NATO HQ 29 Apr . 2005

STOPWATCH 3 Tackling Terrorism Special interactive video forum series with Jamie Shea Multimedia Audio file .MP3/10922Kb Video forum JAMIE SHEA (Deputy Assistant Secretary General for External Relations): Good afternoon. Welcome to the third edition of Stopwatch, this is Jamie Shea, your moderator here at NATO Headquarters in Brussels. I hope you've enjoyed the first two Stopwatches when, you'll recall, that we discussed NATO's involvements in Afghanistan and then the developments of NATO's partnerships with the Muslim countries in North Africa and the greater Middle Eastern area. Now for this third Stopwatch, we've selected an equally weighty theme which is NATO's contribution to the fight against international terrorism. Since September the 11th, every government and also every international organisation has reviewed its activities and asked itself the question: How can I be relevant and produce added value to the international effort to fight the scourge of international terrorism? We're four years along from September the 11th and therefore this is a very good moment to ask: How far NATO has been able to make an effective contribution? What has the Alliance done well, what could it do better? Are we a significant player in this overall effort, which of course is one of the priorities of the security community today. And to help me to discuss this theme, I have three invited guests here with me in the studio. First of all I welcome Marshall Billingslea, the Assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment, who is one of the key players in NATO in leading this effort. I have May-Britt Stumbaum, who is a research fellow with the German Council on Foreign Relations, who's come from Berlin, so thanks very much May-Britt for coming; and we have Lt.Col. Alan Livingstone, who is with the Intelligence Division on our International Military Staff. So again, welcome, and I look forward to the discussion. Marshall I'd like to start with you. What would you say has been the impact of September the 11th on NATO and how would you describe succinctly NATO's current role in dealing with international terrorism? MARSHALL S. BILLINGSLEA (Assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment): I think that the effect of September 11th, and I would add to that the subsequent attacks that have taken place in various countries, the March 11th attacks in Spain against the trains there in particular, have had a substantial effect on NATO. Immediately in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, NATO actually swung into action and flew the NATO AWACS to the United States to participate in the monitoring of the air space in the US. It was in fact I believe the first time that Article 5 has ever been invoked by the Alliance in its history which is substantial. NATO also then stepped forward and took an increasingly important role in Afghanistan where you see NATO fielding not only responsibility for Kabul and supporting the Afghan Government and President Karzai but also now multiple Provincial Reconstruction Teams around the country. NATO also - once intelligence information caused us to be concerned about the threat to maritime assets, the threat to shipping in the Mediterranean - NATO launched an escort operation to escort naval vessels through the Straits of Gibraltar. I could continue to go on and on and talk about the training mission in Iraq, or any other number of activities in the armaments side where they are cooperating on new technologies to combat the terrorist threat, but in general, these are the kinds of substantial changes that have happened within the Alliance in a very short period of time. SHEA: Well Marshall thanks for that and I'll come to some of those more specific areas that you're working on in just a moment, but May-Britt turning to you, NATO of course is a military organisation, it's a political organisation but its major specialization is in military activities so what's your assessment of the military role in the fight against international terrorism and do we have a role to play in addition to the police and the judiciary? MAY-BRITT STUMBAUM (Forum European Foreign and Security Policy at the Mission Statement of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)): Well if it comes to the military part, I think- well I think this is something we have to dispute later on if there is a big military role in there anyway. But I think if you look at the four roles that NATO gave itself: Anti-Terrorism, and Consequence Management, and Counter Terrorism, and Military Co-operation, I think the Consequence Management is something that NATO can (inaudible) it's as if there's something... SHEA: Could you just tell the audience what you mean by Consequence Management, it's a term they may not totally familiar with. STUMBAUM: I'm sorry - Consequence Management, I mean insofar that if something has happened, NATO has the capabilities and the staff and the longstanding expertise to coordinate action/reaction to that and to help, in particular, those countries who are affected. And I think this is something that NATO has already shown that it can be very good in terms of like natural disasters, for example, the flood in the Czech Republic and I think this is something NATO can clearly provide. When it comes to the other side about the high-intensity operations, so to speak, like bombing a camp - a training camp for terrorism, like going actively outside which would be the Counter Terrorism effort; I think this is something NATO is preparing to do but I think first of all it's not very likely that it will happen. On the one side because I don't think that the amount of camps who are out there actually make it worth such an effort for that kind of military build-up, and on the other side of things it's very difficult to reach consensus between the Allied members to actually go to this kind of Counter Terrorism act. So I think it will be rather on the low-intensity act of Consequence Management and it will play a potential role there but only in the limited field of military actions. SHEA: So are you saying that you don't really feel that the new NATO Response Force, which is this very high readiness, quick deployment force that NATO is producing, you don't feel that that could be used to fight terrorism beyond NATO's borders? STUMBAUM: I think it can be used to fight terrorism beyond the borders of NATO but first of all, I think, it will only be used if we have a target that everybody agrees on and I think this will be a highly disputed problem if we have a target. Secondly, it's a question of this is a very interesting, very important issue for the US policy if they will actually call upon the NATO Response Force, or if they're going to do it alone or if they're going to get the NRF supply(?) in for that so I think the NATO Response Force is something very important but I'm not very sure whether its actually going to be used. SHEA: Well I'm going to ask Marshall maybe to react to that in just a moment but I'd like here to bring in Alan. Alan, as we all know, September the 11th resulted from an intelligence mishap, avoidable or otherwise, and much of the focus of the debate since then has been how do we fix the intelligence problem so that we are generating the intelligence, we're sharing it in a timely manner. What do you see NATO's role in this area as being? LT.COL. ALAN LIVINGSTONE (Intelligence Division, IMS): Well first of all with NATO you have to remember that NATO as an organisation doesn't have its own intelligence as such apart from where NATO has operations out on the ground such as in Afghanistan or Kosovo and then, the troops that are on the ground will develop some intelligence by themselves and that will come up to us here in the Headquarters. But in general NATO, being an Alliance of nations, relies on the nations to provide it with intelligence. So to some extent, NATO as a forum for intelligence sharing, as an organisation in itself, is limited by what the nations will actually send to the NATO organisation itself regardless of what the nations may share amongst themselves bilaterally outside of NATO. So, I think it's no secret that NATO is never going to be an organisation which gets the most sensitive operational intelligence that each of the nations have but nor does it need that. But I think what we could foresee, or what we need rather, not just in NATO but generally, is a revolution in intelligence affairs. People have talked before about a revolution in military affairs which was the move to precision guided munitions and so on. And there's been a revolution in terrorism affairs, the scale of 9/11 for example, the use of the Internet, the use of mobile telephones for initiation of devices, so there needs to be a consequent revolution in intelligence affairs and I don't just mean technically. Of course... SHEA: What would that revolution consist of? LIVINGSTONE: Okay - well firstly there would be a technical aspect of it because we need to stay ahead and we need to be able to follow their use of technology and of course be one step ahead of it. But more importantly, the revolution in intelligence affairs would see true multilateral sharing of intelligence and I don't- Okay many nations share intelligence bilaterally but it needs to be much broader than that, multilaterally. And it doesn't mean all the intelligence they have that only relates to a particular nation but it means going into a whole new level of intelligence at a multilateral level not just within NATO but more generally than that. SHEA: Okay. I take your point here but is NATO actually making this happen, are we able to influence this process and get the various nations to pool their intelligence and develop it together? LIVINGSTONE: Well of course everybody's trying their best. One thing I can say is that with the intelligence that we already get at NATO, when you can actually put together an assessment and integrate the views of 26 different nations, that has to count for something even if some people might say that it will have been watered down or diluted. Nevertheless, at the strategic level, you're not dealing with the precise operational details, you're talking about broad things and if you can get 26 nations to agree, there's a fairly good chance that it's probably a fairly accurate assessment, but we still need to go a lot further than that and I don't think anybody would dispute that. SHEA: Okay and thanks. To come back to Marshall here, Marshall I'd like you if you would now at this juncture, to describe some of those activities particularly in fostering technology cooperation on terrorism in the Alliance where you've been in the lead and perhaps at the same time you could react to what May-Britt said about the limitations of the role of the NATO Response Force? BILLINGSLEA: Well I - let me start with that. And in fact I don't think May-Britt and I would disagree on this. There is general consensus, within those parts of the various NATO governments who are dealing with the terrorist problem, that the military dimension to combating terrorism is only one piece of the puzzle and is in fact not the dominant piece of the puzzle in many respects. The engagement with populations, the drive towards more democratic institutions, the drive towards the opportunity for people to participate in civil society, to participate in economies, to hold a stake in the life in their countries, is very much- needs to be at the heart of what all of these nations are pushing towards--more outreach, more public diplomacy. NATO of course is a political and a military Alliance and therefore performs certain military roles. You see this in the pursuit of better stabilisation and security in Afghanistan as well as the effort to assist the Iraqis in training them both outside of Iraq in a number of NATO schools but also inside of Iraq as well. There are obviously various activities that nations will continue to pursue and reserve for themselves, but the denial of sanctuary, the denial of a safe haven for terrorist to operate is of fundamental importance and I would suggest that that is what we are in fact doing in Afghanistan and doing in Iraq. SHEA: I totally agree with you on that one but it's also of course this aspect of protection our populations at home in terms of air defence, stopping terrorists infiltrating weapons of mass destruction in, civilian aircraft... BILLINGSLEA: Well that's right. Let me talk a little bit about that... SHEA: ...I know you're involved in these areas so could you talk to us a little bit about what you're doing? BILLINGSLEA: I think that's right, although, what I would say is that every nation is a little bit different. And the role of militaries when they're at home varies country by country by country in terms of what is and is not permissible for militaries to do and so when you are operating in a domestic context, in the United States, in Canada, in Europe, you principally need to focus on the law enforcement and the intelligence services to help protect you in many, many respects. That said, because of the ability of militaries to organise themselves and to pursue long term technology programs, there are many things that our militaries have been working on that need to be applied and need to imported into the domestic environment to protect our societies. Several of the areas that we're working on, for instance, include protection of aircraft from the shoulder-fired Stinger-type missiles--these SA-7 kind of missiles... SHEA: Like where we saw that Israeli plane in Africa a few years ago... BILLINGSLEA: That's right they shot at two commercial aircraft in Kenya if you remember. There have been actually multiple attacks and there have been these kinds of missiles found in terrorist stockpiles in Europe- in Europe. So we're working for instance with the... SHEA: We can do something about that? BILLINGSLEA: ...oh yeah. We're working with EUROCONTROL, the EU's aviation wing, on these kinds of issues both technical and especially non-technical procedural protective measures. I mentioned the threat to shipping, al-Qaeda has demonstrated the ability to attack shipping with the attack on the USS Cole... SHEA: Absolutely yes. BILLINGSLEA: ...the French oil tanker was struck, and so Italy in fact within the NATO structure is leading an effort to help build better technology to protect our ports and our vessels. There are actually nine of these different areas where we're focused on these matters. SHEA: Just very briefly before I turn to May-Britt, what would you consider to be, from your perspective, the most promising area where we can expect something to sort of hit the marketplace in terms of an available technology soon? BILLINGSLEA: Both most promising and also perhaps the most important. If you look at what the terrorists are doing today, they have mastered the art of the homemade bomb. They are able to manufacture these bombs with any manner of chemicals and chemical explosives, they are using all kinds of things as triggering devices, cell phones, Alan mentioned, these kinds of things. There is an urgent need for better technologies to cause these homemade bombs not to function the way they were intended to and/or to help us detect them. Its very promising technology, Spain, suffering from the Madrid attacks is our lead on this. They've actually identified a very interesting laser that is able to detect explosive residue at a safe range and we are working with NATO's Allied Command Transformation to turn that into a fielded prototype and that's all happened in a very short period of time--about seven or eight months. SHEA: Okay Marshall, thanks for that. And May-Britt from your perspective as an outside thinker on these issues, do you think that NATO is making an effective contribution? How do you assess our performance thus far? What would you give us points for and maybe not points for? STUMBAUM: I think I would give points for contributing to overall stability in the regions that are affected, you mentioned Afghanistan and Iraq and I think that in particular Afghanistan, NATO made a major contribution to the stabilisation of the area. However it's mainly, as we all know, focused very much on the capital and on the Provincial Reconstruction Teams so it's not the outreach that we would expect after so many years or that is needed. I think also if you go to Iraq it's very important that we- that NATO is helping train the police force but also, it's always a very limited contribution. And I think, the problem that we are facing here is that we have, and I think particularly in Afghanistan and you can see this also in Iraq, we have hesitant governments on the other side not really so sure if this really is working out and how much they should invest there. We have European governments who are under high budget restraints and I think, in particular, the run up to the Istanbul Summit showed that there is not the greatest willingness to put a lot of money in it which has the effect that NATO is contributing but not at the scale as I think it can do--referring to the expertise and capabilities it has firstly, and secondly, also because of this kind of anxiety I would say on some governments, not to really go for those targets, and then I'll come back to the first question you posed to me that NATO says it wants to do, you know if you want to go for the high-intensity acts and want to use the NATO Response Force then you should go for those who are actually should this be targeted against and as far I can see in Iraq and in Afghanistan this is why the US Forces and the Coalition Forces but not by NATO for several reasons, also the extension of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams is not in the areas that are really, so to speak 'very hot'. So I would say in terms of securing to- to contributing to overall stability and security, definitely in Kabul it's a very high mark, outside of that it's less, and it's questionable in the overall fight on terrorism if you go on the high-intensity level if this is a very high mark. SHEA: Now Marshall you've been instrumental in setting up this NATO Training Mission in Iraq. It's true we did have some problems at the beginning generating the forces and the trainers but is your assessment that things are now better on track? BILLINGSLEA: Well I think they absolutely are better and more on track. May-Britt's making a very valid and important point here which is, if I could recast it or give my interpretation on it, in a very short period of time NATO transformed from an Alliance that was focused on territorial defence in Europe to an Alliance that is now being asked to do some of the most challenging kinds of military operations there are which is to send people very long distances, for long periods of time, and to keep them sustained and supplied and part of this process. That's not easy, that's not easy for any one government to do. It is certainly not easy when you're doing it in a coalition or in a multinational or in an alliance context. I do think that we've had some rocky starts, but we've picked up speed. As you've mentioned the need to swing the presence of NATO PRTs in Afghanistan into those areas that are now more volatile than other areas, although I think on the grand scheme of things far less volatile than they were several years ago and that's happening. You're seeing multiple new PRTs being established, Chaghcharan, in Herat and in Mazar-e-Sharif, so if you look as NATO begins to sort of move in a counter clockwise fashion meeting up with the US and the Coalition PRTs there, that's going well. In Iraq, the push- obviously there's a lot of training inside the Green Zone that's happening now. We need to move out of the Green Zone soon and to the new Iraqi Academy that's being established out at Ar Rustimaya, and that's going to happen and I'm fairly optimistic that we'll have the not only the resources but the trainers to really make a contribution there. The Iraqis have a pressing need and they need our help and we need to be there with them. SHEA: Marshall thanks for that. Alan I'd like to come back to you, one other aspect I'd like to discuss as our Stopwatch obviously continues to tick on, is this idea of what the partners can contribute. As everybody I think watching this program will know, one of NATO's big success stories in recent times has been the establishment of this network of partnerships across Central Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia and now the Muslim countries. Can these countries help us in the fight against terrorism? Can they contribute, are there things that we can do for them to help them to address their own terrorist threats more effectively? LIVINGSTONE: Let me take up that - you mentioned Central Asia. Central Asia is a fascinating area for those involved in analysing terrorism and it's important for two reasons to development this intelligence cooperation with some of our partner nations such as in Central Asia. One is that they have a very interesting insight into- they can given us an insight into sort of a way of thinking that we don't naturally have perhaps in Europe and North America so they can help us with that. They can help us in understanding perhaps the way that some of the terrorists might think. Well the area is also of great strategic importance because Central Asia is now an area of interest for Russia, China, India as well as the West, partly for its enormous energy deposits and therefore that means that it's going to be important for us to build up a knowledge base and a dialogue with those countries, to get to understand their way of thinking, to get to understand what makes them tick, what the problems are and not just the terrorism but the underlying root problems, and we're going to have to get to know that area because there's going to be a number of competing power blocks in that region. As for how things can be improved well... SHEA: Yes and also what practically can we do to help there in terms of specific programs and activities? LIVINGSTONE: Well firstly of course you have to remember that these countries and I'm talking again mainly about Central Asia, they are poor countries. They are interested in bread and butter issues. They don't--the average person in the streets in Uzbekistan or Tajikistan--doesn't really understand much about NATO perhaps apart from the former role of the Cold War era. So perhaps, firstly, we have to work to make them trust NATO, to overcome the legacy of the past. We have to think about the competing organisations such as in the East Asia, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Russian-led CSTO, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, we're going to have to perhaps co-opt those and work alongside them if we want to share- and I've talked already about this multilateral intelligence sharing. So, perhaps we ought to get away from this idea, and they do as well, that we're in competition but that we can actually help each other but it's going to take time. SHEA: I agree, I see your point and I think politically of course that's right. But in practical terms, are they sharing intelligence with us? I understand they've got a problem with border guards, preventing terrorists infiltrating onto their territory. Can we help them with that border guard training? LIVINGSTONE: Well of course some people want us to and where you're particularly talking about is the border north of Afghanistan with Tajikistan and handing it over to the Russians. And this is a concern the Russians have, they would like us to do something about it because it's a very important drug route but it also of concern to us because the drugs from Afghanistan some of them go north up through Tajikistan, up through some of the- thru Russia and end up in Europe and this is where most of the European addicts get their drugs from. So we do have a vested interest in cooperating with them. As for intelligence sharing, when I said before about 'within NATO itself it could be better' well the same is the case only to a much greater degree. The level of intelligence sharing is lagging, some way behind, the political intent to do so. SHEA: Okay so more work to be done there. Marshall, while we're on the subject of partners, are they involved in some of your technology cooperation programs? BILLINGSLEA: They are. We've got a number of partner nations both non-NATO European partners who are involved. I mentioned the work on building better equipment for these bomb technicians, the Ukrainians are working with us closely, are going to host a major NATO event on their own soil here in a month, and similar kinds of events abound. I agree with Alan, there is an enormous amount of expertise in many of these countries, there's a lot of value that they have to offer. I'll give you some examples if you want. SHEA: Yes, I think our viewers would be interested in those... well we could briefly yes. BILLINGSLEA: Time allowing, what I would say is that for instance, one of the pressing intelligence questions that militaries have is why does a human being think it's okay to turn themselves into a suicide bomber? Why is this morally acceptable to kill innocent people and kill yourself and commit suicide in this way? Because I think most of us feel that it's actually quite immoral. The psychology of the suicide bomber is terribly important in many, many respects and that's actually something that several of these countries, experts that we've relied upon from several non-NATO nations who've actually had and suffered at the hands of this kind of extremism have been able to help us get better insight into what motivates these people which in turn helps us try to understand how to reach out to these people and encourage them not to engage in actions which are, I think all of us would agree, fundamentally wrong even evil. SHEA: So that's a good practical example, and while you have the floor let me add a question there which to me is important. As you know the United Nations, the European Union and other very important organisations, they too like us seem to be very active now in dealing with terrorism. The EU of course in the field of justice and home affairs, extradition policy, transatlantic cooperation with Homeland Security; the UN seems to be now coming up with a lot of Conventions to criminalise further terrorist activity. How important is it that we cooperate with these organisations and where do you think things stand at the moment in terms of that cooperation? BILLINGSLEA: I think it's very important that we cooperate with these organisations. Actually I would say that the UN's been involved in this for some period of time, and perhaps a longer period of time, it's very important that we cooperate with them and I think that we still need to do more. If you look at what the UN has done or is helping to do, obviously you mentioned these various multinational treaties, the Convention against Terrorism for instance, criminalisation of this action especially criminalisation and I think making the idea of suicide bombing an immoral and illegitimate concept like genocide, like piracy and other unacceptable ideas, this is what the international community needs to do, the nations collectively need to agree that this is not an acceptable kind of action. The UN can play a role in that. In the more practical sense, if you look at things the UN has done that are very helpful, I think you'd have to immediately decide that they've been instrumental in disrupting terrorist finance. There's an active UN organisation that I think has done a fairly good job of organising intelligence information to go after specific ways that terrorists finance their crimes. Obviously the EU is important also, I mentioned the fact that when you're looking at security in Europe, the role of law enforcement, the role of intelligence services is of critical importance, it's not all militaries. And that's where the EU can really, I think, step in in that security and judicial domain. SHEA: May-Britt would you agree with that? That NATO and the EU could cooperate more effectively on terrorism. You mentioned at the beginning Consequence Management, is there an area there you see where NATO and the EU should be working together? STUMBAUM: Well I think absolutely NATO and the EU could have a great deal of cooperation particularly because the EU has a more comprehensive approach towards the fight against terrorism and has the means on hand, as you said, like to stop financial transfers, also to (inaudible) police, and all that, but it lacks a military aspect. So I do think if they do complement on this issue that could be a very successful cooperation for both sides. SHEA: Well we're coming almost to the end but we've got a few minutes left and now I'd like to sort of ask the big question right at the end. A little bit beyond even what NATO is doing, we're- as I said at the beginning, four years down the road almost since September the 11th, are we winning or are we losing in this fight against international terrorism? May-Britt what do you think, your assessments of where we are now? STUMBAUM: Well I have to say that my general principle is that despite all odds I'm an optimist, so I'm also optimistic on that and I think what we really succeeded in was like to put this issue on the agenda and to raise the sensitivity for this issue and that I would like to go along with what Marshall and Alan said about the dialogue and the necessity to reach out. And I think one problem that we have is that we were very much focused on ourselves and that the world was developing in different directions and we did not take notice of that, that those things, (inaudible) terrorism, we were basically forced to look- like, what is the world like and to reach out to them. And as you said before I think you raised the point of like understanding what makes them act in this way or as you said like what is actually bringing a suicide bomber going to commit suicide? And I think this is a very important thing if we want to contribute to security in this world. Secondly, I think, if it comes to NATO, putting everything under the label of terrorism which, I think is a bit doubtful, helps very much; to get the transformation going that we actually adapt to the new situation and just my last word on that- the NATO Response Force I think it's a very good vehicle to get all the governments going in the right directions and in particular combined with dialogue, so having the military capabilities but also having the outreach. SHEA: So terrorism drives many processes. Alan, very succinctly do you think we're winning, have we learned the lessons? LIVINGSTONE: Well I think you could say that it was strategically- first of all we had to deal with those terrorists that had a global or transnational capability and we did that with Afghanistan and elsewhere. After that, is to deal with regional level terrorism and I think we're in that phase now and if we can get past that phase, then I think we go into the third phase which is dealing with the more national levels. You have to cut the links starting at the top with those terrorism groups that have the greatest capability, then the regional and then the national. And just- the last thing, I think that what's going to happen next, we're looking at cyber terrorism, we're going to be looking at CBRN, and we're going to be looking at maritime and energy security terrorism. SHEA: Alan thanks. And Marshall, final word from you, the Chief of the New York City Police Department said over the weekend that if September the 11th occurred again we might just be as unprepared as we were last time. Sounds a bit of a pessimistic assessment, would you agree with that? BILLINGSLEA: I haven't seen the full context of that quote so I wouldn't want to react to it. What I would say is that, in general, and I depend on Alan and his colleagues for the intelligence information, but what I see is that we are at this moment in time, we've made substantial progress in dealing with the terrorist threat that exists today. Al-Qaeda is an organisation that is under great stress, has been fragmented and fractured in multiple fashions. We have not denied safe havens and so on and so forth, but there's still a lot more work to be done. SHEA: Marshall thank you very much. May-Britt thank you very much, Alan thank you very much. Thank you everybody for watching this latest Stopwatch, the next one in a month's time will be on the Transatlantic Relationship, join us for then; but from NATO Headquarters and Jamie Shea, goodbye for now.