Annual meeting of the Military Committee

NATO's highest military authority, the Military Committee, met for its two-day annual meeting at NATO HQ on 8 and 9 November. Four separate meetings took place: that of the Chiefs of Defence Staff (CHODS) from NATO member countries, the meeting of NATO members with their partners within the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Military Council (EAPMC), a NATO-Russia meeting and a NATO-Ukraine meeting.

During these meetings, participants took stock of progress made in regular activities such as operations in the Balkans, cooperation with partners, peace support exercises, and more specific issues such as defence reform in Ukraine and the decision to pass from conscription to professional forces. Two key items emerged from these meetings: the development of high readiness forces for the Alliance (CHODS meeting) and growing cooperation between NATO and Russia in search and rescue at sea (NATO-Russia meeting).

• High readiness forces: after the review of NATO military command structures last year, the need to develop a new force structure was discussed by Chiefs of Defence Staff (CHODS). The aim is to provide a minimum contingent capable of full flexibility during an article V or non article V crisis (1). In addition to the creation of a high readiness corps, this in-depth reform would necessitate the creation of readily deployable headquarters. At present, the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps is the only headquarters with a high readiness status. The estimated number needed has been set at nine.

During the CHODS meeting, a consensus was reached on the selection criteria these headquarters would need to meet. The next step is to set a range of options, which would determine a mix of graduated readiness headquarters and to agree on the final selection process for the nine headquarters before the meeting of Defence Ministers in December 2000. Member countries have already started suggesting potential contributors, which would be taken from existing NATO Commands.

• Search and Rescue at Sea: during the NATO-Russia meeting, participants exchanged information on search and rescue operations at sea. This built on the very positive fact-finding meeting held on 3 November when Russia and NATO members put forward proposals for concrete cooperative activities in this field. The Russians, for instance, stressed the need to develop submarine-related escape, search and rescue exercises and the need to meet NATO standards for communications and other equipment necessary for such operations. These were just some of the proposals suggested by the Russians, which converged with those envisaged by NATO. NATO members stressed that they had the expertise and infrastructure to support these suggestions. Further discussions on possible developments in this area are planned for the Defence Ministers' meeting in December.

Article V of NATO's founding treaty stipulates that an armed attack against one or more members will be considered an attack against them all.