Address

Good morning to you all, and a warm welcome to NATO Headquarters.  Although I am scheduled to be with you for some 40 minutes, I will be brief with some comments on where NATO is today and the direction that it will take in the future, allowing for more time for you to pose challenging questions on any relevant topic of your choosing.

Allow me to begin by highlighting what I believe to be the three main pillars of the Alliance: Transformation, Operations and Partnership, that combined, will sustain the building of the Alliance.

The main pillar of the Alliance today is Transformation.  Why?  Because transformation allows us to adapt to the future and to the new realities.  That’s why it’s so important.  And transformation does not only imply changing the way we think or changing what our posture or capability will be, but it also implies changing the way we will operate in the future.

At the core of the Alliance’s transformation is NATO’s Strategic Concept.  Pursuant to the Declaration on Alliance Security approved at the Strasbourg/Kehl Summit in April of last year, the Secretary General appointed a group of experts led by Secretary Albright to analyze and provide recommendations on a new Strategic Concept that will guide NATO through the next decade.  Why “new”?  “New” because there was a recognition that in the new security environment we needed a completely different approach.  Well, to do this we need to think afresh.  The Expert Group will submit its results of external consultations and internal reflections on the new Strategic Concept to the Secretary General by mid-May and will formally present them to the North Atlantic Council on the 17th of May.  Following this, the Secretary General will conduct extensive consultations with Allies, NATO Military Authorities and partners to seek their input on the Group’s report prior to drafting the new Strategic Concept himself.  He will subsequently seek political guidance from Foreign and Defence Ministers before launching the final drafting and negotiation phase in the run-up to the Lisbon Summit in November, where the new Strategic Concept is scheduled to be adopted.

We recognize that the new Strategic Concept must adapt to the new and emerging strategic environment and threats, but this is easier said than done because the fact of the matter is that the future is unpredictable and it would be a fundamental mistake to think otherwise.  So rather than trying to predict what or where the next threat will be, we should adapt our agility, flexibility, mental capability and structure in such a way that we’re able to cope with whatever new challenges and threats will emerge.  Because, to be frank, these new threats and challenges have no borders and borders have no threats.  That is quite a Copernican revolution, isn’t it?  Borders with no threats and threats with no borders.  And when the threat is unclear, it creates a greater sense on insecurity.

Although conventional threats are still of concern, in this day and age we can expect diverse, complex and unpredictable threats to stem largely from violent extremism and the proliferation of nuclear and other advanced weapons technologies.  We can also expect that some of these threats will arise from afar while still affecting our security at home.  Afghanistan is a clear example of this, which leads me to the second pillar of the Alliance – Operations.

NATO is involved in a wide array of ongoing actions in Europe and abroad.  The Alliance’s priority today and for the foreseeable future is, of course, Afghanistan, where our aim is to eliminate the threat from the Taliban and transition the responsibility of securing the country to the Afghan National Security Forces when the appropriate political and military conditions are in place. 

Currently, 46 nations with over 100,000 troops are contributing to the ISAF operation, but the military cannot go it alone.  We will only succeed in Afghanistan through a comprehensive approach with the greater international community and actors such as the UN, EU, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and via a regional approach with neighbouring partners such as Pakistan.  Most importantly, however, we cannot be successful without the support of the Afghan government and people themselves, because it is impossible to provide lasting stability and security without good governance and improved economic conditions.

Aside from Afghanistan, NATO is also continuing its KFOR operations with nearly 10,000 troops deployed to Kosovo.  The recent transfer of lead responsibility of the Gazimestan monument from KFOR to the Kosovo Police was an important first milestone in the transition of lead authority for the protection of cultural and religious sites in Kosovo and there will be further such transfers over time.

Furthermore, NATO’s naval forces are involved in two concurrent maritime operations.  One is Operation Active Endeavour, where the Alliance conducts operations in the Mediterranean to demonstrate its resolve to help deter, defend, disrupt and protect against terrorism, and the other is Operation Ocean Shield to counter piracy off the Horn of Africa, where we recently extended our mandate through the end of 2012.  NATO’s Standing Maritime Group 2, in the spirit of a comprehensive approach with the EU, the Combined Maritime Force and individual nations, has the primary mission of escorting merchant ships carrying cargo of the World Food Programme.

Despite a NATO now at 28, Operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere have demonstrated the value of working alongside partners as well, so allow me to elaborate a little on Partnership, which is what I call the third pillar of the Alliance.

Partnership is a fundamental tool of building relationships, but it has a double purpose.  Firstly, it’s a sort of preventive security tool because if you build partnerships and engage with others, even though some of the others may be different from you in their values, culture, tradition or perception, it will increase the likelihood of preventing crises that demand intervention before they emerge and I’m sure that you will agree with me that prevention is always better than intervention.

But secondly, if a crisis emerges requiring intervention, and you have established a partnership network in advance, even a distant one, you will find it much easier to work together to intervene and resolve that issue.  Because when you have partners on your side,  those partners can help by, at least, providing political support and sometimes can even give you military forces support, which is essentially the case in Afghanistan.

We cannot talk about partnership without touching on the relationship that NATO has with Russia.  I believe that NATO and Russia are part of the Euro-Atlantic security construct, as has been enshrined in the NATO-Russia Declaration of 1997 and reinforced in the 2002 Rome Declaration, which is why we strive for a constructive partnership with them.  It is paramount, however, for Russia to also share this belief.

Moreover, we cannot discount the fact that certain Russian behaviour or potential trends has an influence on the sense of security of some of our Allies, that’s why reassurance is so important.  So we must follow, as always, a dual track.  The track of reassurance to our Allies and the track of reengagement with Russia, which was broken two years ago with the Georgia war.

Allow me to conclude by saying that the vision for the future – the new Strategic Concept, the Operations that are shaping our future, and the Partnerships that we are forming, are the three drivers to help finalize what NATO’s role will be in the next decade.  And because everything changes, everything evolves, we must also change and we must also evolve.  But there are two things that do not change, which are worthwhile fighting for, if necessary.  They are our values and our bond with our North American friends.  Those two things: values and the trans-Atlantic bond, are the permanent features that will never change.  Should they change, NATO will be obsolete, and I’m not sure that that will be to our benefit.

Thank you very much; I will now take your questions.