Securing the Peace: The NATO Vision
Secretary General's Speech at the NATO Public Diplomacy Conference
Brussels, October 16, 2003
NATO Press Release
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I don't
need to explain at length why this is a most timely conference.
Over the course of this year, NATO's evolution has made a quantum
leap. By taking the lead in ISAF in Afghanistan, and by supporting
Poland in post-Saddam Iraq, the Alliance has taken up new security roles
well beyond the Euro-Atlantic area.
The fact
that we took on these missions in addition to our long-standing Balkans
commitment has made some observers wonder whether we are about to overtax
ourselves. Can NATO and its members cope with so many different
missions in different places without the danger of overstretch?
I believe
that we can cope - indeed, that we must. For taking on new missions
is not a choice that is entirely up to us. Rather, it is an
imperative imposed on us by a new strategic environment - and it's not
going to get any better.
We will be
facing more instability in the years ahead. The Caucasus, Central
Asia, Northern Africa and the Greater Middle East all offer a rich menu
of such instability. This instability will not be confined to the
areas in which it originates. There will be spillover into Europe and
North America. Spillover through migration, rising numbers of people
seeking asylum, a booming industry in people smuggling, and all that goes
it with it: violence, drugs - you name it. In short, geography will
no longer act as our shield.
I also
have no doubt that there will be more terrorism. On September 11,
2001, a special breed of terrorism has come to the fore - driven not by
achievable political aims, but by fanatical extremism and the urge to
kill. It is difficult to imagine how one could return this cruel
genie to its pre 9/11 bottle.
There will
also be more failed states. In the past decade or so, we have seen
states collapse, fragment into numerous small regions, run by warlords,
who finance themselves by drug smuggling and other criminal activities.
As Afghanistan under the Taleban demonstrated, such failed states are a
safe haven for terrorists.
There will
be more proliferation. Despite the best efforts of our diplomats
and counter proliferation experts, the spread weapons of mass destruction
will be a defining security challenge of this new century. It will lead
to more fingers on more triggers. And not all of these fingers will
belong to rational leaders.
What does
all of this add up to? Bluntly put, it adds up to a guaranteed
supply chain of instability. It adds up to a security environment
that will pose difficult challenges. A security environment that
does not afford us the luxury of fighting theoretical battles about what
is "in" and what is "out-of-area".
We will
have to be able to act wherever our security and the safety of our people
demand action.
With this
in mind, what are the most important ingredients for NATO's future
missions? Essentially, I see three:
First,
transatlantic unity. Europe and North America represent the
nexus of democracy, pluralism, market economy, and technological
innovation. This gives our two continents a unique strategic
responsibility for upholding global security. It is a common
responsibility. Wherever possible, it should be exercised in
common.
In the
Balkans, we missed this point, at least initially. The Cold War had
so shaped our thinking that we had no recipe for dealing with a regional
conflict on our own doorstep.
The United
States argued that they "didn't have a dog in this fight", and
tried to stay out. European nations, on the other hand, were
ill-prepared to fill the void. Some Europeans may have boasted that
this was the "hour of Europe" -- but they were premature.
As Jacques Delors once put it, the EU's policies reminded him of an
adolescent taking up an adult problem.
It took a
very long time until both sides of the Atlantic realised that a solution
could only emerge if they made a concerted effort. But together, we were
able to break the cycle of violence that had been haunting the Balkans
for so long. In this sense, our successful engagement in Bosnia was
a crucial lesson on the value of transatlantic solidarity. We
should never forget that lesson.
My plea
for transatlantic unity should not be misunderstood. It does
not mean that we use NATO to address each and every crisis.
It does not mean US leadership in each every case. Some
problems might be better addressed by the EU, or perhaps by coalitions of
the willing. In some cases, a division of labour will turn out to
be the most practical solution.
But
whatever the best solution in individual circumstances, Europe and North
America must always co-ordinate their approach and avoid working at
cross-purposes. And in most cases, their cooperation will make the
difference between success and failure.
Indeed,
despite popular theories that Europe and North America are drifting
apart, I believe that transatlantic unity remains in strong supply.
We have been building a new consensus on the nature of the new threats,
and on the instruments and strategies to combat them. The result
was the transformation of the Alliance agreed at last November's Prague
Summit.
True, the
Iraq crisis earlier this year was a setback for NATO as for other
international organisations. But the rifts were within Europe and within
North America as well as across the Atlantic. And differences over Iraq
do not change my judgement that a new transatlantic consensus is coming
together.
You saw
that consensus in the hard won decision to reinforce Turkey against
Saddam Hussein. You saw it in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,
where we implemented a successful handover from a NATO mission to the
EU. You can see it in Afghanistan, where NATO is now leading the
International Security Assistance Force in Kabul and is now considering
an expansion into the provinces. You can see it in NATO's support for the
Polish-led multinational division in Iraq. You can even see it in the
convergence of transatlantic positions on the Middle East Road Map for
Peace and the importance of Iranian compliance with nuclear
non-proliferation regimes.
The second
key ingredient for NATO's success is that it must always engage with a
political vision. In the Balkans, NATO entered the crisis
management business as a hesitant newcomer. But we learned quickly. We
learned that to succeed, NATO had to know where it was going.
For that,
it developed a vision of its own one which reinforced the vision
and the efforts of other actors, but which took into account NATO's
unique mission and unique abilities. A vision for an "end
state", that could serve as a yardstick against which to measure
progress. A vision that allowed us to put pressure on the different
ethnic groups to get their act together. A vision of cooperation
among the international community as a whole, within which NATO could
play its full and constructive part.
In Bosnia,
the Alliance helped stop a war and then helped create a country that is
stable, secure and increasingly comfortable with its
multi-ethnicity. In Kosovo, NATO intervened not only to defend an
oppressed minority, but also to defend the principle that all minorities
must be able to live in peace. In the Former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia, the Alliance used a
range of political and military means, in cooperation with the EU, to
help avert civil war, and to promote ethnic reconciliation and a
sustainable peace.
All of
these cases vindicated our decision to make the Balkan cause our
cause.
We also
used our enlargement process, and our partnerships in PfP, to help
promote the kinds of political, economic and military reforms this region
needs to move closer to integration with NATO and the European
Union.
A few days
ago, Serbia and Montenegro offered to send several hundred troops to
serve in Afghanistan alongside NATO forces. There is no better
illustration of NATO's success in the Balkans: as a military and
political player.
In
Afghanistan, NATO's political vision is already forthcoming. Two
weeks ago, we agreed on a Longer Term Strategy for NATO in its ISAF
role. Of course, every operation is unique, and Afghanistan
certainly poses unique challenges. But as this commitment evolves,
I am sure that many tools from our Balkan toolbox will come in
handy. In Afghanistan, as previously in the Balkans, NATO is poised
to become a political player -- and our Balkans experience will prove a
useful guide.
Now to my
third and most important priority for future NATO missions: the need for
sufficient military power. George Orwell had it right:
language can corrupt thought. In military terms, at least, a term
like "crisis management" can be deceitful. It implies a
limited commitment and, hence, a limited effort.
NATO has
not fallen into this trap. When IFOR deployed to Bosnia it did so
with impressive strength. We deployed no less than 60,000
troops. That number was a statement in itself: don't even think of
messing around with NATO! And that message was understood.
Tens of thousands of heavily armed troops, with robust rules of
engagement, have provided the platform of stability on which all the
other progress depends. The same applied equally successfully in Kosovo
where KFOR deployed initially with approximately 39,000
soldiers.
These
investments have paid off many times over. They allowed other
organisations, like the UN, the EU and the OSCE to do their work.
It has allowed hundreds of NGOs to offer their help. Together, all these
efforts have achieved what ten years ago seemed like an impossible dream:
the return of southeast Europe into the European mainstream. This success
has been built on the foundation of security provided by tens of
thousands of robust peacekeeping troops. It is a lesson we should
not forget, as we look to other crisis areas.
Of course,
not all of the Balkans experiences can be applied elsewhere. If you
applied the Bosnia template to Afghanistan, you would need to deploy some
700,000 soldiers - a staggering number!
Sending
that many troops to Central Asia is neither practical nor
necessary. But even maintaining our current strength of around
6,000 has been a challenge. So we need to think through a question that
will become ever more crucial for NATO's future as a crisis manager: How
"usable" are our forces?
As the
saying goes, there are lies, damned lies, and then there are defence
planning statistics. So I won't bore you with many numbers.
In a nutshell: we have more than 1.4 million regular soldiers under arms
in Europe and Canada, plus a million or so reserves. Yet the vast
majority are at present useless for the kind of missions we are now
mounting.
Indeed,
with only 55,000 soldiers out of this total currently deployed on
multinational operations, most NATO countries feel themselves
overstretched.
The
reasons are many and various. Some countries have outdated legal or
constitutional constraints on where they are able to deploy their forces,
especially if they are conscripts. Other countries do not have the
capabilities required to deploy them abroad and supply them when they are
there. Others still say they cannot afford to do so. Or their
Governments do not have the political will to argue the case for doing so
with Parliaments and publics.
What must
be done? Here are my suggestions:
First,
each nation must review its force structure to maximise the level of
forces available to deployed operations.
Second,
each nation must review national legal or political restrictions or
caveats which reduce the usability of deployed forces.
Third,
each nation must review whether it has the right enabling capabilities in
its force structure to support deployability.
Fourth,
each nation must make the necessary financial provisions to be able to
maintain a certain portion of its forces on operations.
Finally, I
would suggest that NATO Allies together review the process of force
generation and provision of logistics support for deployed
operations.
None of
these suggestions will produce miracles overnight. But they would
substantially increase the forces available for operations. And they
would make it easier for governments to take the difficult political
decisions needed if we are to share the burden of meeting our obligations
more equitably.
I do not
want to talk about failure. NATO does not fail. Nor should other
international organisations.
But if we
cannot raise many more deployable and usable soldiers, that will be
failure because our political ambitions - whether in the UN, NATO,
the EU or ad hoc coalitions would prove unachievable. And
that, in my view, would be a terrible setback not only for NATO's
credibility but for the multilateralism which we all support.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Balkan
operations were a brutal illustration of a new kind of post-Cold War
conflict. Afghanistan is another. Both have demonstrated some
basic truths about modern peacebuilding. That winning the war is only the
first step to winning the peace. That long-term political, military and
financial engagement is the only way to build self-sustaining stability.
That transatlantic unity and close cooperation between international
organisations is the best "force multiplier" of all. And that
robust military capability is essential to all phases of modern
peacebuilding.
If we are
to tackle effectively the challenges of today and tomorrow, these are
four key lessons that must guide our Euro-Atlantic community.
There is a
fifth lesson as well: the importance of engaging with our
publics. The security environment is changing so quickly that even
experts have trouble keeping up. Threats such as terrorism or WMD
are invisible until they strike. And we are now engaging in parts
of the world that seem very far away indeed, to the average
citizen.
It is
critical to explain what we are doing, and why we are doing it, to our
populations. They will not support what they do not
understand. And the public must support our operations, if they are
to succeed especially where there are casualties, or where the
mission drags on.
We also
need public support for defence reform, because it costs money. Our
publics will support defence spending, if they understand why it is
necessary, and believe that it is being done with a focus on value for
money, rather than political posturing.
For all
these reasons, public diplomacy has become more important than ever, but
also more challenging. This afternoon, a panel will address that
very issue, and I encourage you to have a frank discussion. Because
we can have the best strategy, and the most modern armed forces but
we must ensure that, as we move forward, we don't leave our publics
behind.
Thank
you.
- (*)Turkey recognises the Republic of Macedonia with its
constitutional name.
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