reserved for this panel. Professor Rotfeld, it is a pleasure to have you with us.
I am happy to introduce Professor Rob de Wijk. Rob has founded and is currently running one of Europe’s finest defense research institutes The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and he also teaches at the Royal Netherlands Military Academy. I hope that I am not giving away anything what I am supposed to when I say that your Institute is also leading a consortium of think-tanks which are already doing some preliminary work on what a strategic concept could and should look like, so we could hardly wish for more qualified person to address the topic before us for today. Rob, welcome to Bratislava. And last, but by no means least, it is my pleasure to welcome Robin Shepherd. Robin is senior Research Fellow at the prestigious Chatham House in London; he previously served in senior research position at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Woodrow Wilson Center for scholars in Washington. What I do know about you and what many of you know is that Robin is no stranger to Bratislava having lived and worked here for two years 2006-2007 with the German Marshall Fund. Robin, welcome back.
Jean-François Bureau
Ladies and gentlemen, Excellencies, dear colleagues, dear friends, it is a great pleasure to be here with you and I would like to thank the Slovak Atlantic Commission and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for organizing this very useful and very important meeting. I believe that GLOBSEC is really a key place to address so difficult questions that Tomas has listed. I am very happy that it takes place at this beginning of the year. Last Monday, the Secretary General had his first statement under the auspices of 60th Anniversary of NATO. So this event today in Bratislava is really the second one in the 60th Anniversary events which will be the key opportunities for us to address all this issues and to extend as much as possible of the interest of our citizens, of our people to what is at stake with NATO.
Should we have a new strategy? Is it wise to think about it? And I have to say that up to now what we know is that the head of states will have to take these decisions at the next summit. In other words, what we are doing now is to prepare a discussion on what we go on the declaration on the Alliance’s security. Hopefully it will be short statement, usually about 2-3 pages, no more. But you know, when the 26 hands begin to raise the same letter, it can be more than 3 pages. So, we want to manage a process where we shall have a strong statement from the summit, the statement, shaping the purpose of the new Strategic Concept work. And hopefully, we shall have an answer to this question: Should we have a new strategic concept? Should it be an update? Should it be a new Strategic Concept? Beyond these three options – doing nothing, update or create new strategic concept, I think that these things you are portraying quite correctly the terms of the discussion will take place at the next weeks. So we are really in the process we are going to have and we are addressing the issues we are going to have to discuss. What is the purpose in our view – you mentioned the good reasons to look at the new strategic concept, the changes of the strategic concept along the ten last years and the changes which the new missions we have fulfilled, especially in Afghanistan; the questions which those new missions have raised. We have already a lot of lessons to learn from Afghanistan and from the difficulties to manage this type of missions, we are not acting alone for good reason, there is no development without security in this country, there is no security without development. So security is not the only answer we have to provide. We have to think, as we say, on the comprehensive approach. This is very different from what NATO has done in the past.
Secondly, we understand more and more that all of the new challenges – cyber defense, energy security, not to talk about proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism – might be linked together. Until know, it is true that we have had the tendency to look at those issues as a specific category- each of these being a specific category. We do not have a comprehensive understanding of what it means to deal with these challenges on a global perspective. We have to manage these issues and to think about them in a very new financial, economic, environmental landscape. Things are changing much quicker. I am sorry for this trivial idea, but it is true that the way of nations are handling these issues moving so quickly becomes such a very big challenge. Just think about all the difficulties we face on a national basis, in all of our countries, to manage the relationship between internal and external security. How it is difficult for these bureaucracies - each one being in charge of a part of the picture, to coordinate themselves, to work together, to set the same purposes, objectives. We tried to do that in a way with 26 players. It gives an idea of the real new difficulties and challenges we are addressing. I think it was said very easily along the last years that NATO is more and more a military and political organization but I really believe that when we list all these issues, when we look at the kind of changes of transformation for NATO which have to be implemented. If we look at these issues, there is a strong argument to say that yes, NATO will be more and more a political military organization. We need a vision, we need to come on one view, and we need unity to address those issues. I think that the first purpose of this is new Strategic Concept, even if it is an update and not fully new comprehensive Strategic Concept.
It is to build and to shape visions of the Alliance what we want to have for the next ten years. For the next decade, we need to build a common vision, a common perspective. I believe that there is one key issue – yes, I think that all the 26 nations are fully aware that there is no nation which can alone decide without the other these issues. Every nation has its role in this process; every nation around this table will provide a part of the answer. It has to be considered as a real global collective endeavor. Not as a homework which will be chaired by one and shared by the others. It will be necessarily a collective endeavor. For NATO, which is now 26 and very soon 28 nations around table, it is also time to think about the way we work, how can we decide the 28 – is it really of the same kind than when we were 15 or 16 sitting around the table. In other words, when we have moved from the defense to security issues, we are know as 28 instead of 16, should we have still the same rules to take out the decision? I believe strongly that consensus will remember the key principle of this issue. It is true that consensus has to be probably more defined according to the way we use it in our decision making process. If we use consensus to build any kind of decision, including the most bureaucratic one, probably we are losing time and probably we are losing energy. We have to reshape the purpose of this principle of consensus in decision making to set up the good way to manage it, to address new challenges and to address the fact that we are 28 around the table. In my view, it will be also the agenda of the new strategic concept. If our head of states decide that we must move to a new strategic concept, it will show that this Alliance, as we try to show in our logo for this 60th Anniversary, is very dynamic organization, looking forward, not back to 1949. Having in memory its history, but having in mind what shall be our message for the young generation.
I will give you information which has not been released yet. We shall build an internet campaign to promote NATO this year, the key message being to address to our citizens – you might take security and freedom for granted. You are right, but we do not, because it has to be addressed as an issue. So that is the way we are looking for the future and this Strategic Concept will be also our biggest challenge and it must facilitate the discussion which we will have next year with all our friends in the NATO nations, partner nations and also with Ukraine and Georgia with their specific bodies. Russia will be of course included in this process along the way they will want to do it. But it is in our view very open, transparent and inclusive process and not something which is in a secret office with three people around the table.
Tomáš Valášek
What I hear is a call not only for a Strategic Concept, but possibly for a quite sweeping over whole of the structures and decision making within NATO, which is something I hope will return in the questions and answers section. Just one note on side, this was certain dynamism we hope for from the French government recently. Many of us look forward to the reintegration of France into the Alliance expected to take place at the April summit. Professor Rotfeld, when I spoke about possible new schism between countries that follow on expeditionary operations in Afghanistan and countries that may want NATO to refocus on Article 5 planning. Does it inspire or does it gives you confidence to believe that we can write a new strategic concept which will bridge the gap between the expeditionary group of countries within the Alliance and the Article 5 group of countries within the Alliance. Can we do this? Can we produce a Strategic Concept that can make sense of these competing priorities?
Adam Daniel Rotfeld
In defining the tasks of the North Atlantic treaty, new times require that we return to some fundamental questions and seek answers to them yet again. What is the new role for Alliance in the contemporary world?
Will its main task in the 21st century still be—in accordance with Article Five of the Washington Treaty—to ensure defense of the signatories' territories and their security, or should it respond to the new threats that have emerged beyond this area, on a global scale? Should NATO fulfill chiefly a military role, or should it increase its involvement in tasks of a political, economic and social nature? Should these be carried out fully autonomously and independently of other security structures, or in close coordination and cooperation with European Union institutions, and especially involving its bodies in decision-making and using EU financial and military resources?
There are further questions, just as there are further differences. They concern the joint strategy toward Russia, the issue of the Alliance's further enlargement, its role in solving problems in regions far from Europe, especially in Afghanistan, a new distribution of burdens and costs borne for defense and security by the Unites States on one hand and European countries on the other. It is also important to define the organization's role in combating terrorism, counteracting piracy on the open seas, preventing proliferation and, finally, ensuring cyber-security and energy security for the member states.
A new strategic concept? This is neither possible nor expected at the upcoming NATO summit in Kehl and Strasbourg at the start of April 2009, marking the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Washington Treaty that established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. This celebratory gathering of top representatives of all the NATO member states is not the proper forum for negotiating the new strategic concept. What can be expected, though, is that the participants of this summit symbolically held on two banks of the Rhine—Kehl in Germany and Strasbourg in France—will adopt an important document highlighting the main challenges, threats and risks that the Alliance must face in the 21stcentury. This will be a declaration on NATO security comparable to that agreed upon in London almost 20 years ago (July 5-6, 1990) straight after the end of the Cold War.
A key element for such a document is to emphasize in the face of new challenges and threats is the unity of the transatlantic community that brings together democratic countries in Europe as well as the United States and Canada. This is an alliance based on shared interests and values.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the list of priorities of European security policy should be headed—next to NATO and EU integration and increased effectiveness—by the issue of leadership and partnership and new means of strengthening the Alliance by lastingly anchoring the United States in Europe. Such an approach would restore the Alliance its proper function as a guarantor of the security of member states' territories.
The argument is sometimes offered that new forms and means of U.S. anchoring and U.S. military presence in Europe, in particular the possibility of setting up a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, could lead to destabilizationand an erosion of the value of Article Five of the Washington Treaty. Such a decision, some argue, means ceasing to believe in the guarantees stemming from the current understanding of the sense of that article. In reality, the opposite is true: new circumstances require new ways of lastingly linking Europe's security to U.S. security and of confirming the binding nature of Article Five, under which "The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all." The member states have agreed that in such a case each of them will take, individually and in concert, "such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area."
The NATO countries' proposal made to the United States on Sept. 12, 2001, to set in motion the actions and procedures provided for in Article Five in response to the attacks on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania a day earlier, was turned down by the U.S. administration. Today, eight years on, it seems there was insufficient understanding of the implications of this decision constituting an expression of the political philosophy of unilateralism which guided the Bush administration. Under this philosophy, ad hoc missions were supposed to form coalitions.
Policy towards Russia. The effectiveness of Euro-Atlantic security institutions in future will depend on whether a unified NATO and EU strategy is developed and implemented in practice in different regions, especially toward Russia. Ever since the adoption in Pratica di Mare (2002) of a document on new relations with Russia, the Alliance has offered prospects for Russia's constructive involvement inimplementing a joint security policy in various parts of the world. The understandable assumption here is that Russia will reject the unjustified propaganda rhetoric of treating NATO as a "hostile organization" and, more importantly, will adopt (not just verbally) a system of shared universal values that is followed by the transatlantic community of democratic countries. It is not just about strategy. In its formulation of the principles of its security policy, Russia is clearly resorting to vocabulary used during the Cold War. This is a political philosophy based on the dichotomy "here—us, there—them." NATO, meanwhile, is guided by a different philosophy toward Russia—not exclusiveness but inclusiveness, and getting involved with everyone in ensuring common security.
Defining NATO-EU strategy. Deep reflection is required to define NATO and EU strategy for combating terrorism, for humanitarian interventions in weak and bankrupt countries, for preventing pirate attacks and combating and preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, or for reacting to cyber-attacks (as was the case with Estonia).
The crisis related to the suspension of Russian gas deliveries to Europe through Ukrainian territory has raised awareness that it is crucial to agree on a joint security strategy that would account for the interests of suppliers and buyers of energy raw materials, stimulate the diversification of energy sources and neutralize any attempt at using energy resource deliveries as an instrument of political pressure violating the principles of equal treatment that countries have agreed to follow in their mutual relations.
One of the conclusions we can draw from the crises in relations between Russia and Georgia and Ukraine is that we need to strive for such a transformation of the transatlantic security community that would not close but open the door to Ukraine, Georgia and any other democratic countries of our continent interested in joining. This should be their sovereign decision as long as they meet the requirements of NATO or EU membership.
NATO and the EU's strategy should on one hand prevent "re-nationalization" of security by the main countries of Europe and North America, and on the other it should prevent a return to the formation of 19th-century "concerts of powers," "directorates" or other forms of imposing the will of large and strong powers onto small and medium-sized countries. The countries of Europe cannot accept political and territorial revisionism, wherever such tendencies should appear, nor any upholding of separation and competitiveness in matters of security between the United States and its European allies or, more broadly, between NATO and the EU. The new security strategy does not need a new "architecture" in the form of establishing more institutions.
Necessary changes. The North Atlantic Alliance today fulfills the role of a stabilizer not only in transatlantic relations but also globally. The idea behind bringing order to the international security system of the 21st century is the interdependency of countries—large and small, strong and weak, democratic and authoritarian; on a European scale, in transatlantic relations and globally. However, interdependency in times of globalization and given the diversity of today's world does not ensure proper control over the development of situations between countries, nor over the development of events inside countries. No mechanism has developed for effective crisis control or crisis management. Governments in many regions—especially in weak countries, countries on the verge of collapse or already bankrupt—have lost control over the development of events in territories under their territorial control. In particular this is true of the situation in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf region, especially in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.
In other words, the tasks that NATO faces require a redefinition of the essence of transatlantic relations. The question is if, and if so then to what extent, NATO should be subjected to simultaneous further transformation and enlargement; what changes are necessary for the Alliance to be capable of responding to previously unknown challenges; what conclusions should be drawn from previous operations and experiences of the NATO ResponseForces (NRF)—whether the main emphasis should be on expeditionary forces, or forces necessary to defend the territories of member states; finally—how relations with NATO's partners should be arranged, and particularly what roles the Alliance should play when armed conflicts break out close to its borders, like those between Russia and Georgia over the secession of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Changes to U.S. policy, abandoning unilateralism and restoring the importance of multilateral security institutions, including the need for partner relations between NATO and the EU's European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP), not only creates a new climate but also opens up new prospects for developing a document describing the Alliance's defense strategy comparable with that started in the 1960s by the Harmel Report.
It is not however known whether, against the backdrop of the financial crisis, we will soon witness a change of priorities in the policy of the United States and other leading powers that are NATO members. In terms of resolving internal problems, China is a much more important partner for the United States than many other countries. That is why the stable transatlantic area might be perceived as a secure region that will be pushed down on the list of priorities.
Unity, solidarity, effectiveness. In terms of the Alliance's future, the principles of unity of the democratic world, solidarity and effectiveness of action are becoming more important. The key to meeting new challenges and tasks will be the ability to define the goals and means of achieving them in a way compatible with real needs and possibilities.
A document on the Alliance's security should strengthen the obligations stemming from the Washington Treaty (Article Five in particular) rather than demanding or opening the way to a revision of the treaty.
The North Atlantic Alliance does not require any radical restructuring. This is the most powerful and most effective political and military organization in the contemporary world. It unites the main democratic countries of Europe and America. It prevents conflicts. It promotes a system of democratic values. It counteracts the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, combats terrorism and organized crime. It is undergoing a constant process of transformation and adaptation to new needs, neutralization of threats unknown in the past. The Alliance effectively prevented destabilization in the process of fundamental changes in Central and Eastern Europe after the collapse of communism. In the new international security environment it favors change while ensuring stability based on three components: strength as well as harmonization of interests and values.
Tomáš Valášek
It was not by design that was scheduled, a judgment to follow after Central European presenter, but as I listened to you professor, I realized that if anybody disagrees with the description of Afghanistan as paraphrased, so non-essential mission, more it would probably be a judgment. You consider Afghanistan not just essential but in some way survival test for the Alliance.
Rob de Wijk
I strongly believe that there is a need for new strategic concept for the Alliance, we would probably call it an update, but as a matter of fact, it will be a completely new strategic concept. Because of the fact how bureaucracy works, you do not call it a new concept, but you call it an update. My argument is, there is a division in Europe about the role, the mission of NATO. Is it in Article 5 operations? Is it Article 5 organizations or is it in organizations for crisis response operations outside NATO area? In my view, it is the both. Professor Rotfeld argued that the balance is more to Article 5 side, but in my country we think that the balance is more to the non-article 5 side. I think that it is so important to have a new strategic concept because the problem is indeed the deployable forces, and this has something to do with the reason why you restructure your armed forces. If you stick to Article 5, then you need implied forces which are not really deployable for structure in Afghanistan. In my country, we restructured our force in 90’s because for example Article 5, deployment of our forces, let us say in Baltic States is technically a kind of out of area operations that simply does not matter whether we deploy our forces along the Russian board or in Afghanistan, it is the same, it is the matter of the logistics. So we have different views regarding the reconstruction of our own force and this has huge implications.
Let me make some observations regarding the security situation and I think it is changing. The financial crisis is indeed accelerating a couple of friends that are already visible for quite of few years. First, terrorism and international crime will remain on the agenda for quite of few years. Afghanistan: NATO will stay in Afghanistan, I consider Afghanistan a test. Why? Because if we fail in Afghanistan, it will go at the expense of the credibility of NATO and if NATO is not credible anymore because it failed in Afghanistan, it will not be credible as Article 5 Alliance as well. And that is hugely important. So if for political reasons, not for military reasons, that we cannot afford losing Afghanistan. There will be a debate on broadening the war to Pakistan at least to the Western tribal territories. And problem will be to the horn of Africa, it is no coincidence that naval units are already being deployed to coast of Somalia. This is a clear signal. But more important than this is that interstate conflict is again on the agenda and this very important in my view.
The Gazprom crisis was really a wake-up call for quite of the West European countries. In my part of Europe, so to say, we think that president of Georgia Saakashvili was partly to blame for the Georgia crisis, he made a huge strategic mistake and probably Russians overreacted but this was a strategic mistake. The Gazprom crisis, however, demonstrated that issue of energy security is real issue. For that reason we have - for example my country - debates on renewable energy becoming less dependent on Russia, this has huge implications I can ensure you. The whole debate on energy security, well, we had it already behind the scene for couple of years but now we have this debate in front of the television cameras and that is very important. So the key issue at stake in international relations and international security, in my view, is access to energy and raw materials. Energy and raw materials play an important role in almost all armed conflicts in the world. We have seen the Gazprom crisis, Ukraine, Georgia, pipelines, Congo, the mineral wealth in the East, Sudan, there is huge oil dependence of China on Sudan, as a consequence the UN canals really effectively deal with crisis in Darfur, so it is already effecting international security.
The problem is that most of the reserves of energy and minerals can be found in crisis areas. Security is really the big issue here. With static consumption the world reserve of important minerals such as silver is only 29 years, tin 40 years, lead 42 years, zinc 46 years, so we run out of minerals. Our prediction is, at least in my sense that most of the future will be about minerals and access to minerals and energy. And the figures I mentioned is only within static’s consumption. If consumption increases because of economic role and we will have it in future of course and that the reserve drop considerably a so security is one of the key issues. This, for example, puts the Article 5 discussion in completely different context. Because then minerals, energy will be key issue for international security. And how are we going to deal with that? Are we going to carry out, for example in NATO context out of area operations to gain access to energy resources? You tell me, probably we will. The Gazprom crisis is really instrument to have a debate on this. Climate changes in the way will increase the whole energy security debate. The North Pole region will be more accessible in the future and already now countries are trying to get access to the mineral wealth of the North Pole. And already now we see militarization of the countries around the North Pole. So this again puts Article 5 discussion in completely different context.
The rise of China, what has it to do with NATO? Everything. The rise of China and India has already had a profound effect on the energy market. It has leaded to, for example, a very tight oil market which was shifting from a buyer’s to a seller’s market. The same also through all the raw materials and minerals. This has profound implications for both world and regional order. So we must see this in the context of geopolitical change. The rise of China and other countries is important because over the last couple of several years we have already seen relative decline of Western power. This is important because due to the financial crisis we now may see a decline in absolute power of the West. If we want it or not but if countries like China and India continue their economic growth and we are on decline then the gap will be smaller if we want it or not. And as far as we know now countries like China and India and also other countries in the Middle East and Africa will be less affected then the West by the financial crisis so the gap will become smaller. So this observation of declining West was made for the first time by the National Intelligence Council in the US in great report Global Threats 2025 and this report has already acknowledge that this would have serious for the West ability to deal with issues like energy security. It will not only because we are less powerful also because our Western institutions and international law will be weakened.
There is a real danger in my view that, especially, because of this financial crisis we will wake up in a different world. For example, there is a danger that resource poor Western democracies will have to deal with stronger resource rich autocracies with a completely different view on economics - state capitalism for example. And this lead to a paradox, we have always looked at the America as soft power, some countries now consider China as soft power and I think that is very important to remember. The conclusion is, we have to defend our interest by working together, it is not only about the Russia’s threat, again the Gazprom crisis served as a wake-up call in the Western part of Europe but we must have a broad vision about the threats and about Article 5, it is about energy, it is about geopolitical thrive. We must defend our interest by deepening European integration and repair the transatlantic relations. Everyone must redefine NATO and for this reason it is also very important that we will have an Alliance’s security concept. We must prepare for a debate on the kind of forces we want to have because if we would like to defend your initiates than you need to have expeditionary armed forces, if you want it or not, an expeditionary armed force to carry out sustain combat operations. The problem is and Afghanistan clearly demonstrate what the problem really is that only a handful NATO countries have capabilities to carry out sustain combat operations and these are of course countries that are in the South and do all the duty there. Put it in simple terms, then my conclusion is that a key problem is that the West European member states of NATO they transform their armed forces into expeditionary armed forces for sustain combat operations outside the NATO territory and further you go to the East, there is a tendency to keep their armed forces where there are in place that armed forces are not very useful for combat operations outside the NATO territory and I can clearly understand why this is but in NATO Alliance security concept should give an answer to this problem. So this strategic review is necessary in order to understand the nature of the threat and required armed forces. It will be very difficult in my view to reach consensus but I think meeting like this can really contribute to find first answers.
Tomáš Valášek
What I noted down is that the new strategic concept must take it to account the growing scarcity resources, the rise of China and climate change. But also I realized how difficult it is to write anything in the middle of the financial crisis. When you tick all down the list, one by one, every single one of those trend lines is going to be deeply affected by the financial crisis. The rise of China – may it or may it not be an issue - China is also being hurt very badly by the financial crisis, its growth predictions has dropped which Chinese leadership considers save for sustaining social order and social peace in China and we should not necessarily take the continued rise of China for granted. I think that with each drop on open percentage point in the China’s growth, the risk of collapse and instability becomes more important.
Robin, you and I both live in London and a few countries have seen their economic fortunes turn quicker than the United Kingdom. You mentioned that the annualized drop in the economic output will be 6 %. Can we write the strategic concept under these conditions? Can we make any long sensible assumption about the long term future? In the other words, can we not write a strategic concept giving how much NATO has moved from the premises of the 1999 one?
Robin Shepherd
The financial question is obviously relevant. The point about the capabilities about the financial site needs to be also put in the frame of political will. I am going to draw even bigger picture than that in what I want to say here. Tomas, when you started out, you asked whether pragmatism and common sense should guide us. My response to that would be to say that what we view as pragmatical, commonsensical derives from the settled values and ideas which underpin all our actions. Mr. Bureau said that if NATO is going to be more and more political military organization, but where would the politics come from and how would that affect its military organization.
The superstructural ideas, ambitions, treaties and strategic concepts lies on top of a civilization base, which will determine whether what is thought about, talked about and written in treaties and strategic concepts has mean in a real world. There is one thing to talk about – Afghanistan, a NATO’s key out-of-area mission, is quite enough to summon up a political will to send troops in a front line. Referring back to Britain, it might not be quite apparent to people in some other countries in Europe, how much bitterness there is in Britain and in United States, Canada and in couple of other countries. About the fact that other countries in NATO are not to use the phrase which is always used - pulling their weight. This is something which cannot be underestimated. There are very few things which are more sensitive in politics and in the media, when you see your own brothers and sisters, your own country men and women coming home in body bags. I can tell you that whenever that happens, the question is always asked – why is it the Brits, the Americans, the Canadians and so on go down there fighting in the South whereas the Germans will not go down and the other countries will not commit anything. It is a tremendously sensitive question. And therefore, Afghanistan is an existential test. I think that it is very important. What we are really talking about in a new strategic concept is whether there is a political will and a public support to go beyond the minimalist version of NATO, effectively built around the old concept of Article 5 an old style direct militarily attacking. It is not mentioning energy, minerals, the cyber attacks that we saw in Estonia couple of years ago - these are all very important.
It is unlikely to be a kind of threat which sees the Russian army piling across the board between Estonia or Poland. Even those of us who are very concerned about developments in modern Russia do not really feel likely about them to happen. And actually precisely because we can all agree on the minimalist conception of NATO. I do not think any NATO member has a problem that if there really was an attack on Poland, for instance. When we are talking about a new strategic concept, the action here comes when we start to address the points about how we go beyond that minimalist version to address the kind of issues that a post 9/11 world brought to us even despite of all I said, and accepting all I said, the point about Article 5 is that it was written at the time when we did not think about transnational threats which we saw on 9/11, which we saw in London and Madrid as well. It is not quite enough to say that you could accept sort of minimalist version of NATO which we can all agree with but then some of us go on the separate ways on the second one, because they have the separate reference to Afghanistan. This would be a long term cause of tension, if there were different visions on what constitutes of threat and different willingness among different NATO members in terms of addressing that threat. I noticed this as a difficult question to address, because you have to get right into the big picture issues, but let me raise them, let me raise these big questions related to the willingness or otherwise to some countries to commit troops, to put their soldiers into firing lines, to except those news broadcast what you get every week or so in Britain and probably every day in the USA on about a week where soldiers do come back home in body bags. So is the core of a problem a kind of civilization exhaustion in Europe or parts of Europe? Is Europe a continent with a broken back? Has the 20th century history of Europe left Europe too pacifistic, too relativistic, too legalistic, too hedonistic? Is the response when America calls – sorry, we have got better things to do, call me when I get back from the beach? Is that the response - to put it in brutal terms? Because if that is the response, there is only question of time in my view, before forces in the USA, countries like Britain and other will not just be content to trying to hide some problems in the sort of corridors of power. It is going to have political consequences for the future of NATO.
I think we have to address these civilization questions. NATO leaders must agree to try to educate the populations that threats we are talking about are real and the sacrifices are worthwhile. There are an awful lot of people in Europe that think ultimately that threats of mass terrorism are something that was cooked up by Bush’s administration; it is all part of an alarmist agenda and that we can go back to sleep. I know that people in NATO do their very best in trying to educate people but the members of governments have to come together and remind people on a daily basis that this threat is real and it will come back. We will be all some point sitting like this, probably in next two years and we will have to address the fact that another massive bomb has gone off; in London, in Paris or Berlin or Los Angeles or wherever. I think it has something to do with electoral cycles, governments; they want to stress points about this sort of things at certain times and it is hard to get unity also. I think it is absolutely central that should be made a priority. Is it possible that governments can be more forthcoming in sharing the intelligence in the nature of those threats? I know that obviously there is a problem, you do not want to throw on very people for making those threats, but there obviously is a kind of in-built structural problem when you fighting a war on terror, or whatever you call it. It is very different from raising the Soviet Union as a threat, or even thought to put Russia as a treat. People can see that, so they can work it out for themselves. If effectively, what governments are doing is telling to the people – look, you just have to take out a word for it. It is not that easy for that kind of basis to build that kind of political consensus, which can change when it comes to particular things like NATO Strategic Concept.
Tomáš Valášek
I do not know, whether Europe has turn into one-child club net, I hope for our own seek and security that we did not, but we will find out soon when president Obama comes asking in April for more of ours assistance for Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Magdaléna Vášáryová
My name is Magda Vášáryová, I am a close friend to Slovak Atlantic Commission. I am going to the speech of Mr. Shepherd; you have said that the other members of NATO are not so active in the dialogue about new security issues in NATO. You are sitting here and there is no German expert sitting here. So my question is to Professor Rotfeld who is not only an expert to Polish-Russia relationship but also follows for long term the German situation and the German internal dialogue about the security issues. What do you think, professor: On which level is now the discussion about these questions you raised as a panelist today in Germany? How the situation in Germany and the “schroderization” or “non-schroderization” in the dialogue in Germany could influence the dialogue in the central Europe?
Oksana Antonenko
My first question is concerned with energy security. I think that no one would dispute that the energy security is an important issue, not only because of the latest crisis, but more generally because of what you described, growing demands etc. But I wonder, if energy security is really a right mission for NATO. We have been talking to Russia now for number of years telling them that it is not a good idea to make energy into the political, not as to say to the military issue. It has to be left to the market; it has to be left to the economic policy, to the liberalization, in creating the better environment for the competition, the monopolization etc. Can you imagine impact that new NATO strategic concept which puts energy security at the core, will have on Russia, on China, on a number of other countries that are really know wondering, whether energy security should have a military dimension. I think it is a good idea for us, Europeans and the Western in general to actually stick with the approach that energy security should be left to the EU policy, rather than making it a NATO priority.
The second question I want to raise is about Afghanistan. I mean, there is of course an agreement on the table that Afghanistan is an important mission of NATO, there is disagreement whether this mission is existential one, or not existential one. The important thing is that we are going to stay in Afghanistan. But this does not necessarily mean to be going to be successful in Afghanistan. I just came back from a very long trip to various neighbors of Afghanistan where we have a meeting with a central group among the central Asians, Iranians, and Pakistanis etc. There is a growing consensus among Afghanistan neighbors, the NATO presence in Afghanistan is now becoming part of a problem for Afghanistan, not part of the solution. So does the power in Afghanistan necessarily means that five years from now, ten years from now we are going to be better off. For example, central Asian states are extremely concerned that opening up the northern supply corridor to Afghanistan is going to bring a type of problems seeing to the south from north, which has been relatively stable. Expanding both the presence and the mission, war fighting mission in particular, with a surge of troops is going to only generate a great recruitment activities by various groups sort of loosely called Taliban which are going to impact the security of wider region. Is that wise to think that we are going to stay or is there a time now to talk about the exit strategy in new approach how to stabilize Afghanistan?
Rob de Wijk
Is it right for NATO to focus on energy security? I think, we do not have any choice. We in Europe consider energy in terms of free trade. Everywhere around the world, in USA, in China, India, it is considered on terms of security. We have a completely different view on in; for example China. It is restructuring its naval forces for expeditionary operations for the first time in history. Why? Because of the energy security. We see a debate around this everywhere around the world, not here. The fact that it is a security issue was demonstrated by Georgia. Most people in Europe would think that Georgia is a state of the US, they did not know where the country was but because of the pipelines running through it Georgia became strategically important. The whole gas crisis also demonstrates that it is possible for Russia to use energy as an instrument for cohesion. I was I Prague when the Czech government signed the agreement with the Americans on the missile shield – the next day, there were technical problems with the oil coming from Russia. That was not a coincidence, because that was already predicted that that would happen. I talked to Russian generals and they told me: well, we are not close to that, but probably, we will face some technical problems, it was predicted. It is a security issue, if you want it or not. It can be used in a sales market; it can be used as an instrument for cohesion.
The second issue is that most of the pipelines and the reserves are in crisis areas. In almost all conflicts we face today energy plays a role. I mentioned already a Congo – energy and raw materials, you have take these two together. Countries like China will not access to resources they do it. They have completely different vision of dealing with those countries dealing with those reserves. It is not a matter that we can buy it, if we are denied an access or we do have problems with oil from those places, than we probably have to defend our interest. Somalia is a great example. We have seen the hijacking of tankers; we did some research on the problem of piracy at the Nigerian coast. It is the same problem – it is all about oil. If you deny it, if you continue to see this in terms of foreign policy, I think that it is completely wrong. You have to accept that it is a security issue and because of that, it also has a military dimension. NATO should automatically play role in it.
What Afghanistan concerns, I fully agree in that that we have to develop a different strategy in respect to Afghanistan. And we have to come up with an exit strategy; we cannot stay there forever. What we are trying to do now is a kind of armed development aid and that simply does not work. What w should do and that is part of the exit strategy is that we hand over, as soon as possible the providing of security to the Afghan authorities. We have to build as soon as possible the Afghan national police and national army. If we do not do it, we will stay there forever. If they are able and capable to be responsible for their own security, w should get out, whether the whole country is reconstructed or not. The point is how to get out of this area – we have to provide the security for its citizens and should be done by the Afghan authorities. The US Secretary, Robert Gates tend to spend in next five years some 20 billion dollars on the Afghan national police and the Afghan army. That is the right approach. The idea is not only to rebuild a country and to create it according to our wishes, but to create security. If we have done that, than we should have taken out of the country.
Jean-François Bureau
In all this discussions about minimalist versus extensive dimension of NATO, Article 5 versus non-article 5, energy security versus Afghanistan, we should have all this pictures always in mind. Where are the threats we are facing? They are somewhere, but they are all at the same place, in a triangle going from the Black Sea to the Red Sea and to Karachi. The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the sources of terrorism and instability, the sources of energy security, we have the issue of Afghanistan in this region. We could say – this part of the world is not fully a NATO geographic asset or a geographic challenge. Some of NATO nations are close, many others are not but if w think about the way we can protect under the Article 5 the solidarity, which is provided by the Treaty. If we want to protect our nation according to the Article 5, we must think about the threats, which are coming from this part of the world where most of the threats and challenges are coming from, for different kind of reason, for many complex reasons, but they are all coming from this part of the world. The proliferation of ballistic missile is something which might have something to do with the Article 5; it is not only science fiction. If we believe there are good reasons to tackle these threats and challenges, which is the purpose of NATO, should we do it? Can we do it? Are there any other organizations ready to do it? Not so many; maybe no other one.
The fact is that more and more nations are coming to NATO, not because NATO is willing to enlarge itself in a sort of imperial tendency, but because NATO is attractive, it puts together the experts, the knowledge and know-how. And I have to say that when I look in the Mediterranean dialogue and the Istanbul initiative have been developed along the last years. The Gulf States which are partner in the Istanbul initiative are coming to see us. Yes, to talk about energy security, because they believe that NATO is a body, where they will find a good expertise. They will find the good level of understanding of certain issues, which are related to the energy security. So we are facing with an agenda, where we have more and more partners coming to tell us: you should do this thing, because you are the only ones to be able to do that.
The question that NATO will have to answer in the strategic concept is: Is it clear that energy security is not only a security issue? There are the economic dimensions and maybe the market could be more efficient to many of these issues related to the best way to provided for people, then there is a security dimension. So the question is: What is the added value of NATO. Where is its specific contribution? This is one of the most difficult questions we have. When we look at cyber defense, it is not necessarily only a security issue. There are many technological dimension, many economic dimensions, most of the answers about cyber defense would come from the private sector, from the private companies, from the way that we organize the networks. That is the way that we shall input an added value on the best way to tackle the security issue of cyber systems. The question for NATO for the future is: Where are you making the difference? Are you ready to make this difference? It is so much difficult to address these issues. Are you facing the same threat or not? That was basically the common understanding of territorial defense. When we say that our defense begins far from our borders, are we ready to draw the lessons of this assessment? This is another new challenge the NATO has. We shall never be the players of the energy security, in my view, but there is a part of the game, which can be played by NATO for good reasons and this are the reasons that nations have to share together, which can be the purpose of the strategic concept precisely. Where is the NATO added value for the future?
Adam Daniel Rotfeld
I would like to say that the Ambassador Vášáryová raised very sensitive question in many respects. First of all, it is not my intention to give a kind a devaluation of the policies of different powers. Germany is not only the strongest power, it is a stabilizer in Europe and I would like to say that in my view, lot of things is not imaginable without very strong engagement of Germany. On the other hand, some of you probably remember, in 2005 I took part in the Munich Security Policy Conference, which was with the participation of Gerhard Schroder, who has had flu and was not able to read a speech. So he asked Peter Struck, the Defense Minister to address that speech, whose central sentence was: In conviction of the transfer of Germany, Gerhard Schroder: The Alliance is not anymore a platform for strategic debate and decisions. We were shocked and lots of questions were sent immediately to Peter Struck and he said: I am not in a position to tell you what transfer has he had in mind, because I was told few minutes ago to read this out. Please, address these questions to him. Joshka Fisher has done a lot to explain, what transfer has he had probably in mind.
My intention is that this was a kind of peak of development of relations within the Alliance of the period of the previous American administration, namely, in Germany people were convinced with the American administration under George Bush, it is impossible to discuss the strategy of the Alliance. In other word, the European security was constructed in great extend in opposition to the USA – it is the worst what can be done for the future of the security of the transatlantic community in general. The USA is indispensable power and good and very close relations between Germany and USA and between Europe and the USA in general it is a kind of a precondition. Otherwise, we should forget about the Alliance. Germany played very constructive role in the past, not too many people remember that the Herman report was the product of the German thinking in the end of 60’s. When we are now speaking about strategic concept for Alliance in 21st century this Herman report should be seen as a kind o pattern. In my view, there is a need to have this type of thinking – very innovative, creative, future orientated – and Germany can definitely contribute in that.
Russia is very much oriented to rather differentiate the members of the Alliance and the EU. Russia’s policy that was demonstrated by this famous or infamous project so called North stream in other words to circumvent some European countries – in this case Poland – and to send gas directly to Germany. It was with an intention to offer Germany very special role as a country that has a privileged position in relations with Russia. Of course Russia has the right to do what is in Russia’s interest, it would be very naïve and childish to say that it is a kind of valuation of the code of good behavior. But in my view, it is responsibility of Germany to accept it or not. And I remember that in my discussion in that time with Joshka Fisher and Gerhard Schroder it was argument that it was only commercial issue, we should not politicize it. I do remember that Joshka told me: Please, do not politicize, it is very commercial and now we know that even the documents of the Russian Foreign Policy Strategy saying that Gazprom and the oil and gas is not only economic, it is first of all a kind of political instrument to defend Russia’s interest. One can expect from all European countries from the Western Europe and from the Netherlands as well a kind of solidarity. For Netherlands energy is very important issue, I do agree with that and for the rest of Europe it is the same.
As far as the Article 5, I would like to tell you that there was a chance for the United States to accept and offer which was the day after 9/11 when all European members of the NATO asked the United States to open the procedure under Article 5. It was addressed to Afghanistan and now we have a problem. In my view, Afghanistan is an extremely important issue and we have to be engaged but one should not present this as a kind of key element of the NATO mandate. The NATO mandate is to defend the members of the Alliance, otherwise, it will observe in Europe a kind of renationalization of security policies – and this is real threat – in other words, we should not undermine why people would like to join the NATO and why the NATO is still seen by them as the most important and crucial organization.
James Sherr
What we have to do with the future because surely the nightmare had as a change of regime in Pakistan and possible Egypt and some other places. My question to the entire panel is very quick: are you happy with the quality of thinking that NATO was putting into that possibility and our response to it.
Marcin Zaborowski
I have a question about the EU – NATO relations. Some figures have addressed already that the EU – NATO relations have improved. But we have a continuing problem of the Cyprus - Turkish relations and what does it mean for example for ESDP Mission in Afghanistan when we cannot use the protection of the NATO. Can we move in the EU – NATO relationship despite that processing problem that will stay for some time?
Robin Shepherd
I think the political nature of the problem is that too many people, and Tony Blair as well, put it at the speech to the European Parliament when Britain took the protecting Presidency of the European Union, he said: 9/11 was a wake-up call, the problem is that after the wake-up call too many in Europe simply followed sleeping up. And that is the danger when we are not facing the kind of threat that happens every single day, is the kind of threat that may only happen every six months, every year or every two years but it is so potentially so catastrophic. It is very important for political leaders to keep this going.
The point that NATO Assistant Secretary General said that NATO is expanding because it is attractive, I think of course NATO is attractive, I mean free driving is always attractive. Having your national security underwritten but the USA are not doing too much in return – of course it is attractive. The questions is, is it political sustainable in the long term?
The answer the point that Adam raised about the traditional NATO and the NATO is about the threats to NATO members but this is the point: is the United States views Afghanistan operations like this as a threat to United States in the way that Germany for instance – maybe any other country – they do view it that way and that is the core of the problem.
Finally, I am literally in the middle between Oksana and Rob on the question of energy security. But I was writing down these questions: What is the military response? What is the NATO issue here? What would NATO do to the EU or not?
Rob de Wijk
Military answer could be for example stabilization operations. Stabilization operation could be necessary in order to stabilize a certain region where for example pipelines went through. If we deploy our forces for such an operation than it could stabilize the region, then the pipeline security secured as well. This is a debate that has been going on for a long time in NATO and this is also recognized that this will be a task of NATO.
The second issue is that if the access is denied or pipelines are being threatened then we have may no other choice but to carry out a defense if you want it or not. We are going to do this. In this country you received no gas and you had to close down some factories. Something you now have in debate in this country on restarting an old nuclear power plan. If this is done on purpose with a strategic reason then you have to get the gas or oil if you want it or not. And that is my argument. We did some things in the past we had never envisioned. If you asked me or a politician in Netherlands earlier than 1999 that we would probably bomb targets in Serbia, people would say that you are mad but NATO carried out a defense in Kosovo. So we do it if we have to do it, because if we do not have gas or oil, we are going to get.
Am I happy with the quality of debate in NATO on te
Tomáš Valášek
My name is Tomáš Valášek, I am director of the Foreign Policy and Defence at a London based think-tank – The Center for European Reform and it is my pleasure to chair this, the first panel of our annual GLOBSEC Conference. Our topic is NATO at 60 - Towards a New Strategy. The reason for choosing this topic is obvious – the Alliance is expected at its April Summit to issue a task for the governments to produce a new strategic concept, a new key guiding document for the governments to inform and guide their decisions on whole range of security issues before the Alliance. The role of all grand strategies is to set up clear priorities and guide policy makers through the maze of daily decisions and it is obviously time for change because the old strategic concept from 1999 was written before the attacks on New York, Washington, London and Madrid. It was before oil, gas and computers have become a tool of interstate conflicts and before the Georgia war has brought the spectrum of pier pressure, of pier conflicts into NATO’s strategic assessment. On the face of it, the case for updating the strategic concept looks self evident - it is old, it is increasingly out of date and NATO must change it to remain relevant. Let me also briefly review the case against updating the strategic concept, because the arguments are surprisingly robust as well.
The case against an update is built around three questions: First, do grand strategic documents matter? They only serve their purpose if policy makers use them as points for reference, right? But we do not know who is doing that, and sometimes we do not know if they are doing that for the right reasons. The Alliance has gone into Afghanistan, because it was obviously the right thing to do and despite the fact, that the current 1999 Strategic Concept does not actually rank terrorism very high on the list of priorities. Pragmatism, rather than grand Strategy has driven our decision to go to Afghanistan. Should we not stick to pragmatism and a common sense as our guide for the future as well?
The second question, is it possible, the discussions on a new strategic concept may well do more harm than good? The Alliance has known for number of years now that Strategic Concept is out of date, but we have not started updating for a while for good reason. The reason was, that some governments held legitimate fears, that if we have opened up the discussions on a new strategic concept, we may revealed depth of disagreements within the Alliance and that we may end up the lowest common dominators kind of strategy particularly useful document for NATO. Now, clearly, some of the divisions from the early 2000’s or Iraq have healed by now but a new schism may have emerged since. A schism between those countries that focus on expeditionary mission like the one in Afghanistan and those which posed the war in Georgia would like NATO to refocus more of its attention back on Article 5 operations. Can any drafters make sense of these competing priorities? That is perhaps the second pillar of the case against the strategic concept.
The third one, is it possible to write any strategic documents in the middle of what is clearly a financial crisis of a century? The two things we know about what is fundamentally an unpredictable crisis is A) it is getting worse with every passing day and B) it is spilling from the financial into the political role. It will clearly affect the security of us all. It will eat into our ability to produce defense budgets and the capabilities we want. It has already toppled one government – in Iceland and may well topple others. It may well bring radical and extremist forces in a wake of those governments that have been toppled. Given the speed and the depth of change, is it wise to produce a strategic document now or should we wait for the dust to settle and produce a new strategic document for the world that will follow thereafter?
These are some but not all of the questions we had posed to our panelists. I have spoken long enough so let me introduce the panel. First, it is my pleasure to welcome the NATO Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy, Mr. Jean-François Bureau. His Excellency Bureau has had a long a distinguishing career in the French government, most recently serving as a City Director for Information and Communication and the Spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense. Welcome to Bratislava. Further, I am delighted to welcome Professor Adam Rotfeld, he is well known around the world, first and foremost as Poland’s former Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2005. For those of us in the academic community also know you as one of the longest serving - if not the longest serving - Director of the Stockholm International Peace and Research Institute (SIPRI). I also understand you are an advisor of disarmament issues to Secretary General of the United Nations and you are more advisory voice that could possibly be mentioned in the time that I reserved for this panel. Professor Rotfeld, it is a pleasure to have you with us.
I am happy to introduce Professor Rob de Wijk. Rob has founded and is currently running one of Europe’s finest defense research institutes The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and he also teaches at the Royal Netherlands Military Academy. I hope that I am not giving away anything what I am supposed to when I say that your Institute is also leading a consortium of think-tanks which are already doing some preliminary work on what a strategic concept could and should look like, so we could hardly wish for more qualified person to address the topic before us for today. Rob, welcome to Bratislava. And last, but by no means least, it is my pleasure to welcome Robin Shepherd. Robin is senior Research Fellow at the prestigious Chatham House in London; he previously served in senior research position at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Woodrow Wilson Center for scholars in Washington. What I do know about you and what many of you know is that Robin is no stranger to Bratislava having lived and worked here for two years 2006-2007 with the German Marshall Fund. Robin, welcome back.
Jean-François Bureau
Ladies and gentlemen, Excellencies, dear colleagues, dear friends, it is a great pleasure to be here with you and I would like to thank the Slovak Atlantic Commission and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for organizing this very useful and very important meeting. I believe that GLOBSEC is really a key place to address so difficult questions that Tomas has listed. I am very happy that it takes place at this beginning of the year. Last Monday, the Secretary General had his first statement under the auspices of 60th Anniversary of NATO. So this event today in Bratislava is really the second one in the 60th Anniversary events which will be the key opportunities for us to address all this issues and to extend as much as possible of the interest of our citizens, of our people to what is at stake with NATO.
Should we have a new strategy? Is it wise to think about it? And I have to say that up to now what we know is that the head of states will have to take these decisions at the next summit. In other words, what we are doing now is to prepare a discussion on what we go on the declaration on the Alliance’s security. Hopefully it will be short statement, usually about 2-3 pages, no more. But you know, when the 26 hands begin to raise the same letter, it can be more than 3 pages. So, we want to manage a process where we shall have a strong statement from the summit, the statement, shaping the purpose of the new Strategic Concept work. And hopefully, we shall have an answer to this question: Should we have a new strategic concept? Should it be an update? Should it be a new Strategic Concept? Beyond these three options – doing nothing, update or create new strategic concept, I think that these things you are portraying quite correctly the terms of the discussion will take place at the next weeks. So we are really in the process we are going to have and we are addressing the issues we are going to have to discuss. What is the purpose in our view – you mentioned the good reasons to look at the new strategic concept, the changes of the strategic concept along the ten last years and the changes which the new missions we have fulfilled, especially in Afghanistan; the questions which those new missions have raised. We have already a lot of lessons to learn from Afghanistan and from the difficulties to manage this type of missions, we are not acting alone for good reason, there is no development without security in this country, there is no security without development. So security is not the only answer we have to provide. We have to think, as we say, on the comprehensive approach. This is very different from what NATO has done in the past.
Secondly, we understand more and more that all of the new challenges – cyber defense, energy security, not to talk about proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism – might be linked together. Until know, it is true that we have had the tendency to look at those issues as a specific category- each of these being a specific category. We do not have a comprehensive understanding of what it means to deal with these challenges on a global perspective. We have to manage these issues and to think about them in a very new financial, economic, environmental landscape. Things are changing much quicker. I am sorry for this trivial idea, but it is true that the way of nations are handling these issues moving so quickly becomes such a very big challenge. Just think about all the difficulties we face on a national basis, in all of our countries, to manage the relationship between internal and external security. How it is difficult for these bureaucracies - each one being in charge of a part of the picture, to coordinate themselves, to work together, to set the same purposes, objectives. We tried to do that in a way with 26 players. It gives an idea of the real new difficulties and challenges we are addressing. I think it was said very easily along the last years that NATO is more and more a military and political organization but I really believe that when we list all these issues, when we look at the kind of changes of transformation for NATO which have to be implemented. If we look at these issues, there is a strong argument to say that yes, NATO will be more and more a political military organization. We need a vision, we need to come on one view, and we need unity to address those issues. I think that the first purpose of this is new Strategic Concept, even if it is an update and not fully new comprehensive Strategic Concept.
It is to build and to shape visions of the Alliance what we want to have for the next ten years. For the next decade, we need to build a common vision, a common perspective. I believe that there is one key issue – yes, I think that all the 26 nations are fully aware that there is no nation which can alone decide without the other these issues. Every nation has its role in this process; every nation around this table will provide a part of the answer. It has to be considered as a real global collective endeavor. Not as a homework which will be chaired by one and shared by the others. It will be necessarily a collective endeavor. For NATO, which is now 26 and very soon 28 nations around table, it is also time to think about the way we work, how can we decide the 28 – is it really of the same kind than when we were 15 or 16 sitting around the table. In other words, when we have moved from the defense to security issues, we are know as 28 instead of 16, should we have still the same rules to take out the decision? I believe strongly that consensus will remember the key principle of this issue. It is true that consensus has to be probably more defined according to the way we use it in our decision making process. If we use consensus to build any kind of decision, including the most bureaucratic one, probably we are losing time and probably we are losing energy. We have to reshape the purpose of this principle of consensus in decision making to set up the good way to manage it, to address new challenges and to address the fact that we are 28 around the table. In my view, it will be also the agenda of the new strategic concept. If our head of states decide that we must move to a new strategic concept, it will show that this Alliance, as we try to show in our logo for this 60th Anniversary, is very dynamic organization, looking forward, not back to 1949. Having in memory its history, but having in mind what shall be our message for the young generation.
I will give you information which has not been released yet. We shall build an internet campaign to promote NATO this year, the key message being to address to our citizens – you might take security and freedom for granted. You are right, but we do not, because it has to be addressed as an issue. So that is the way we are looking for the future and this Strategic Concept will be also our biggest challenge and it must facilitate the discussion which we will have next year with all our friends in the NATO nations, partner nations and also with Ukraine and Georgia with their specific bodies. Russia will be of course included in this process along the way they will want to do it. But it is in our view very open, transparent and inclusive process and not something which is in a secret office with three people around the table.
Tomáš Valášek
What I hear is a call not only for a Strategic Concept, but possibly for a quite sweeping over whole of the structures and decision making within NATO, which is something I hope will return in the questions and answers section. Just one note on side, this was certain dynamism we hope for from the French government recently. Many of us look forward to the reintegration of France into the Alliance expected to take place at the April summit. Professor Rotfeld, when I spoke about possible new schism between countries that follow on expeditionary operations in Afghanistan and countries that may want NATO to refocus on Article 5 planning. Does it inspire or does it gives you confidence to believe that we can write a new strategic concept which will bridge the gap between the expeditionary group of countries within the Alliance and the Article 5 group of countries within the Alliance. Can we do this? Can we produce a Strategic Concept that can make sense of these competing priorities?
Adam Daniel Rotfeld
In defining the tasks of the North Atlantic treaty, new times require that we return to some fundamental questions and seek answers to them yet again. What is the new role for Alliance in the contemporary world?
Will its main task in the 21st century still be—in accordance with Article Five of the Washington Treaty—to ensure defense of the signatories' territories and their security, or should it respond to the new threats that have emerged beyond this area, on a global scale? Should NATO fulfill chiefly a military role, or should it increase its involvement in tasks of a political, economic and social nature? Should these be carried out fully autonomously and independently of other security structures, or in close coordination and cooperation with European Union institutions, and especially involving its bodies in decision-making and using EU financial and military resources?
There are further questions, just as there are further differences. They concern the joint strategy toward Russia, the issue of the Alliance's further enlargement, its role in solving problems in regions far from Europe, especially in Afghanistan, a new distribution of burdens and costs borne for defense and security by the Unites States on one hand and European countries on the other. It is also important to define the organization's role in combating terrorism, counteracting piracy on the open seas, preventing proliferation and, finally, ensuring cyber-security and energy security for the member states.
A new strategic concept? This is neither possible nor expected at the upcoming NATO summit in Kehl and Strasbourg at the start of April 2009, marking the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Washington Treaty that established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. This celebratory gathering of top representatives of all the NATO member states is not the proper forum for negotiating the new strategic concept. What can be expected, though, is that the participants of this summit symbolically held on two banks of the Rhine—Kehl in Germany and Strasbourg in France—will adopt an important document highlighting the main challenges, threats and risks that the Alliance must face in the 21stcentury. This will be a declaration on NATO security comparable to that agreed upon in London almost 20 years ago (July 5-6, 1990) straight after the end of the Cold War.
A key element for such a document is to emphasize in the face of new challenges and threats is the unity of the transatlantic community that brings together democratic countries in Europe as well as the United States and Canada. This is an alliance based on shared interests and values.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the list of priorities of European security policy should be headed—next to NATO and EU integration and increased effectiveness—by the issue of leadership and partnership and new means of strengthening the Alliance by lastingly anchoring the United States in Europe. Such an approach would restore the Alliance its proper function as a guarantor of the security of member states' territories.
The argument is sometimes offered that new forms and means of U.S. anchoring and U.S. military presence in Europe, in particular the possibility of setting up a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, could lead to destabilizationand an erosion of the value of Article Five of the Washington Treaty. Such a decision, some argue, means ceasing to believe in the guarantees stemming from the current understanding of the sense of that article. In reality, the opposite is true: new circumstances require new ways of lastingly linking Europe's security to U.S. security and of confirming the binding nature of Article Five, under which "The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all." The member states have agreed that in such a case each of them will take, individually and in concert, "such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area."
The NATO countries' proposal made to the United States on Sept. 12, 2001, to set in motion the actions and procedures provided for in Article Five in response to the attacks on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania a day earlier, was turned down by the U.S. administration. Today, eight years on, it seems there was insufficient understanding of the implications of this decision constituting an expression of the political philosophy of unilateralism which guided the Bush administration. Under this philosophy, ad hoc missions were supposed to form coalitions.
Policy towards Russia. The effectiveness of Euro-Atlantic security institutions in future will depend on whether a unified NATO and EU strategy is developed and implemented in practice in different regions, especially toward Russia. Ever since the adoption in Pratica di Mare (2002) of a document on new relations with Russia, the Alliance has offered prospects for Russia's constructive involvement inimplementing a joint security policy in various parts of the world. The understandable assumption here is that Russia will reject the unjustified propaganda rhetoric of treating NATO as a "hostile organization" and, more importantly, will adopt (not just verbally) a system of shared universal values that is followed by the transatlantic community of democratic countries. It is not just about strategy. In its formulation of the principles of its security policy, Russia is clearly resorting to vocabulary used during the Cold War. This is a political philosophy based on the dichotomy "here—us, there—them." NATO, meanwhile, is guided by a different philosophy toward Russia—not exclusiveness but inclusiveness, and getting involved with everyone in ensuring common security.
Defining NATO-EU strategy. Deep reflection is required to define NATO and EU strategy for combating terrorism, for humanitarian interventions in weak and bankrupt countries, for preventing pirate attacks and combating and preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, or for reacting to cyber-attacks (as was the case with Estonia).
The crisis related to the suspension of Russian gas deliveries to Europe through Ukrainian territory has raised awareness that it is crucial to agree on a joint security strategy that would account for the interests of suppliers and buyers of energy raw materials, stimulate the diversification of energy sources and neutralize any attempt at using energy resource deliveries as an instrument of political pressure violating the principles of equal treatment that countries have agreed to follow in their mutual relations.
One of the conclusions we can draw from the crises in relations between Russia and Georgia and Ukraine is that we need to strive for such a transformation of the transatlantic security community that would not close but open the door to Ukraine, Georgia and any other democratic countries of our continent interested in joining. This should be their sovereign decision as long as they meet the requirements of NATO or EU membership.
NATO and the EU's strategy should on one hand prevent "re-nationalization" of security by the main countries of Europe and North America, and on the other it should prevent a return to the formation of 19th-century "concerts of powers," "directorates" or other forms of imposing the will of large and strong powers onto small and medium-sized countries. The countries of Europe cannot accept political and territorial revisionism, wherever such tendencies should appear, nor any upholding of separation and competitiveness in matters of security between the United States and its European allies or, more broadly, between NATO and the EU. The new security strategy does not need a new "architecture" in the form of establishing more institutions.
Necessary changes. The North Atlantic Alliance today fulfills the role of a stabilizer not only in transatlantic relations but also globally. The idea behind bringing order to the international security system of the 21st century is the interdependency of countries—large and small, strong and weak, democratic and authoritarian; on a European scale, in transatlantic relations and globally. However, interdependency in times of globalization and given the diversity of today's world does not ensure proper control over the development of situations between countries, nor over the development of events inside countries. No mechanism has developed for effective crisis control or crisis management. Governments in many regions—especially in weak countries, countries on the verge of collapse or already bankrupt—have lost control over the development of events in territories under their territorial control. In particular this is true of the situation in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf region, especially in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.
In other words, the tasks that NATO faces require a redefinition of the essence of transatlantic relations. The question is if, and if so then to what extent, NATO should be subjected to simultaneous further transformation and enlargement; what changes are necessary for the Alliance to be capable of responding to previously unknown challenges; what conclusions should be drawn from previous operations and experiences of the NATO ResponseForces (NRF)—whether the main emphasis should be on expeditionary forces, or forces necessary to defend the territories of member states; finally—how relations with NATO's partners should be arranged, and particularly what roles the Alliance should play when armed conflicts break out close to its borders, like those between Russia and Georgia over the secession of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Changes to U.S. policy, abandoning unilateralism and restoring the importance of multilateral security institutions, including the need for partner relations between NATO and the EU's European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP), not only creates a new climate but also opens up new prospects for developing a document describing the Alliance's defense strategy comparable with that started in the 1960s by the Harmel Report.
It is not however known whether, against the backdrop of the financial crisis, we will soon witness a change of priorities in the policy of the United States and other leading powers that are NATO members. In terms of resolving internal problems, China is a much more important partner for the United States than many other countries. That is why the stable transatlantic area might be perceived as a secure region that will be pushed down on the list of priorities.
Unity, solidarity, effectiveness. In terms of the Alliance's future, the principles of unity of the democratic world, solidarity and effectiveness of action are becoming more important. The key to meeting new challenges and tasks will be the ability to define the goals and means of achieving them in a way compatible with real needs and possibilities.
A document on the Alliance's security should strengthen the obligations stemming from the Washington Treaty (Article Five in particular) rather than demanding or opening the way to a revision of the treaty.
The North Atlantic Alliance does not require any radical restructuring. This is the most powerful and most effective political and military organization in the contemporary world. It unites the main democratic countries of Europe and America. It prevents conflicts. It promotes a system of democratic values. It counteracts the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, combats terrorism and organized crime. It is undergoing a constant process of transformation and adaptation to new needs, neutralization of threats unknown in the past. The Alliance effectively prevented destabilization in the process of fundamental changes in Central and Eastern Europe after the collapse of communism. In the new international security environment it favors change while ensuring stability based on three components: strength as well as harmonization of interests and values.
Tomáš Valášek
It was not by design that was scheduled, a judgment to follow after Central European presenter, but as I listened to you professor, I realized that if anybody disagrees with the description of Afghanistan as paraphrased, so non-essential mission, more it would probably be a judgment. You consider Afghanistan not just essential but in some way survival test for the Alliance.
Rob de Wijk
I strongly believe that there is a need for new strategic concept for the Alliance, we would probably call it an update, but as a matter of fact, it will be a completely new strategic concept. Because of the fact how bureaucracy works, you do not call it a new concept, but you call it an update. My argument is, there is a division in Europe about the role, the mission of NATO. Is it in Article 5 operations? Is it Article 5 organizations or is it in organizations for crisis response operations outside NATO area? In my view, it is the both. Professor Rotfeld argued that the balance is more to Article 5 side, but in my country we think that the balance is more to the non-article 5 side. I think that it is so important to have a new strategic concept because the problem is indeed the deployable forces, and this has something to do with the reason why you restructure your armed forces. If you stick to Article 5, then you need implied forces which are not really deployable for structure in Afghanistan. In my country, we restructured our force in 90’s because for example Article 5, deployment of our forces, let us say in Baltic States is technically a kind of out of area operations that simply does not matter whether we deploy our forces along the Russian board or in Afghanistan, it is the same, it is the matter of the logistics. So we have different views regarding the reconstruction of our own force and this has huge implications.
Let me make some observations regarding the security situation and I think it is changing. The financial crisis is indeed accelerating a couple of friends that are already visible for quite of few years. First, terrorism and international crime will remain on the agenda for quite of few years. Afghanistan: NATO will stay in Afghanistan, I consider Afghanistan a test. Why? Because if we fail in Afghanistan, it will go at the expense of the credibility of NATO and if NATO is not credible anymore because it failed in Afghanistan, it will not be credible as Article 5 Alliance as well. And that is hugely important. So if for political reasons, not for military reasons, that we cannot afford losing Afghanistan. There will be a debate on broadening the war to Pakistan at least to the Western tribal territories. And problem will be to the horn of Africa, it is no coincidence that naval units are already being deployed to coast of Somalia. This is a clear signal. But more important than this is that interstate conflict is again on the agenda and this very important in my view.
The Gazprom crisis was really a wake-up call for quite of the West European countries. In my part of Europe, so to say, we think that president of Georgia Saakashvili was partly to blame for the Georgia crisis, he made a huge strategic mistake and probably Russians overreacted but this was a strategic mistake. The Gazprom crisis, however, demonstrated that issue of energy security is real issue. For that reason we have - for example my country - debates on renewable energy becoming less dependent on Russia, this has huge implications I can ensure you. The whole debate on energy security, well, we had it already behind the scene for couple of years but now we have this debate in front of the television cameras and that is very important. So the key issue at stake in international relations and international security, in my view, is access to energy and raw materials. Energy and raw materials play an important role in almost all armed conflicts in the world. We have seen the Gazprom crisis, Ukraine, Georgia, pipelines, Congo, the mineral wealth in the East, Sudan, there is huge oil dependence of China on Sudan, as a consequence the UN canals really effectively deal with crisis in Darfur, so it is already effecting international security.
The problem is that most of the reserves of energy and minerals can be found in crisis areas. Security is really the big issue here. With static consumption the world reserve of important minerals such as silver is only 29 years, tin 40 years, lead 42 years, zinc 46 years, so we run out of minerals. Our prediction is, at least in my sense that most of the future will be about minerals and access to minerals and energy. And the figures I mentioned is only within static’s consumption. If consumption increases because of economic role and we will have it in future of course and that the reserve drop considerably a so security is one of the key issues. This, for example, puts the Article 5 discussion in completely different context. Because then minerals, energy will be key issue for international security. And how are we going to deal with that? Are we going to carry out, for example in NATO context out of area operations to gain access to energy resources? You tell me, probably we will. The Gazprom crisis is really instrument to have a debate on this. Climate changes in the way will increase the whole energy security debate. The North Pole region will be more accessible in the future and already now countries are trying to get access to the mineral wealth of the North Pole. And already now we see militarization of the countries around the North Pole. So this again puts Article 5 discussion in completely different context.
The rise of China, what has it to do with NATO? Everything. The rise of China and India has already had a profound effect on the energy market. It has leaded to, for example, a very tight oil market which was shifting from a buyer’s to a seller’s market. The same also through all the raw materials and minerals. This has profound implications for both world and regional order. So we must see this in the context of geopolitical change. The rise of China and other countries is important because over the last couple of several years we have already seen relative decline of Western power. This is important because due to the financial crisis we now may see a decline in absolute power of the West. If we want it or not but if countries like China and India continue their economic growth and we are on decline then the gap will be smaller if we want it or not. And as far as we know now countries like China and India and also other countries in the Middle East and Africa will be less affected then the West by the financial crisis so the gap will become smaller. So this observation of declining West was made for the first time by the National Intelligence Council in the US in great report Global Threats 2025 and this report has already acknowledge that this would have serious for the West ability to deal with issues like energy security. It will not only because we are less powerful also because our Western institutions and international law will be weakened.
There is a real danger in my view that, especially, because of this financial crisis we will wake up in a different world. For example, there is a danger that resource poor Western democracies will have to deal with stronger resource rich autocracies with a completely different view on economics - state capitalism for example. And this lead to a paradox, we have always looked at the America as soft power, some countries now consider China as soft power and I think that is very important to remember. The conclusion is, we have to defend our interest by working together, it is not only about the Russia’s threat, again the Gazprom crisis served as a wake-up call in the Western part of Europe but we must have a broad vision about the threats and about Article 5, it is about energy, it is about geopolitical thrive. We must defend our interest by deepening European integration and repair the transatlantic relations. Everyone must redefine NATO and for this reason it is also very important that we will have an Alliance’s security concept. We must prepare for a debate on the kind of forces we want to have because if we would like to defend your initiates than you need to have expeditionary armed forces, if you want it or not, an expeditionary armed force to carry out sustain combat operations. The problem is and Afghanistan clearly demonstrate what the problem really is that only a handful NATO countries have capabilities to carry out sustain combat operations and these are of course countries that are in the South and do all the duty there. Put it in simple terms, then my conclusion is that a key problem is that the West European member states of NATO they transform their armed forces into expeditionary armed forces for sustain combat operations outside the NATO territory and further you go to the East, there is a tendency to keep their armed forces where there are in place that armed forces are not very useful for combat operations outside the NATO territory and I can clearly understand why this is but in NATO Alliance security concept should give an answer to this problem. So this strategic review is necessary in order to understand the nature of the threat and required armed forces. It will be very difficult in my view to reach consensus but I think meeting like this can really contribute to find first answers.
Tomáš Valášek
What I noted down is that the new strategic concept must take it to account the growing scarcity resources, the rise of China and climate change. But also I realized how difficult it is to write anything in the middle of the financial crisis. When you tick all down the list, one by one, every single one of those trend lines is going to be deeply affected by the financial crisis. The rise of China – may it or may it not be an issue - China is also being hurt very badly by the financial crisis, its growth predictions has dropped which Chinese leadership considers save for sustaining social order and social peace in China and we should not necessarily take the continued rise of China for granted. I think that with each drop on open percentage point in the China’s growth, the risk of collapse and instability becomes more important.
Robin, you and I both live in London and a few countries have seen their economic fortunes turn quicker than the United Kingdom. You mentioned that the annualized drop in the economic output will be 6 %. Can we write the strategic concept under these conditions? Can we make any long sensible assumption about the long term future? In the other words, can we not write a strategic concept giving how much NATO has moved from the premises of the 1999 one?
Robin Shepherd
The financial question is obviously relevant. The point about the capabilities about the financial site needs to be also put in the frame of political will. I am going to draw even bigger picture than that in what I want to say here. Tomas, when you started out, you asked whether pragmatism and common sense should guide us. My response to that would be to say that what we view as pragmatical, commonsensical derives from the settled values and ideas which underpin all our actions. Mr. Bureau said that if NATO is going to be more and more political military organization, but where would the politics come from and how would that affect its military organization.
The superstructural ideas, ambitions, treaties and strategic concepts lies on top of a civilization base, which will determine whether what is thought about, talked about and written in treaties and strategic concepts has mean in a real world. There is one thing to talk about – Afghanistan, a NATO’s key out-of-area mission, is quite enough to summon up a political will to send troops in a front line. Referring back to Britain, it might not be quite apparent to people in some other countries in Europe, how much bitterness there is in Britain and in United States, Canada and in couple of other countries. About the fact that other countries in NATO are not to use the phrase which is always used - pulling their weight. This is something which cannot be underestimated. There are very few things which are more sensitive in politics and in the media, when you see your own brothers and sisters, your own country men and women coming home in body bags. I can tell you that whenever that happens, the question is always asked – why is it the Brits, the Americans, the Canadians and so on go down there fighting in the South whereas the Germans will not go down and the other countries will not commit anything. It is a tremendously sensitive question. And therefore, Afghanistan is an existential test. I think that it is very important. What we are really talking about in a new strategic concept is whether there is a political will and a public support to go beyond the minimalist version of NATO, effectively built around the old concept of Article 5 an old style direct militarily attacking. It is not mentioning energy, minerals, the cyber attacks that we saw in Estonia couple of years ago - these are all very important.
It is unlikely to be a kind of threat which sees the Russian army piling across the board between Estonia or Poland. Even those of us who are very concerned about developments in modern Russia do not really feel likely about them to happen. And actually precisely because we can all agree on the minimalist conception of NATO. I do not think any NATO member has a problem that if there really was an attack on Poland, for instance. When we are talking about a new strategic concept, the action here comes when we start to address the points about how we go beyond that minimalist version to address the kind of issues that a post 9/11 world brought to us even despite of all I said, and accepting all I said, the point about Article 5 is that it was written at the time when we did not think about transnational threats which we saw on 9/11, which we saw in London and Madrid as well. It is not quite enough to say that you could accept sort of minimalist version of NATO which we can all agree with but then some of us go on the separate ways on the second one, because they have the separate reference to Afghanistan. This would be a long term cause of tension, if there were different visions on what constitutes of threat and different willingness among different NATO members in terms of addressing that threat. I noticed this as a difficult question to address, because you have to get right into the big picture issues, but let me raise them, let me raise these big questions related to the willingness or otherwise to some countries to commit troops, to put their soldiers into firing lines, to except those news broadcast what you get every week or so in Britain and probably every day in the USA on about a week where soldiers do come back home in body bags. So is the core of a problem a kind of civilization exhaustion in Europe or parts of Europe? Is Europe a continent with a broken back? Has the 20th century history of Europe left Europe too pacifistic, too relativistic, too legalistic, too hedonistic? Is the response when America calls – sorry, we have got better things to do, call me when I get back from the beach? Is that the response - to put it in brutal terms? Because if that is the response, there is only question of time in my view, before forces in the USA, countries like Britain and other will not just be content to trying to hide some problems in the sort of corridors of power. It is going to have political consequences for the future of NATO.
I think we have to address these civilization questions. NATO leaders must agree to try to educate the populations that threats we are talking about are real and the sacrifices are worthwhile. There are an awful lot of people in Europe that think ultimately that threats of mass terrorism are something that was cooked up by Bush’s administration; it is all part of an alarmist agenda and that we can go back to sleep. I know that people in NATO do their very best in trying to educate people but the members of governments have to come together and remind people on a daily basis that this threat is real and it will come back. We will be all some point sitting like this, probably in next two years and we will have to address the fact that another massive bomb has gone off; in London, in Paris or Berlin or Los Angeles or wherever. I think it has something to do with electoral cycles, governments; they want to stress points about this sort of things at certain times and it is hard to get unity also. I think it is absolutely central that should be made a priority. Is it possible that governments can be more forthcoming in sharing the intelligence in the nature of those threats? I know that obviously there is a problem, you do not want to throw on very people for making those threats, but there obviously is a kind of in-built structural problem when you fighting a war on terror, or whatever you call it. It is very different from raising the Soviet Union as a threat, or even thought to put Russia as a treat. People can see that, so they can work it out for themselves. If effectively, what governments are doing is telling to the people – look, you just have to take out a word for it. It is not that easy for that kind of basis to build that kind of political consensus, which can change when it comes to particular things like NATO Strategic Concept.
Tomáš Valášek
I do not know, whether Europe has turn into one-child club net, I hope for our own seek and security that we did not, but we will find out soon when president Obama comes asking in April for more of ours assistance for Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Magdaléna Vášáryová
My name is Magda Vášáryová, I am a close friend to Slovak Atlantic Commission. I am going to the speech of Mr. Shepherd; you have said that the other members of NATO are not so active in the dialogue about new security issues in NATO. You are sitting here and there is no German expert sitting here. So my question is to Professor Rotfeld who is not only an expert to Polish-Russia relationship but also follows for long term the German situation and the German internal dialogue about the security issues. What do you think, professor: On which level is now the discussion about these questions you raised as a panelist today in Germany? How the situation in Germany and the “schroderization” or “non-schroderization” in the dialogue in Germany could influence the dialogue in the central Europe?
Oksana Antonenko
My first question is concerned with energy security. I think that no one would dispute that the energy security is an important issue, not only because of the latest crisis, but more generally because of what you described, growing demands etc. But I wonder, if energy security is really a right mission for NATO. We have been talking to Russia now for number of years telling them that it is not a good idea to make energy into the political, not as to say to the military issue. It has to be left to the market; it has to be left to the economic policy, to the liberalization, in creating the better environment for the competition, the monopolization etc. Can you imagine impact that new NATO strategic concept which puts energy security at the core, will have on Russia, on China, on a number of other countries that are really know wondering, whether energy security should have a military dimension. I think it is a good idea for us, Europeans and the Western in general to actually stick with the approach that energy security should be left to the EU policy, rather than making it a NATO priority.
The second question I want to raise is about Afghanistan. I mean, there is of course an agreement on the table that Afghanistan is an important mission of NATO, there is disagreement whether this mission is existential one, or not existential one. The important thing is that we are going to stay in Afghanistan. But this does not necessarily mean to be going to be successful in Afghanistan. I just came back from a very long trip to various neighbors of Afghanistan where we have a meeting with a central group among the central Asians, Iranians, and Pakistanis etc. There is a growing consensus among Afghanistan neighbors, the NATO presence in Afghanistan is now becoming part of a problem for Afghanistan, not part of the solution. So does the power in Afghanistan necessarily means that five years from now, ten years from now we are going to be better off. For example, central Asian states are extremely concerned that opening up the northern supply corridor to Afghanistan is going to bring a type of problems seeing to the south from north, which has been relatively stable. Expanding both the presence and the mission, war fighting mission in particular, with a surge of troops is going to only generate a great recruitment activities by various groups sort of loosely called Taliban which are going to impact the security of wider region. Is that wise to think that we are going to stay or is there a time now to talk about the exit strategy in new approach how to stabilize Afghanistan?
Rob de Wijk
Is it right for NATO to focus on energy security? I think, we do not have any choice. We in Europe consider energy in terms of free trade. Everywhere around the world, in USA, in China, India, it is considered on terms of security. We have a completely different view on in; for example China. It is restructuring its naval forces for expeditionary operations for the first time in history. Why? Because of the energy security. We see a debate around this everywhere around the world, not here. The fact that it is a security issue was demonstrated by Georgia. Most people in Europe would think that Georgia is a state of the US, they did not know where the country was but because of the pipelines running through it Georgia became strategically important. The whole gas crisis also demonstrates that it is possible for Russia to use energy as an instrument for cohesion. I was I Prague when the Czech government signed the agreement with the Americans on the missile shield – the next day, there were technical problems with the oil coming from Russia. That was not a coincidence, because that was already predicted that that would happen. I talked to Russian generals and they told me: well, we are not close to that, but probably, we will face some technical problems, it was predicted. It is a security issue, if you want it or not. It can be used in a sales market; it can be used as an instrument for cohesion.
The second issue is that most of the pipelines and the reserves are in crisis areas. In almost all conflicts we face today energy plays a role. I mentioned already a Congo – energy and raw materials, you have take these two together. Countries like China will not access to resources they do it. They have completely different vision of dealing with those countries dealing with those reserves. It is not a matter that we can buy it, if we are denied an access or we do have problems with oil from those places, than we probably have to defend our interest. Somalia is a great example. We have seen the hijacking of tankers; we did some research on the problem of piracy at the Nigerian coast. It is the same problem – it is all about oil. If you deny it, if you continue to see this in terms of foreign policy, I think that it is completely wrong. You have to accept that it is a security issue and because of that, it also has a military dimension. NATO should automatically play role in it.
What Afghanistan concerns, I fully agree in that that we have to develop a different strategy in respect to Afghanistan. And we have to come up with an exit strategy; we cannot stay there forever. What we are trying to do now is a kind of armed development aid and that simply does not work. What w should do and that is part of the exit strategy is that we hand over, as soon as possible the providing of security to the Afghan authorities. We have to build as soon as possible the Afghan national police and national army. If we do not do it, we will stay there forever. If they are able and capable to be responsible for their own security, w should get out, whether the whole country is reconstructed or not. The point is how to get out of this area – we have to provide the security for its citizens and should be done by the Afghan authorities. The US Secretary, Robert Gates tend to spend in next five years some 20 billion dollars on the Afghan national police and the Afghan army. That is the right approach. The idea is not only to rebuild a country and to create it according to our wishes, but to create security. If we have done that, than we should have taken out of the country.
Jean-François Bureau
In all this discussions about minimalist versus extensive dimension of NATO, Article 5 versus non-article 5, energy security versus Afghanistan, we should have all this pictures always in mind. Where are the threats we are facing? They are somewhere, but they are all at the same place, in a triangle going from the Black Sea to the Red Sea and to Karachi. The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the sources of terrorism and instability, the sources of energy security, we have the issue of Afghanistan in this region. We could say – this part of the world is not fully a NATO geographic asset or a geographic challenge. Some of NATO nations are close, many others are not but if w think about the way we can protect under the Article 5 the solidarity, which is provided by the Treaty. If we want to protect our nation according to the Article 5, we must think about the threats, which are coming from this part of the world where most of the threats and challenges are coming from, for different kind of reason, for many complex reasons, but they are all coming from this part of the world. The proliferation of ballistic missile is something which might have something to do with the Article 5; it is not only science fiction. If we believe there are good reasons to tackle these threats and challenges, which is the purpose of NATO, should we do it? Can we do it? Are there any other organizations ready to do it? Not so many; maybe no other one.
The fact is that more and more nations are coming to NATO, not because NATO is willing to enlarge itself in a sort of imperial tendency, but because NATO is attractive, it puts together the experts, the knowledge and know-how. And I have to say that when I look in the Mediterranean dialogue and the Istanbul initiative have been developed along the last years. The Gulf States which are partner in the Istanbul initiative are coming to see us. Yes, to talk about energy security, because they believe that NATO is a body, where they will find a good expertise. They will find the good level of understanding of certain issues, which are related to the energy security. So we are facing with an agenda, where we have more and more partners coming to tell us: you should do this thing, because you are the only ones to be able to do that.
The question that NATO will have to answer in the strategic concept is: Is it clear that energy security is not only a security issue? There are the economic dimensions and maybe the market could be more efficient to many of these issues related to the best way to provided for people, then there is a security dimension. So the question is: What is the added value of NATO. Where is its specific contribution? This is one of the most difficult questions we have. When we look at cyber defense, it is not necessarily only a security issue. There are many technological dimension, many economic dimensions, most of the answers about cyber defense would come from the private sector, from the private companies, from the way that we organize the networks. That is the way that we shall input an added value on the best way to tackle the security issue of cyber systems. The question for NATO for the future is: Where are you making the difference? Are you ready to make this difference? It is so much difficult to address these issues. Are you facing the same threat or not? That was basically the common understanding of territorial defense. When we say that our defense begins far from our borders, are we ready to draw the lessons of this assessment? This is another new challenge the NATO has. We shall never be the players of the energy security, in my view, but there is a part of the game, which can be played by NATO for good reasons and this are the reasons that nations have to share together, which can be the purpose of the strategic concept precisely. Where is the NATO added value for the future?
Adam Daniel Rotfeld
I would like to say that the Ambassador Vášáryová raised very sensitive question in many respects. First of all, it is not my intention to give a kind a devaluation of the policies of different powers. Germany is not only the strongest power, it is a stabilizer in Europe and I would like to say that in my view, lot of things is not imaginable without very strong engagement of Germany. On the other hand, some of you probably remember, in 2005 I took part in the Munich Security Policy Conference, which was with the participation of Gerhard Schroder, who has had flu and was not able to read a speech. So he asked Peter Struck, the Defense Minister to address that speech, whose central sentence was: In conviction of the transfer of Germany, Gerhard Schroder: The Alliance is not anymore a platform for strategic debate and decisions. We were shocked and lots of questions were sent immediately to Peter Struck and he said: I am not in a position to tell you what transfer has he had in mind, because I was told few minutes ago to read this out. Please, address these questions to him. Joshka Fisher has done a lot to explain, what transfer has he had probably in mind.
My intention is that this was a kind of peak of development of relations within the Alliance of the period of the previous American administration, namely, in Germany people were convinced with the American administration under George Bush, it is impossible to discuss the strategy of the Alliance. In other word, the European security was constructed in great extend in opposition to the USA – it is the worst what can be done for the future of the security of the transatlantic community in general. The USA is indispensable power and good and very close relations between Germany and USA and between Europe and the USA in general it is a kind of a precondition. Otherwise, we should forget about the Alliance. Germany played very constructive role in the past, not too many people remember that the Herman report was the product of the German thinking in the end of 60’s. When we are now speaking about strategic concept for Alliance in 21st century this Herman report should be seen as a kind o pattern. In my view, there is a need to have this type of thinking – very innovative, creative, future orientated – and Germany can definitely contribute in that.
Russia is very much oriented to rather differentiate the members of the Alliance and the EU. Russia’s policy that was demonstrated by this famous or infamous project so called North stream in other words to circumvent some European countries – in this case Poland – and to send gas directly to Germany. It was with an intention to offer Germany very special role as a country that has a privileged position in relations with Russia. Of course Russia has the right to do what is in Russia’s interest, it would be very naïve and childish to say that it is a kind of valuation of the code of good behavior. But in my view, it is responsibility of Germany to accept it or not. And I remember that in my discussion in that time with Joshka Fisher and Gerhard Schroder it was argument that it was only commercial issue, we should not politicize it. I do remember that Joshka told me: Please, do not politicize, it is very commercial and now we know that even the documents of the Russian Foreign Policy Strategy saying that Gazprom and the oil and gas is not only economic, it is first of all a kind of political instrument to defend Russia’s interest. One can expect from all European countries from the Western Europe and from the Netherlands as well a kind of solidarity. For Netherlands energy is very important issue, I do agree with that and for the rest of Europe it is the same.
As far as the Article 5, I would like to tell you that there was a chance for the United States to accept and offer which was the day after 9/11 when all European members of the NATO asked the United States to open the procedure under Article 5. It was addressed to Afghanistan and now we have a problem. In my view, Afghanistan is an extremely important issue and we have to be engaged but one should not present this as a kind of key element of the NATO mandate. The NATO mandate is to defend the members of the Alliance, otherwise, it will observe in Europe a kind of renationalization of security policies – and this is real threat – in other words, we should not undermine why people would like to join the NATO and why the NATO is still seen by them as the most important and crucial organization.
James Sherr
What we have to do with the future because surely the nightmare had as a change of regime in Pakistan and possible Egypt and some other places. My question to the entire panel is very quick: are you happy with the quality of thinking that NATO was putting into that possibility and our response to it.
Marcin Zaborowski
I have a question about the EU – NATO relations. Some figures have addressed already that the EU – NATO relations have improved. But we have a continuing problem of the Cyprus - Turkish relations and what does it mean for example for ESDP Mission in Afghanistan when we cannot use the protection of the NATO. Can we move in the EU – NATO relationship despite that processing problem that will stay for some time?
Robin Shepherd
I think the political nature of the problem is that too many people, and Tony Blair as well, put it at the speech to the European Parliament when Britain took the protecting Presidency of the European Union, he said: 9/11 was a wake-up call, the problem is that after the wake-up call too many in Europe simply followed sleeping up. And that is the danger when we are not facing the kind of threat that happens every single day, is the kind of threat that may only happen every six months, every year or every two years but it is so potentially so catastrophic. It is very important for political leaders to keep this going.
The point that NATO Assistant Secretary General said that NATO is expanding because it is attractive, I think of course NATO is attractive, I mean free driving is always attractive. Having your national security underwritten but the USA are not doing too much in return – of course it is attractive. The questions is, is it political sustainable in the long term?
The answer the point that Adam raised about the traditional NATO and the NATO is about the threats to NATO members but this is the point: is the United States views Afghanistan operations like this as a threat to United States in the way that Germany for instance – maybe any other country – they do view it that way and that is the core of the problem.
Finally, I am literally in the middle between Oksana and Rob on the question of energy security. But I was writing down these questions: What is the military response? What is the NATO issue here? What would NATO do to the EU or not?
Rob de Wijk
Military answer could be for example stabilization operations. Stabilization operation could be necessary in order to stabilize a certain region where for example pipelines went through. If we deploy our forces for such an operation than it could stabilize the region, then the pipeline security secured as well. This is a debate that has been going on for a long time in NATO and this is also recognized that this will be a task of NATO.
The second issue is that if the access is denied or pipelines are being threatened then we have may no other choice but to carry out a defense if you want it or not. We are going to do this. In this country you received no gas and you had to close down some factories. Something you now have in debate in this country on restarting an old nuclear power plan. If this is done on purpose with a strategic reason then you have to get the gas or oil if you want it or not. And that is my argument. We did some things in the past we had never envisioned. If you asked me or a politician in Netherlands earlier than 1999 that we would probably bomb targets in Serbia, people would say that you are mad but NATO carried out a defense in Kosovo. So we do it if we have to do it, because if we do not have gas or oil, we are going to get.
Am I happy with the quality of debate in NATO on te
