Speech

Distinguished Parliamentarians, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The British 19th Century liberal, Jeremy Bentham, once said that "the price of democracy is eternal vigilance". If this has ever been true of democracy, it is equally true of the fundamental prerequisite of democracy, namely the enjoyment of security. Security has rarely been the natural state of affairs, but rather the product of our ability to anticipate shifts in the strategic environment and devise new solutions to new problems. That is the primary preoccupation of the CSCE today, and it is one that is fully shared by the Atlantic Alliance.

The Cold War is over, but a new stable and predictable order has not been established in its place. A major war in Europe appears unlikely but regional conflicts of a kind unthinkable five years ago are on the increase.

What does this mean for the Atlantic Alliance? In an uncertain world, NATO's raison d'ˆtre to provide security and stability is clearly as important as ever. However, this fundamental task must now be carried out in a different way. The emphasis today is on conflict prevention by resolving crises at an EARLY stage using a wide range of political and military measures. This means a more proactive approach that seeks to shape events as much as to protect ourselves from their consequences. The Alliance's primary task will continue to be to ensure the defence of its members. But we should recognise that crisis management and peacekeeping are not simply secondary tasks or optional extras. They are key elements in the Alliance's broad approach to security which is reflected in our new Strategic Concept, and an important contribution to ensuring a stable security environment in Europe.

What are the requirements for a strategy of conflict prevention and successful crisis management?

- First, we must have political and military instruments which are suited to the purpose;

- Second, we must increasingly interact with other security institutions, such as the UN, the CSCE or the Western European Union;

- Third, we must achieve a redistribution of burdens and responsibilities between North America and Europe, which corresponds more clearly to the new demands for crisis management in multiple theatres.

During the past three years, NATO has undergone a radical transformation which responds to all of the above requirements. We have not only a new NATO strategy but a new command structure and a new force structure. The military elements of the strategy emphasize mobility, flexibility and multinational units, which are essential for crisis management. The development of the Alliance's new force structure with its triad of reaction, main defence and augmentation forces, and the streamlined command structure, is also well underway. We have also sought to adjust our political instruments of crisis management through new types of exercise and more intensive consultations. Coping with disorder in Europe means as much building the basis of long term cooperation among states as reacting to immediate crisis situations. Therefore, we have established a whole new dimension to NATO in the form of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council, where we meet with 22 states from Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

At the same time, the Alliance elaborated at its Rome Summit a conceptual basis for closer interaction with other security organisations. It is essential that we work in close cooperation and coordination with the United Nations, the CSCE, and the WEU. We need a highly integrated approach of all the security institutions in dealing with real and potential conflicts in Europe that permits and indeed encourages them to act simultaneously.

There is no alternative if we are to build an effective security system in Europe. Since the outbreak of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, we have seen a particularly significant development in the shape of a new relationship between NATO and the United Nations. This is logical in view of the fact that the UN, under its Charter, has the primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security.

Despite its new-found authority, however, the UN is clearly unable to handle all the problems by itself. It simply lacks the military capabilities and financial resources, and will do so for some time to come. Thus, in my view, the expanding role of the UN, if it is to prove durable, must be underwritten by a greater role and capabilities of regional organisations. At the same time, peacekeeping is changing in nature. We are increasingly entering a grey zone between peacekeeping, peacemaking and peace enforcement where the UN has to act in circumstances where neither peace, nor the cooperation of the parties can be assumed.

NATO has responded promptly and efficiently to the requests made to us by the United Nations. A few weeks ago in Athens, NATO Foreign Ministers decided, in response to a request from the UN, to offer protective airpower in case of attack against UNPROFOR in the performance of its overall mandate in Bosnia-Herzegovina. If called upon, the Alliance would be able to meet further requests from the UN for support with the same degree of success. Our offer to help with the implementation of a UN peace plan for Bosnia, if one can be agreed, remains on the table.

Recently a good deal of criticism has been directed at the international institutions because of the failure to stop the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. The transformation of institutions to the new environment, and the development of closer links between them, can achieve little in the long run to guarantee security in Europe if the member nations of these institutions are unwilling to play their part as the eventual enforcers of international will. In the former Yugoslavia, it is the United Nations that has the lead. The task of the Alliance is to support the United Nations, and this we have been doing efficiently and will continue to do so. We will thus take appropriate measures to enhance communication and coordination between NATO and the UN, looking to move away from the present ad hoc arrangements towards establishment of a more structured relationship.

Yet no matter how essential the strengthening of the NATO/UN relationship, this cannot be the only axis around which a future European security system must revolve. There is another, equally important and natural partnership that must be established: that between NATO and the CSCE.

The Alliance has long recognized that a strong CSCE is in its interests; and indeed a partner in facilitating the accomplishment of our Alliance's two new missions: namely to contribute to crisis management and to project stability as far as possible into Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The CSCE remains the only forum for political consultation on a pan-European basis and is the standard bearer of democratic norms at a time when these are acquiring greater weight in international relations. Thus in recent years, and especially at our NATO Summits in London and Rome, we have not only endorsed but actively worked for the greater institutionalisation of the CSCE, including, of course, the establishment of this Parliamentary Assembly.

The Alliance has also sought to assist the CSCE in one of its main functions, to oversee the implementation of arms control agreements and the negotiation of new confidence and security-building measures. In this respect we have made a major contribution to the new CSCE Forum for Security Cooperation. We did a good deal of the detailed, conceptual work in defining the mandate of this forum and in helping to organize its work. Subsequently we tabled proposals on most elements of the Programme for Immediate Action, including the harmonization of arms control agreements and approaches for countering proliferation.

Meanwhile it has become clear that we can best assist the further development of the CSCE if we have a closer institutional relationship with it. Thus far the Alliance's participation in CSCE meetings has been at the invitation of the Chairman-in-office or of the host country. I believe the time has now come - and our Alliance Foreign Ministers believe so too - to have an arrangement between our two organisations that would permit NATO's participation, on a permanent basis, in those CSCE bodies that deal with security issues. I very much hope and expect that this can be achieved soon.

The CSCE's role is now being focused more on early warning and pre-crisis measures. Examples are the sending of monitors and observer missions - such as the long term mission in Kosovo and other missions in the former Yugoslavia and on the territory of the former Soviet Union - and the promotion of voluntary conciliation - as in the Baltics and Moldova. This is generally an area which has been "under-explored" by regional organisations. The CSCE focus on it can provide us with improved mechanisms and political emphasis on PREVENTIVE DIPLOMACY.

In recognition of this important and rapidly expanding new role of the CSCE, the Alliance offered at its meeting in Oslo last year to support CSCE peacekeeping operations with its assets on a case-by-case basis. This offer still stands. However, in view of the fact that the CSCE is operating mainly in the area of pre-crisis measures, the Alliance may need to give further thought on how it can best support the CSCE. For instance how we can assist CSCE monitoring and observer missions with transport, logistic and intelligence support.

As the CSCE and NATO operationalize further their roles in crisis management and conflict prevention, it will be all the more necessary for us to share ideas and experiences to ensure that our plans are complementary and compatible. A good example of such "cross-fertilisation" was the decision of the Stockholm Ministerial to hold a seminar on CSCE peacekeeping to explore conceptual and operational issues related to potential CSCE missions. Other international organisations, including the Alliance, were invited to contribute to this seminar which was held last month in Vienna.

The Alliance's new role in peacekeeping is by no means confined to our 16 member states. We seek the participation of other CSCE countries, both to enhance the political legitimacy of such operations as well as to be able to take advantage of the important contributions that these other countries can make. Thus, a major new focus of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council is cooperation in peacekeeping with our cooperation partners. We have initiated discussions with those partners which will lead in due course not only to the sharing of experiences but also to practical cooperation in training, exercises and planning. We have agreed to a number of conceptual principles related to peacekeeping. This allows us to move ahead in carrying out a programme of practical activities. This is real progress and it will also, as it develops, give the CSCE a precious store of capabilities for peacekeeping missions which will usefully complement the CSCE's own planning activities in this area. In this respect, I am pleased that Finland, Sweden and Austria now participate in the NACC Ad Hoc Group on cooperation in peacekeeping.

When the North Atlantic Cooperation Council was founded, there was apprehension in some quarters that it may undermine the CSCE. Quite the reverse has happened: while the CSCE has developed its overall function of supervising the security situation in Europe and of initiating collective action, in particular in the area of short-term preventive diplomacy, the NACC has focused successfully on a more task-orientated long-term role in dealing with the specific problems of military restructuring and democratizing military behaviour in post- Communist societies. In handling delicate issues like the reapportionment of military hardware under the CFE treaty among the new states on the territory of the former Soviet Union, the NACC enabled the CSCE to proceed with the implementation of the treaty under its auspices. Similarly discussions on regional security issues in the NACC in a frank, open atmosphere can hopefully assist the CSCE in its peace efforts, for instance the Minsk conference on Nagorno-Karabakh. So the NACC and the CSCE are not rivals but complementary.

In the transformation the Alliance has undergone in these past years we have seen the need to increase the weight and influence of European partners within the Alliance. Indeed, creating an Alliance based on a partnership of two equally strong and action-capable partners is the precondition of NATO's capacity in the long run to cope with the new challenges. The WEU has an important role to play as we work towards this objective. A secure Europe and a cohesive Western world need both a strong Alliance and a more politically integrated and capable Europe. The two processes of transatlantic cooperation and European integration have been interdependent in the past and will remain so in the future.

Four years after the demise of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, only the vague contours of what the future European architecture may be can be seen. On the other hand, the new security challenges that our institutions will have to overcome if they are to achieve our ultimate vision of a just and lasting peaceful order in Europe have imposed themselves with almost brutal clarity. Despite the serious problems we have to confront, I believe we have the right instruments to deal with them, and if our member nations have the political will to use them in an adequate way, I am confident that we can realize our aspirations to create a more secure future for all our citizens in a Europe whole and free.