Afghanistan Is NATO's Front Line Today, Leaders Say
28 November 2006
Alliance discusses deployment flexibility, mutual assistance
RIGA, Latvia – The leaders of NATO’s 26 member nations gathered in Riga to discuss operations in Afghanistan over dinner November 28, and the alliance’s secretary-general said defending Afghanistan is as important today as defending the Fulda Gap in Germany was during the Cold War.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer of the Netherlands also was expected to ask all 26 alliance leaders to confirm that in emergency situations during deployments any NATO ally will come to the support of another NATO ally, his spokesman said.
The request is aimed at giving commanders in Afghanistan maximum flexibility in maneuvering their forces within the country. Some nations have placed restrictions, known as “caveats,” on where or how their troops can operate in Afghanistan. However, alliance leaders wish to clarify that these caveats would not apply to emergencies where one NATO force can come to the assistance of another NATO force.
De Hoop Scheffer also has made progress in recent days -- even in recent hours -- convincing allies to lift some of their troop restrictions in Afghanistan, NATO spokesman James Appathurai said.
The leaders of NATO’s 26 nations arrived throughout the day in Riga for meetings scheduled to begin in the evening and conclude midday November 29.
“Today, Afghanistan is NATO’s most important military mission,” President Bush said in an afternoon speech at Latvia University. “Every ally can take pride in the transformation that NATO is making possible for the people of Afghanistan.” (See related article.)
Bush also stressed that NATO forces must be able to assist one another in Afghanistan and elsewhere, despite whatever other mission restrictions they have placed on them.
De Hoop Scheffer, the NATO secretary-general, said the main challenge alliance leaders face in Riga is communicating to the publics the importance of staying committed to victory in Afghanistan, where 32,000 alliance troops are deployed.
NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in October completed its months-long initiative to take over security for the entire country. The ISAF expansion has led to higher casualties among allied and coalition troops – more than 90 U.S. troops and more than 90 allied and coalition troops have died in Afghanistan in 2006.
The majority of NATO casualties took place in July, August and September, when more than 60 non-U.S. troops were killed as ISAF moved to take control of Afghanistan’s dangerous southern provinces and were met by stiff resistance from Taliban fighters and drug traffickers. However, NATO commanders say the level of violence has tapered off significantly following Operation Medusa in September, which was aimed at asserting NATO dominance in the region. (See related article.)
Troops from Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Britain and Australia, supported by Romanian, Portuguese and Estonian forces, have been involved in significant engagements with enemy forces, President Bush said. However, 37 nations have deployed troops to Afghanistan, and some nations most heavily involved in the fighting have expressed concerns about equally sharing risks. For example, Canada’s foreign minister, Peter MacKay, warned that public support for his country’s mission might fade if other troops are not willing to help Canadians in southern Afghanistan.
Appathurai, the NATO spokesman, said the assurance of mutual protection was not confined to assisting troops in the volatile southern provinces. “We should not make this a north-south issue,” Appathurai said. “Any ally could call on the allies for help.” For example, allies in a relatively quiet sector could face an emergency that would require assistance, he said.
The existence of caveats and deployment restrictions “also raise questions about solidarity,” Appathurai said.
AFGHANISTAN AND COLD WAR EFFORT IN FULDA GAP
Earlier in the day, de Hoop Scheffer compared Afghanistan to the Fulda Gap, a piece of iconic Cold War terrain that was considered Germany’s most vulnerable location for Soviet attack. Since the end of the Soviet Union 15 years ago, NATO leaders have worked to transform the alliance from a relatively immobile force defending the Fulda Gap to a modern organization able to tackle far-flung missions thousands of miles from central Germany.
“Some are still surprised that faraway Afghanistan has become NATO’s primary theater of operations,” de Hoop Scheffer said, delivering the keynote speech at the NATO Riga Conference, a discussion of several hundred dignitaries and foreign-policy experts which is taking place simultaneously with the heads-of-state meetings.
“Defending the core NATO values at the Hindu Kush [in Afghanistan] is perhaps a bit more difficult to explain than … the Fulda Gap and defending Europe against an invasion by the Soviet Union,” de Hoop Scheffer said. However, he added, “our core challenge [is] … explaining why those guys are dying at the Hindu Kush for the same core values NATO has always defended.”
Fredrick Kempe, president of the U.S. Atlantic Council, echoed de Hoop Scheffer’s remarks.
“Afghanistan is today's Fulda Gap because it's the place at which the alliance … is being tested” and must face an unpredictable enemy, said Kempe, a former Wall Street Journal editor.
De Hoop Scheffer said NATO would not seek to be involved in every global crisis and should focus much of its energies on stability operations, for which it is ideally suited.
However, he said, “We need to prevail wherever we are engaged.” And, he added, “Afghanistan is the obvious case in point. We need to prevail even when the going gets rough, or when newspaper editorialists start calling for exit strategies.”
For more information see The United States and NATO.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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