New Challenges - Better Capabilities

We have had some good warm up introduction and a lot of issues have come up and obviously the conclusion always is - we need more and more capabilities with fewer and fewer resources. The circle has never been easier to square but it´s getting harder all the time so it would be very interesting point ladies and gentleman if you come forward with questions, if you had any good solutions for us, how we sort of manage to acquire those key capabilities without declining budgets. Questions are excellent, but solutions are even better. I give the first question to somebody here, in the audience and then I am going to Brno.  Would somebody from in front of me like to go first? We´re going to do the traditional method of taking questions in threes and then I´ll ask whoever on the panel would like to answer to take the question.

I agree with what has been said. We have to avoid definitely duplication of effort well, for the country like Turkey, when you´re not a member in one of the organizations, but you want to contribute to the effort so bold and with reference to the political questions that you have raised, some other participants have also raised in the morning panels, sometimes it´s not easy to contribute to further development of European efforts, procurement but also multinational use of capabilities. Turkey ´s case is that, well i must say in the morning Mr. Sowa touched another part of the problem, most probably. I am touching another part of the problem and i am saying that Turkey is not able to contribute to the EDAs European Defence Agency´s efforts and it´s because we cannot sign a security agreement with EU. In such situation, yes we have to avoid duplication, what can you suggest to avoid that.

Thank you very much indeed for those two questions. Instead of three questions we ended up with five, but who´s complaining about that? More work for the panelists, not for me.  Minister, perhaps you wouldn´t mind if I put that question with usability targets that came from Brno. They were asking to what degree we have been a little bit too modest in having a sort of target of about 40%-50% for having deployable usable troops, cause it does suggest 50% we are quite content to have non usable and non deployable although that may be a very superficial impression. Obviously as a minister of defence you´re intensively involved in this debate. How do you feel about the level of the ambition of the usability targets of the ally? Do you thing we should be a lot more ambitious there, rather than having 50% 10%?

It´s not only usability, but it was also question about deployable forces, because most of the time in our discussions within the NATO council they go hand in hand. I am not familiar with details because my country is always scoring very high and I have never to be worry about those figures. But I do realise and sometimes I can be very modest man, that it is important like it was for a lot of countries especially in this part of Europe like it was in the past for a country like Netherlands to have a goal to be achieved because those figures how poor they are, maybe from the polish point of view they are used and they have to be used as a mechanism to restructure the army and to make it more expeditionary etc. And I´m quite sure that my colleges from especially this part of Europe have some problems to reach those figures, but nevertheless they can use it in discussion  with their parliament with ministry of finance, of course that is very important because they can say I need more new ideas because i need to modernize my army because i want to be a good member of NATO.

I pick up the last question from Warsaw – about the expeditionary capabilities and the traditional defence tasks. I do realize the question I really said something about it and I do understand why is that question from Warsaw from Poland. Well, it was a question from military person and they are more familiar with the answer than I am, but I´m quite sure that part of the answer my chief of defence has told me that the way we modernize our army in the last 15  years in a type of army that is of course very useful for the expeditionary missions all that you can use if there is a kind of a traditional defence problem facing your country so next to what they said before the obligation i have to my college minister of interior the structure of my army, the capabilities i have are very useful if i have to face the attack from Belgium, Germany,  whatever. My point is against the polish military officer there is not a real difference between those two types of targets you have to face.

Absolutely. It´s probably a tack of tourists coming to enjoy the excellent beer and hospitality of the Netherlands, but those are the kind of problems. Damon, looking at you - NATO´s fundamental tasks from American perspective. Is now the main function of NATO to assist the USA to deal with global challenges or does the US sort of see that NATO has other uses as well? We could get the American perspective on that question.

Certainly Jamie, I think the core of the Alliance as article five of collective defence, and that´s going to remain. That´s the essence of the unity that brings North America and Europe together in the transatlantic link of commitment to defending each other of a tact. I think that there is no questioning of that commitment. That´s the premise upon which  the political links already exist behind the Alliance so that we therefore can work as a community to address global challenges, global issues, so there are other security tasks out there, and I have mentioned a couple, but I think you keep at the core collective defence you keep at the core Article 5. I do thing as the Alliance continues its process of transformation which has been going through for 20 years now, thinking about comprehensive approach it endorse the concept it´s talked about it and it´s handicapped it´s ability to implement it because it says it won´t have the civilian capabilities it won´t  develop the civilian aspect and I am thinking about transformation – where we go now, what is the transformation agenda for the Alliance. Part of it is how to bring some reality to comprehensive approach. NATO on the ground in Afghanistan isn´t able to presume the comprehensive approach , it does have the capacity the capabilities. John McCrystal - the NATO military commander needs a civilian kind a part that is responsive the way  we can help to implement this in a real way. I also thing the other aspect of this. This is the kind of role that the Alliance can play with the African union they can play in scenario in the context of peace in the Middle East Palestinian security forces even Pakistan perhaps. I think that value added which takes the burden of troop employments and are focused on training which hast to be evaluated as well. Just one quick solution as part of the mix here as well. The issue for this deplorability and the minister had made the reference here, some of those targets  are actually not met by those who are most concerned about the credibility of Alliance and it´s here sometimes in central Europe and I think, you mentioned Robinson´s quote, he used to travel form capital to capital reaching NATO ´ s credibility as it´s capability. I think right now, many of the allies in central and eastern Europe are most hoping to go through this process and to be reassured to see the credibility of the Alliance restored and that´s something that´s driving a lot of their ambitions in this process. We´ve got a problem we can solve it with solidarity how to deal with Russia, differences on the importance of Afghanistan, decreasing budgets. It seems to me that rather than this dynamic race to the bottom we try to change the dynamic , there is a bargain with the Alliance comes through very clearly about article five, exercises, reassurance, NATO infrastructure in the region and those who are seeking to be reassured and not passive in this but play an active role they not just take active roles in developing contingency plans but that they start to challenge other allies because they start to meet some of these targets if they are most concern about the credibility of the Alliance that they start the competition that actually show that they are investing in and making a commitment to meeting some of it to put pressure on other allies. So it´s not just about how the USA have large eyes reassure other allies to the east. It´s about doing it together.

Thanks. Admiral, there has also been a question from Brno. I must confess the sound cut out a bit so i am not sure i perfectly understoo this, i hope you did, so you can answer it. It was about the need for maritime capabilities in Middle east or the broader world and whether US is engaged whether you would see that as NATO responsibility in 21. century. Any thoughts of that one.

I think, talking about article five and being on core and the basis for entire concept of NATO there are other wehicles, consultations and these other tasks logistics training whatever . But if you can define at the next level article five which would include the comment from Brno that says should we include these other types of tasks, pirates attacks on civilian ships, NATO ships military ship trying to prevent the threat. The question is how many do we have. What is it that NATO wants to produce as an end result in relation to that type of threat in Article 5. Once you´ve decided that that´s the main thing of NATO than you walk back your processes and walk back all these other particular tasks to help to find for the countries what their contributions would be, because until all that is reached there will be different contributions the question is are they relevant in relation now to perhaps not a redefinition of Article 5 but a greater definition of Article 5 as to how you would respond. In the business sense you have got to find something that you measure so you can claim success and I´m not so sure what that is in relation to article five if is it deployed win, if is it number of forces deployed which btw is the input matter not output matter. So I think by addressing article five at next level and deciding what the main thing of NATO was about and than driving processes and all these other things to that what you get is a much clear and much crisper contribution from all the countries that aren´t NATO support for infrastructure.

That´s obviously one of the big debates for the new strategic concept – the elasticity of Article 5.  Adam, the lady from Turkey asked the question about the role of Turkey in the EDA. I know that that´s obviously a politically delicate issue .But it also may be good if you could comment on more broadly how you see NATO and EU in terms of coordination of capability and avoiding duplication she referred to.

Referring to the question of a lady from the Turkish Ministry of foreign affairs – i have a lot of sympathy in your view because the history was that  the European defence agency  was created as a conclusion as a part of solution coming out of bad experience from previous multinational cooperation and as a matter of fact all the members are pretty satisfied and the only victim was Turkey due to the political reasons we were unable to conclude what we call administrative arrangement, but this is at political level so EDA prepared everything but this is at the council level, it was blocked by some countries. I must say that i was at that time at the polish national seat and i was supporting Turkey to join so this is another aspect. It is not to blame anybody, as you pointed out there is something wrong in the relations and everybody is suffering so we are wasting time , we are wasting resources we could do better if we solve this problem and it was that encouraging to hear today from the secretary general of NATO and also ambassador Vershbow mentioned this that they will take this on board and do the best to solve the problem. About the context of these relations, since 2003 we have quite good political tools package so it allows EU to use common structure of NATO as well as other assets for planning and conduct of military operations for ESDP. We also have the capability to so called EU – NATO capability group has been created but it was let us say talking-only community until the European security agency was created and then let us say good partners on both sides, better decisions started, but what they would like to emphasize we do not have formal relations with NATO so everything we could do we do informally so informally we could exchange information only and still, if it is not classified than we have the problem that I mentioned today that we cannot exchange unclassified information. It is not completely disaster because we exchange information with the nations and nations are our masters so they tell us what to do what not to do we just try to avoid the duplications. For us I felt that this is the obligation to raise the flag and challenge the politicians to solve this problem.

On that exact point i see that the minister-the politician would like to come in and say something
Eimert van Middelkoop: Maybe i can add something. I agree with all that has been said. The word disaster was very honest. The deployment of EUPOL in Afghanistan was a disaster because the lack of cooperation between NATO and EU. I was criticized for that several times in parliament That´s what you have to do as a minister but the real problem was the lack of cooperation  between the two big institutions. There is something very different and maybe i could even provoke my good colleague Peter McKay to come and answer on this if you wish but that is what we are doing now on the cost of Somalia a  frigate  with the commander who is now commanding the EU operation Atalanta. This week I was thinking and investigating trying to answer the question what we can do next year, i still don´t have the answer i say that because there is a journalist in the hall- there is no answer between investigating and at one moment possibility came along of having a Dutch frigate part of the NATO SMG (Steady maritime group) working there and on top of it a platform as a common structure for the EU-Atlanta. Technically speaking it is possible, they told me. Institutionally speaking it is very interesting of course and maybe i have to provoke, now I have to be careful, EU and NATO by offering such a possibility. But coming to speaking about provocations to Peter McKey my good friend of Canada. For me, there was the provocation it is until today very pragmatic if we are trying to protect our merchant ships and deter pirates etc. If it´s EU mission or NATO mission. I think today the EU would do a little bit better because the have contacts with Kenya. I remember Peter that the last meeting we had with NATO you had the more or less principal view on the job that has to be done by NATO. Maybe i can front your pragmatic view . Especially for the discussion for my parliament doesn´t matter who does if it has been done and sometimes it was you they have to lead more or less now, but NATO was also in the picture sometimes, I didn´t know about frustration by the formal agent of NATO that he thought that we should do more. If only one frigate at the moment if it´s  flagged  for NATO or the EU what does it matter. I hope the provocation works.

Peter McKay has been challenged so, I´m going to give him the floor immediately.

Just to respond to my friend Eimert. It had been a political issue and I always find it bit amusing that doctors can be – they can speak of medicine, lawyers can be legal but politicians being political it seems somehow as a bad thing. On the subject of the Standing NATO maritime group we have literally just deployed HMCS. One of our ships is on its way to the Adriatic. I guess because Canada´s role in global security and the role we feel we can play significantly is through NATO. I think it is in combat at the political level we gather active together because what is it at stake so critically important these sea lanes now are global highways that move tremendous amounts of material now around the globe and so at the political level we have to communicate better. I must comment this form because i think we are seeing something that is of critical importance now, the ability to link in other countries through global satellites  we should be doing more of this. We live on a different continent  and yet we still feel of course very important and very relevant in the global discussion as of course does the USA but you know I flew nine hours to be here today I would love to be in Canada. The main point here is at the political level it´s also in sense that we do more of this to make the case to the public because to our parliaments to the people that we represent we have to stress the importance of these global security discussions, for example Canadians died on 11. 9 – this is something that´s often overlooked this was a direct attack on North America. We sometimes remind ourselves of that in the discussions around what´s happening in Afghanistan today. Coming back to this comprehensive approach this is again something that there is a lot of shared knowledge and knowhow that should be taking place in the discussions around success and what constitute success in conflict like Afghanistan because let´s not kid ourselves this type of insurgency is the way of the future in terms of challenges that we´re all going to be facing, there ´s no denying that reality. The comprehensive approach of ensuring that we include the local populations the way in which we train up countries like Afghanistan to eventually take control of and responsibility for the wrong security regional approaches are also extremely important and  in that context and i know Richard  and others have talked about the importance of including Pakistan and i would say even going out broader in that neighborhood  to find the solution is what´s going to be required. But, explaining to the public the importance of what NATO does, this concept of common security of which we´re all beneficiaries should never get lost in these discussions. I again comment the organizers of this form I thing this is a wonderful opportunity to have these open discussions as far as the maritime task group i think NATO is far more fulsome approach as oppose to simply having a European stamp on it because it affect us it affects North America it affects Asia it affects global security and maritime security as much as the central peace in my view as we go forward.

We are in the final round now, because the clock ticks inevitably. Brief interventions, please.

I have a question to the admiral because during the cold war period the main task of naval forces was to secure the flow of materials and troops across Atlantic that´s why there was such a tremendous importance attached to submarine warfare and incidentally embrace another that´s chasing and illuminating the strategic submarines carrying the nuclear strategic weapons. Now situation has changed completely, it seems that now what is really the main issue is the power projection protecting sea lines but not against the submarine attack. Is there a sort of moment, changes of priorities should be actually expressed in the composition and the procurement policy of our navy. Thank you.

You will get an answer from the deck of the ship in the moment to that maritime question. The lady from the turkey wanted to come back.

EUPOL Afghanistan. The minister of defence of Netherlands that it was almost a disaster. I agree with that, and I couldn´t understand for example how come that EU defence ministers take the decision to launch EUPOL in Afghanistan and one day later on there is the NATO defence ministers meeting but NATO doesn´t know about that decision. The same thing on piracy. Finally we see that we are not able to cooperate but it´ s not a problem of NATO - EU cooperation , am I wrong, because mainly we are nations and there are some nations that are members of both. How come that we are still not able to cooperate.

Unfortunately I ´m not coming up with solutions but just a slight comment. When you speak about NATO being a political-military organization and the question of capability it is mostly the military question however sometimes it is slightly forget and it is political as well, because  giving the capabilities at the dispose of the organizations and their allocation is highly political for example and it´s my point of view the political framework for the USA and for the EU countries are slightly different when it comes to the visibility  of allocation and military spending and giving on the budget because it´s much easier to sell to the electorate in the USA giving historical perspective that we are going to spend on defence than it is in the Europe because it is more concern with welfare services and especially during the crisis – cut the military budget is easier than to cut jobs and something like that. On the other hand that would be perhaps the question on the other side of the Atlantic to the USA  if this is perceived to be sort of a free rider security guarantees to the Europe if this is like in the Washington and on the other hand what is the motivation for European countries to be more engaged and to spend more when this is not popular within their countries if they know that in this way or the other USA will keep engaged with them. Thank you.

That was a real politik kind of question for somebody so young. But it ´s good question.

Two points on the last question. I think this comes down to an issue Are NATO allies , do they see themselves as a contributor to an operation or do they feel some type of ownership for it. That frankly hits the problem of the EU police mission in Afghanistan. EU doesn´t own the problem the way NATO does, I think Americans for the most part were very much recognized for sacrifice the Canadians the Dutch the Brits, many of our allies have taken extraordinary sacrifice in Afghanistan and I think that´s recognised. I think there is a concern it is not seen as consistent across the board and that does see support so I think you´ve asked  me an important issue. And that comes back again to political leaders here you have a defence minister that has been incredibly outspoken about explaining the mission to population of Canada. Do people take an ownership of the problem or the are doing a little contribution do they not feel the sense of responsibility for the outcome i think that Canada feels the sense of responsibility for the outcome. It shows and that´s the kind of thing that resonates within being an alliance for the USA. Just the last closing thought is that this discussion is about the military transformation and it is about the Alliance being continually  prepared for the new threats the Dutch minister of defence and his remarks talked about the certainty we face and thats what military transformation is about and so the aliance continues to need to put a priority on preparing for cyber warfare preparing for short, medium ranged for long term. For missile defence work the cyber defence work. We didn’t talk much about in this panel but these are crucial to the future of the alliance, the are not auxiliary or ancillary they are important to getting the transformation story right insight NATO.

Damon, thank you for reminding us about the things we didn´t  talk about , no doubt have talked about, but it is too late now . So I pass on to the Admiral.

To the submarine forces or maritime forces or whatever -  I ´ve spent 20 years of my life flying patrol aviation chasing wordy advisory and Russia, actually the Soviet Union. Never once did i sink a submarine, never once. It was to deter, knowing where everybody was mutual respect frankly mutual respect between the Soviet Union and the NATO forces and Standing Naval Group Atlantic. Well I´ll tell you when i got to 1991 I served as a joined staff as a force designer I sank more submarines on the joined staff than I ever did as a patrol plane pilo.t They just happened to be US submarines and it was because we made decisions pass 89 during that period of time to take and look in our force structure and decide what force structure did you really want for the future. And so in 1991 and 1992 we chose to change the force structure so that it would meet the current, what we thought were the threats. Secretary Gates is very focused on its output the consequences of it and for structure decisions will be made based on current threats and so i am fairly certain to look at submarine forces and their capabilities, look at fast reaction forces look at things that Damon talked about as far as nation building and whether military is getting involved. The last comment I want to make is NATO has it´s opportunity in this strategic concept review to put the same thoughts out there as to what they think are important how the want to address force structure cause once you dress force structure he has capabilities important but numbers also mater.

Admiral thank you very much. Adam.

I feel that we should leave the room with a more positive message I do not have enough time but there are really many examples of coordination that went excellently just allowing to complement each other I could mention a helicopter issue so everybody knows the critical issue of helicopters unavailability so we knew what NATO is doing we identify the gap in tactics training in preparation for NATO missions. We launched the very quick study and preparation and the pilot project for training was implemented and together with life exercises in France and the Czech pilots were prepared for ISAF operation. In helicopter topic we also started discussion on future European heavy transport helicopter and including the cooperation with the USA. There was a very good feedback people from the USA from the Pentagon they responded that they do not see future without this cooperation. On European air transport fleet, we want also to complement the successful program with C17 all other transporter craft will be pulled and the concept is to share the resources to exchange flying hours and training pilots together and so on and than taking on board also a several hundred transporter craft. And there are other topics like network enabled capability or countering improvise explosive devices and so on so there are really practical examples of good coordination with NATO.

Adam thanks, for pointing those out we always concentrate on the part of the eisberg that we can see above the surface but there is a lot going on underneath and i am grateful to you for pointing that out. Minister the final word is yours.

I´ll try to answer the political question it was a very principal question and I can deliberate on that for many minutes and maybe even hours, but there is no time fot that. You are completely right that we especially we as Europeans are vulnerable for you mentioned the words free security. You are right. My feeling is that we especially as a ministers and as politicians we are responsible that we have to communicate to the people to the parliament . We have to be involved and we have to be engaged for reasons of sometimes even national self interest for instance to deter to fight piracy is also a matter of national self interest for us like i tis for Canada and for lot of countries, for instance Chinese we do cooperate there in that ocean with the Chinese that is something very special. Also for reasons of international gesture like this part of the answer on questions about Afghanistan. For those reasons for me the NATO is so important, because it is a bridge between the north America USA, Canada and Europe so they especially USA can ask us Europeans to take our share to be responsible like for instance Bob Gates has done some many time in last couple of years in asking us to do more in Afghanistan for good reasons, i suppose. And next to that and it´s not a mater of duplication but learning to be more responsible, there is the ESDP it is a kind of an adventure but a necessary adventure to be responsible as the European Union minister of security and that ´s why I am little bit proud that I am now commanding the EU first maritime force Atlanta along the shores of Somalia. And that has nothing to do with the question of EU and NATO. For EU it is important that we learn to be responsible.

Ladies and gentleman I said the minister could have the last word, I lied of course as the chair i would just say a few concluding things. What struck me in this very rich discussion which thankfully did not simply duplicate what was said in the panel earlier but did open up new topics.  First of all no matter how much we may agonize - do we have the right strategy, at the end of the day success is also about having adequate resources. You can invent the most beautiful strategy in the world but if you don ´t have the capabilities you don´t  have the resources it is not going to succeed.  The second thing that struck me is that we are all clearly in difficult financial environment, there is a lot that we can do with the politics of the issue which would at least help us as you used the word more complementarities we are not necessarily getting the most out of what we have already and I suppose it is going to be difficult for us to the case without public opinion that we should spend more on defence if we cannot demonstrate that we are making much better use out of the money and the resources that we have already. For example we discussed the length and very interestingly the NATO-EU relationship, Adam reminded us that there is lots going on which is very positive in terms of complementarity and working together but that there is lot more that we could do and we should certainly complement each other and not rival each other. The minister I think pointed the NRF that ti is not good having a capability and spending a lot of money on it if you can´t use it because you don´t agree on how you should use it. Therefore is best to have some kind of political vision before you develop the capability. Again we learned from the EU experience that you can put civilian research or military research, civilian capabilities military capabilities together and achieve this goals which give you much more ban, if that is the right word, or capability for the Euro or for the Dollar than you would achieve otherwise. Also the point was made that we more rigorous prioritization, the Admiral pointed out i think very effectively that we cannot ignore the maritime component which is becoming more important and i think Damon finally reminded us that on the end of the day no matter how much the US as done and continues to do for the alliance that cannot observe the Europeans off  their responsibility to do their utmost as well and the US commitment in the Alliance is obviously to some degree proportionate to the willingness of the Europeans also to make an effort in a field of transformation not being equal to the US to spend what the US spends it is not an excuse for not doing more and being a small country is no more an excuse to make those efforts than if you are a large country. Yes it would be great to have a lot more money  but at least if we manage to better and a better job  with the politics we could probably be much further along even with the money we still have at the moment. That is the conclusion i bring from this discussion. I would like to thank most sincerely to the minister Van Middelkoop for being with us today because it is a heavy day and i would like to say thank to those other defence ministers who joined the audience and participated, because having your perspective obviously managed to introduce the politics into the discussion in the way we needed. Adam thanks very much for being very open and candid in your replies. Admiral I am very grateful to you for your perspectives. Damon, you come a very long way to be here today and thank you also for your candid remarks and providing that essential transatlantic perspective as did the admiral through all of our debate. Thanks again for the audience. Thank you.

Ladies and gentleman, I trust you´re all satisfactorily fed and  watered after that excellent luncheon and the well-deserved break. I have accepted the challange to chair the most difficult session of the day, the one that takes place, of course, immediately after lunch when  it´s a battle between, on the one hand, the  intellectual stimulation and the excellence of the speakers, and on the other hand, the weight of all of the food and  the coffee weighing down on your minds. But I think as I said, that with given excellence of the panel and the speakers we have today, we will emerge victorious, if not immediately, so welcome back. Now, this panel is devoted to a subject, which is, I think,  already very familiar to anybody who has been at this conference from the beginning - NATO´s military transformation, operations´ and capabilities´ development. And to help us elucidate further this theme, which we heard about already quite extensively in the panel just before lunch, we have first of all, a key-note speaker, a Minister of Defence of the Netherlands, Eimert van  Middelkoop, I am very pleased that you´re able to take the time because I know that you´ve got a very busy agenda in Bratislava this afternoon and immediately before the NATO Defence Ministers begin their meeting. We also have Damon Wilson, a long-standing, dear friend of mine with whom I worked for many happy years at NATO headquarters, Damon went on to being at National Security Council and is now at, temporarily I imagine but Damon that´s for you to say,  out of government and in a think-tank quote where he is a director of the International Security Programme at the Atlantic Council of the United States. We have Adam Sowa, you´re familiar with Adam because I think that he is probably the one who´s asked the most questions at least in the time that I´ve been here today, and just to recap, he is the Deputy Chief  Executive Operations´ of the European Defence Agency in Brussels, and the fourth speaker – panelist today , immediately, of course, to my left, is vice-admiral, though he has retired in brackets, Walter Massenburg, who used to be the former and  the commander of the Naval  Air Systems´ Command and now has a number of different roles, you´re both at the Institute for Defence and Business at the University of North Carolina and you´re the Vice-president for Readiness and Sustainment with BAE systems, so you combine both the intellectual and the more operational world of  industry. So that gives us a very broad range of views. So now, ladies and gentlemen, I´m aware that our task is a difficult one, because much of what I noted down, sort of key points for the discussion, was already said very well and  very convincingly by the  panel looking at tha capabilities and the financial crisis just before lunch. But as you know, diplomats are well used to the proposition that everything has been said, but not by me, and therefore we will find eloquent ways of hopefully saying the same things but in different language which will make it all look refreshingly new to you, but just before I ask the minister to give us his key-note speech I do think that we are dealing with problems which are at the very heart of the alliance. NATO is, of course, a political-military alliance, it´s not just a military alliance. But it´s main role, I believe, is to deal with the military capabilities, that´s what makes it different from the many other international organizations. As Frederic the Great One said: „Diplomacy without arms is like music without Instruments.“ And I worked, and Damon did as well for many long years with George Robertson who said that he has only 3 priorities as a Secretary General – capabilities, capabilities, and guess the third word – capabilities. NATO, as he never found to point out, is only as good and as credible as the capabilities that it is able to deploy. One of the phrases he always used is that you cannot send a wiring diagram into a crisis. And indeed, we´ve even now established a Special Allied Command under a Forced Ofference Air Force General to deal with this issue of transformation. But I think as we learned, ladies and gentlemen, in the panel just before lunch, transformation has had mixed results at NATO. It´s a subject which sounds good as a slogan, not so easy to translate into day-to-day operation reality. We heard this morning  that there are three paradoxes that make this effort so difficult. There´s the paradox of operations that they teach you lessons about what capabilities you need but  at the same time they take resources away from the ability to modernize and to develop new capabilities. If you´re replacing newly your helicopters in Afghanistan  because they all have been used up, and I think that the minister has experienced that in Netherlands has had with the Apaches, it´s not so easy to spend money on future systems.Secondly, the paradox of the financial crisis puts pressure on budgets but who said it – senator Vershbow, never verse to good crisis, also it is an opportunity for the more fundamental restructuring  that NATO maybe requires. And finally the paradox of  the comprehensive approach. We go around saying:  „yes, the military cannot do it by itself“ ,we need a more effective interaction with the civilian agencies, but the more we point out, ladies and gentlemen, how important the civilian side is, the more tempting it is for our governments to start putting resources not into the military but into the civilian side, into deployable police, into governments, into counter narcotics, into agriculture and therefore all we´re in danger  of having a competition  inside our governments between those who want more military assets and those who want more civilian assets. So we face a number of tasks that come from the way NATO has evolved. Well, how we´re going to get the forces that we require? We heard this morning from previous speakers that we know what we need, at least we´ve done the announces part, well, we need the deployable forces,  equipment for a full range of missions and strategic distance, we need more intelligence, we need more command to control the situation of awereness , we need more logistic, we need  ground transportation, helicopters, transport aircrafts, we need to be more expeditionary, so nobody I think would question this analysis but the problem is - how do we get it?  It´s very easy, as Karl Marx once pointed out, to analyse the world - our task is to change it. Much more difficult. And therefore I think in this panel what we´d like to do is not so much focus on what we need,  we know that already, but how particularly in the environment and scarcity do we get it. The minister will help us on that  way, and I´m also pleased to say that we still have defence ministers also in the audience, minister Jelušič, she´s still with us and I welcome Defence Minister of Canada, Peter MacKay, who is here too and who will no doubt have his word to say  also before we finish.  But with those preliminary thoughts  to get you all back in the groove and your minds set off  after  lunch, I now call on Minister Eimert van Middelkoop to present his key-note remarks and get our debate on the way. Minister, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Jamie Shea, ladies and gentlemen, I promise you that I will not use the same speed as Jamie´s doing, I am not allowed to do that and it is not possible for me. Thank you for such a huge audience and someone told me that there are also students from universities from all over Eastern and Middle Europe and it´s exciting for me. So on behalf of my side, I say welcome to those students. I do realize that every young person with interest in international politics and NATO politics is more or less a promise for the future. Ladies and gentlemen, for more than 60 years, NATO has been the key factor in providing peace, stability and security in the North Atlantic area and beyond. From the founding days of our North Atlantic Alliance, the Netherlands has always been a strong supporter of this bond. And we still are to this very day. We have underlined these commitments in the past by contributing to all major NATO operations and of course also to the NRF - NATO Response Force. And we underline  this commitment  today with our very presence in Afghanistan. Because we believe the organisation is just as relevant now as it was in 1949. It´s retained its relevance in a changing world by adopting its strategy to the changing circumstances. After celebrating its sixtieth anniversary last april we once again find ourselves at an important crossroads. The heads of state and government have decided to review the Alliances´ strategy concept for the seventh time in its existence. While doing so it is important  to both look at the future and learn from hitory without necessarily expecting the letter to impede itself. I say this because the lessons of the recent past or maybe, from all past, are always foremost in our minds. As a result, we attempted to prepare for the previous conflict instead of for the future ones and that should be avoided. The current strategy is, or was sometimes criticized for being too Balkan-centric, lets go to replace it by one that is too AJSEF-centric. In my country, the Netherlands, we are currently conducting a defence future-policies survey, in doing so, we are trying to learn from history by identifying several strategic functions that  armed forces have performed overtime, including deterrance, protection and intervention. The dominant function or functions, at any given point in time, determine how forces are organized and equipped. Let us look for example at NATO´s first strategic concept - the strategic concept for the defence of the North Atlantic area. This concept, approved on the 6 Jan, 1950, stated that the primary function of NATO was to deter aggression and to defend the alliance in case deterrence should fill. The dominant functions of  NATO at that time were therefore deter and protect. And this is reflected in how NATO was organized and equipped at that time. We had large, heavily armed static forces with headquarters and operation centers in concrete bunkers. The situatioin is radically different today. We are facing non-state acters, terrorism, piracy, climate change and cyber crime in a world in which geopolitical relationships have changed significantly. Interstate conflicts are still possible of course, but they are far less likely than they were in the past. The threat to NATO is no longer monolithic, but extremely diverse and diffuse. As long ago as the 1990´s, defence was limited to Alliance territory and that was the   driven   factor behind one of the most significant decisions in NATO´s history to go out of  area when the need arose. It´s hard to predict how the security situation will develop in the future. All ongoing future -policies surveys therefore take into account  multiple scenarios. Allied Command transformations´ multiple future´s project is a good example of this approach. We will, no doubt, be taken by surprise by future developments.  We have been several times in the past. 9/11 is an example of such a dramatic event. All we can do to protect ourselves is make sure in maintaining capability to respond adequately to these surprises. And since we cannot predict which strategic function of  the armed forces will become dominant in the future, we must ensure that the Alliance is able to address all seven of them adequately. This does not mean that each nation has to do so  individually. Most nations would find it to be too expensive. Well, recognizing that we all require our own general purpose tool box of national military capabilities, a certain degree of tasks specialization is desirable within NATO. As long as we make sure all strategic functions are adequately covered within NATO as a whole, all nations can place more or less emphasis on certain strategic functions, depending on their own national priorities. And this also allows them to build on certain specific areas on military expertise acquired over the years. In this context, collective capability development can be seen as a particular variety of tasks´ specialization. The Netherlands has always been a strong supporter  of such initiatives and we still are. The C17 initiative has been the latest successful example. In this project, 12 nations are working together to provide the Alliance with a strategic air transport capability at an affordable price. Initiatives like this cross effective way of providing the Alliance with key or expensive capabilities, which most nations would not be able to afford on their own in the current financial and economic climate that is more important than ever. We must allow for differentiation but  it remains essential for all nations in the Alliance to be willing and able to share the burden. Not only financially. But also in terms of troops deployed and risks taken. For this region it is essential for all nations to posses adequately equipped and trained deployeable and expeditionary forces. Not only to participate in crisis management operations but also to support each other if now Article 5 situation arises. We must therefore vigorously pursue our ongoing NATO transformation effort. It should not be slowed down or halted while we are waiting for the new strategic concept to materialize. Usability figures, we´re presenting the persentage of deployable and sustainable land forces per nation. And we should continue to use them. Nations not yet meeting the deployability and sustainability targets should commit themselves to doing so at a fixed date in the future. What, thus, a conclusion  can we draw with respect to our required capabilities and how we organize ourselves? As NATO needs to provide all seven strategic functions adequately, it is more important than ever to remain flexible and adaptable. This puts a high demand on our headquarters and commands´ structure - they need to be lean, flexible and mobile. And they need to have  contentity plans for a wide range of eventualities. We also continue to require a NATO Response Force to respond quickly and decisively, should the need arise. Like the Command Structure,  the NRF shold be usable for a multitude of  tasks including Art.5 situations, crisis response and humanitarian relief. It should even be available as a reserve force for major operations. It must be facilitated by a responsive decision-making process. There is no sense in having a quick action force if the decison to deploy it is debated endlessly or if there is a lack of political will to use it. In addition, we should review how the NRF is funded. At the momnent , participation in the NRF is too much a debt  treat. If the NRF is used, its contributor pays its own course. This principle, has already lead to some unpleasant financial surprises. Small wonder then, that it is a major reason that nations are reluctant to use the force as intended. If the NRF is used for actual operation, all of the Allies should share the burden. Sarkozy´s latest plans provide a sound organizational basis for the NRF, consisting of a Response Forces pool and an Immediate Response Force. I am confident this approach will work if nations are willing to contribute their fair share expressed in their voluntary national contribution targets. On average, we are willing to provide 5% of the strenght of the Immediate Response Force. This percentage is significantly higher than our agreed from the initial course this year. I call on the other nations to follow sooth  and share the burden. During recent operations we have become increasingly aware that crisis situations cannot be solved by military force alone. In order to win the peace in the highest amounts of the population, we need to engage civilian reconstruction efforts as well. This does not mean NATO has to acquire civilian capabilities itself. Instead, we should invest a sort of partnerships with specialized civil organization, such as the UN and, of course, the world of the NGO´s. We should all concentrate on what we do best but do it together. A final issue I would like to raise today is resources. I have already stated my view that the Alliance needs a baseline capable of addressing all seven strategic functions adequately. On top of that, the Alliance needs to be able to adjust quickly to new developments in the international security situation, emphassing specific strategic functions as required. This is a real concern of mine because we can only be as flexible as our budget allows. In 2006, NATO ministers already issued ministerial guidance stating that resources should no longer be spent on existing structures, fixed installations and obsolete infrastructure. Instead, it directed us to focus our resources on operational capabilities. So my point is, if we agree on this, let´s do it. NATO´s budget has not grown in real terms for many years. One could argue that NATO´s budget should be increased.  But given the current economic conditions, this is of course a controversial issue and not only in my country I suppose. Consensus in this respect would be difficult to achieve, therefore our first priority should be a detailed review of our current projects. Many of them have had long lea times. Meanwhile there are adjustifiable  doubts about the extent to which they contribute to achieving  our main goals. In my view we cannot restore our financial flexibility by reprioritizing and cancelling current projects as appropriate. And by doing so, we´d be able to free up resources and firm to more urgent requirements such as the new and currently unfunded ISAF headquarters in Afghanistan. Ladies and gentlemen, our goal should be an Alliance with a sound baseline in terms of forces available. A realistic and sustainable level of mission and a solid financial fundation allowing us the flexibility to adjust to new threads as they emerge. It is a challenging goal to achieve in a current economic and financial climate but by far not the greatest challenge the Alliance has ever faced and I am confident we can arise to the occasion. Thank you very much for your attention.

Minister thank you very much indeed, and I really am very greatful for saying things that one said earlier today, specifically linking transformation to the NATO agenda which you did most eloquently. Incidentally, I found to recognize Minister Mladanov of Bulgaria for which I apologize early, my eyes were too much steered to the left, so Minister excuse me, I´m delighted to have you here and I´m looking forward to your contribution as well to our debate. Minister, just to kick us off,  and I turn to the others as well. Before you came today, several sort of questions came up on  which I´d like to have your view, one view is that a country like the Netherlands, should it give all of its forces to expeditionary missions, or is there still a certain sort of percentage that should be kept from all collective defence for all, which would be different or would expeditionary forces by themselves cover all of the conventionally defence. That was one. A second issue which came up, and you mentioned this when you talked about resources, was common funding. Some people thought that was the panacea in terms of deploying capabilities, others thought that well, if we go down that route, individual countries want to feel responsibility no longer for their defence budgets and they would therefore no longer put pressure on them so it´s not such a good idea after all. And the third thing, Minister, and I promise I will stop after three because I know that´s quite enough to ask you to react to, there was the sense that Afghanistan has been a very taxying operation and of course the Netherlands has a very big role. Are you able to meet your Afghan commitments and still find some money left in the kitty for modernization or does Afghanistan mean replacing equipment so there is not much left for new systems or research and development and so on and how we get the balance for that? And I think in sort of helping us to set the debate today, if  I could ask you just to sort of give us your thoughts on those issues of somebody who, of course, has to run the Netherlands´ Defence Ministry, and then I´ll turn to some of the others in the panel for their views and then we can start the debate.

H.E. Eimert vo Middelkoop:

There is, no doubt, about the relevance of your questions so let me try to answer it starting with the last one. I think I´m a lucky minister in that sense that there is a budgetary line between the budget I need for the maintenance of the army and a different kind of budget I can use or I can ask for it, of course, in a good collaboration with the Minister of the Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Finances etc. in case of going on a mission or on operation. And this is very fundamental because I will never be in the position that I have to adopt, more or less, my military or my army to sell my material to finance my contribution for an operation. So especially  in relation  to parliament, it is a very complicated issue because when we took the decision two years ago to prolong in Uruzgan in Afghanistan,  for extra two years, I had to promise to parliament, and I could, that going on in that heavy mission, because that´s a heavy burden for a country like the Netherlands, will not result in a disaster for the army itself. So until today, I´m not quite sure what will happen when the the financial crisis will continue, but until today, because of the system that I have two budgets I think I can answer that type of questions. The first question was about the responsibilities out of area and the responsibilities at home. That´s a very relevant one! When we started to restructure the forces  in the beginning of the 90´s after the fall of the Iron Curtain, there was a very specific orientation of going somewhere else, out of area, we started to think of Cambodia, Haiti, and some places in Africa, Yugoslavia, you know that, etc. That was the leading direction for restructuring of the army. For instance, more investment in transport capabilities and so on. More cooperation between the armed forces itself - between Navy and the Army, the Army and the Air Force etc., making it more mobile and more flexible and so on. After 9/11 we realized we maybe still had something to do in the Netherlands itself. Of course, there are military forces in the country but not in specific tasks of fightinng terrorism if it may happen in a kind of a figure in my country. And so a couple of years ago, we made, with the Ministry of the Interior or for Domestic Affaris and the Ministry of Defence, made  a kind of a contract that obliged me to have an immedaite presence of some 5000 military – goal of 7 or eight thousand if necessary, if a terrorist attack has to be faced or some very specific and huge disater etc. So that´s a part of my duties. And your second question was...

Common funding, if that´s the panacea to problems.

Yes, we have to find wise middle somewhere between... My simple view, and let me finish with that, my most simple view is that especially when NATO is taking responsibilities somewhere else in the world, is going on an operation, like for instance in Afghanistan, of course etc., that type of activities have to be  common-funded as much as possible, for instance, like we´re doing now, or trying to do, because where´s the money for new headquarter of commands in Afghanistan? And that means the political sensitive aspect of it, of course, that if a country, for some reason, is not able to participate in that kind of an operation, they still have to pay for it and, in my view, that is a part of  being a member of the Alliance. I think those were all three questions.