''NATO’s Strategic Concept, the New Security Environment, and the NATO-Russia Partnership''

I would like to start by reading a sentence which was said by President Medvedev on the 12th of July, so it is quite recent.  President Medvedev was speaking to a number of Russian ambassadors, I suppose, and he said: “Another point I would like to make is related to NATO.  We are waiting to get a clear picture of what will happen to NATO.  We would like to see the Alliance complete its transformation and become a modern security organization that is oriented toward the 21st century rather than the 20th century.”

Well, I think that this statement applies to NATO as much as it applies to Russia and I think that we all have to recognize that we have to move away from the 20th century.  It’s not easy, although it is easier for the younger people, I hope, because in the end, you are the future not only of this country, but are also the future of international relationships.  Because looking back, sometimes, especially for old military people like me, is very comfortable – you feel at home and you know what you are doing, you feel nice and fine – but it doesn’t help.  It doesn’t help you and it doesn’t help the relationship in an evolving international security environment.

And why is the 21st century so different from the 20th century?  Because, fundamentally, there have been some major shifts which have taken place, are taking place and which will continue to take place, and these major shifts have characterized what I would call a revolution of the international environment – not an evolution, but a revolution.  And when there is such a dramatic change, then, sometimes, the past experience doesn’t help.  Sometimes looking to the past, instead of being a lesson learned, becomes an impediment to the change.  That’s why I insist on a need for a fresh look – a fresh start.

And what are these fundamental changes, these fundamental trends which are making the start of this new century so different from what we have known only 20 years ago.  Fundamentally, the biggest of these changes is globalization.  Globalization is something which is a pervasive phenomenon, which is really permeating every aspect of our human society.  Globalization is something which, really, has fundamentally changed the way we relate to each other.  To quote Thomas Friedman, a journalist that many of you know: “The planet is flat.”  And when it is flat, it means that there is no horizon curve, so, fundamentally, you are connected to any place immediately.  That is what he means by “flat.”  Nothing occurs beyond your knowledge horizon; everything is happening at the same time and affects everyone.  And this globalization is also very evident in economics – there is a fundamental change occurring in the economy – not only as it relates to the recent crisis, but there are some new economic relationships that are developing.  These are changing every aspect of our lives.  There is a fundamental demographic change which is going on, as well as a demographic shift, and, I suppose, that none better than the citizens of Russia, when you look at your demography, understand what this change means.  In Europe, certainly, we are becoming an aging society with a birth rate very much lower than in other parts of the world, so it’s not just another way of becoming a crowded planet, which is the second part of Thomas Friedman’s quote: “We are a flat planet and we are a crowded planet.” But, it’s not enough.  We are in a period in which we are living fundamental climatic challenges – not that NATO can do anything about climatic challenges – but it’s a fact that climatic challenges are changing the way that we will relate to each other, the way that life in this common planet will be affected for all of us.  Therefore, that’s why, to complete Thomas Friedman’s quotation, he said: “We are flat, we are crowded and we are hot.”

Certainly, we are flat in Russia, it’s a flat country; we are hot, it’s very hot today in Moscow; and we are crowded.  Today, to go to a place 35km from here, it took me two hours with a police escort, so that means that there were a lot of cars and a lot of people and I think that Thomas Friedman was really right with his quote.  And there’s another reality, which is the emergence of big, new countries: Brazil, India, and China.  Russia is not an emerging country, it’s an emerged country but also an evolving country.  I asked Ms. Parkhalina earlier where Russia was going.  I don’t know, she said, but, certainly, I know that Russia is in transition.  It’s really, fundamentally changing, and that is what we have to recognize.  Although we don’t know where Russia will end up, certainly Russia is a country in transition, and that’s an important element of change.

And, if we look to all of these trends, I draw one conclusion: that the centre of gravity of the international geopolitical landscape is moving away from, let’s say, our obsession in the 20th century for the line dividing Europe in the West from the East, or the Alliance and the Soviet Union, at that time.  That line is no longer relevant to our security because globalization also means that the security challenges have no boundaries, have no geographical location, they are trans-national and trans-continental and they don’t even, necessarily have State identities.  You know better than me that these challenges are called terrorism, this country knows terrorism as we know terrorism; they are called proliferation, you are just as aware of proliferation as us; and if you combine terrorism and proliferation, believe me, you get the scariest security challenge that we can think of.

But beyond that, we are living in a world in which there are big problems concerning energy security; we are on the verge of a revolution in energy production – the way in which we will generate energy will change dramatically over the next 20 years.  So this is also a problem that, already today, affects our way of living.  Why, for example, we – NATO, Russia, China, the European Union, the United States and others are in the Gulf of Aden, in the Somali Basin, fighting piracy?  You would say “why should we be there”?  Because, fundamentally, there is a challenge, there is a threat.  To what?  To maritime communication.  And maritime communication is a fundamental asset for trade, for movement of goods, for our wealth.  Therefore, for the well being of the Russians, the Europeans, the North Americans, if there is a threat there, which is far away from Europe, far away from the Mediterranean, from the Atlantic, far away from the Baltic Sea, far away from whatever you can think of and, still, you see NATO ships, European Union ships, Russian ships, Chinese ships and Japanese ships there all together, it’s because they realize that there is a serious risk to our well being.

So the conclusion that I derive from this is that we have to, really, stop looking to our underbellies or to ourselves and say “oh my God, what is going on here?”  We have to realize that we have to move out from the past and that we cannot do it alone – we have to work together – and, I think, that this is the essence of the new Strategic Concept.  The new Strategic Concept is in the making.  What you have is the result of a very open process, in which a group of 12 experts, or what Ms. Parkhalina called the “12 apostles,” who chartered the nature of the problem and came up with some recommendations.  This is just the starting point for the real exercise, which is now ongoing under the direction of the Secretary General himself, as he was personally tasked by the Heads of State and Government to start putting this reflection phase, the outcome of this reflection process, onto paper which, eventually, will be discussed and approved by the Heads of State and Government at the NATO Summit in Lisbon.

At the core of this reflection, I believe, which is also at the core of our debate in Europe, within the Alliance and our partners, is that we can no longer only look at the challenges and risks coming from inside the Euro-Atlantic area.  Clearly, there is some unfinished business in Europe – we know that there are problems in the Euro-Atlantic area; there is still unfinished business in the Balkans, although more a challenge than a threat, hopefully.  Actually, we will have to see what political developments stemming from the ruling on the Kosovo declaration of independence by the International Court of Justice, which came out just yesterday, will emerge.  And there are also problems in the Caucasus – we don’t have to be shy about that.  Our Euro-Atlantic region is not fully stabilized in itself, so we need to be attentive to it, but, in the end, and more importantly, the greatest problems and threats are coming from outside our region.  The Euro-Atlantic security is more and more interconnected to Euro-Asian and Asian-Pacific regions.

The reason why we are in Afghanistan, and when I say “we” I mean the international community, it’s because we believe that there are serious dangers and threats there which impact our security.  It impacted our security in New York, London and Madrid, and tomorrow it could impact our security in Prague, in Rome, in Moscow or in any other place, so we are there because we realized that some problems need to be faced when and where they develop before they become problems that affect us at home, where they would be more difficult to tackle.

In this new security environment, the core of the Alliance, which, fundamentally, remains collective defence, inevitably takes on a wider security meaning – a much wider approach – because the threat, even to our homeland, is no longer mainly coming from inside Europe, it’s no longer coming from the East.  And I spell it out very clearly, which I can do because my political master, the Secretary General, has spoken clearly before me, “Russia is not our adversary, Russia is not our enemy, Russia is not our threat.”  Russia is a very important, potential partner.  I say “potential” because to be a partner it takes two to tango.  We, the Alliance, are seriously determined to have a constructive engagement with Russia because we believe that a strategic partnership with Russia is in the interest of the Euro-Atlantic area, it’s in the interest of Russia, it’s in the interest of Europe and the Alliance.  And we believe that this is somewhat of a revolutionary change if we could be able to engage in a constructive manner and in an effective strategic partnership with Russia.  My visit today in Russia, my meeting with General Nikolai Makarov is also symbolic.  I want you to visualize this because symbols, sometimes, are important.  Visualize the sincere will from both sides, I suppose and I hope, to move forward and leave behind a “Fulda Gap” mentality, which in the past meant so much, because it belongs to the 20th century security environment.

Today’s problems can only be solved by working together.  Therefore, we will see, I believe, in the new Strategic Concept, first of all, this sense of awareness of living in a globalized world.  I know and you know, that there is a debate in NATO about the type of organization that we are.  In the end I do not think that denomination is a topical issue.  How we define ourselves is less important than what we are and what we do, and in a globalized environment, we cannot but have a global awareness, so we need to open up to others and to understand that we can no longer go it alone nor can the military do all on its own either.  The military is an important, sometimes indispensable tool for crisis management and to help solve certain problems, but it’s not the only solution and, certainly not always the first solution.  First and foremost, even though the military is an essential tool, it’s always at the service of a broader political goal and strategy.

Therefore, partnerships or working with others in a wider comprehensive approach, will be, I think, key to the new NATO – the NATO that President Medvedev said “I hope that it will move out from the 20th century posture.”  I think that we, the Alliance, are definitely moving out, and I would like to think that Russia is also moving out from the 20th century posture because that is just as important.  So the sense of working with others, the sense of opening up to others, is key to the new Strategic Concept and I believe that the part of the new Strategic Concept that will be dealing with partnerships, in the wider sense, will probably be a most innovative element of the Alliance’s new vision.  And I would like to remind you that in 1997, or at the end of the 20th century and on the eve of the 21st century, we signed, with Russia, the Founding Act, which, eventually, was reconfirmed in 2002 in the Declaration of Rome, and, if you look carefully, everything is in there including the same principles that President Medvedev has argued for – the, so called, new security architecture.  The principles are in the Founding Act, the Rome Declaration, in the Helsinki Act and Paris Charter, so what we need to do is to reconfirm and implement these principles that we have recognized as the foundation for our relationship, and for the security in the Euro-Atlantic area.

In a 21st century cooperative security environment, for NATO, it will be important to, first, have a strong relationship with the European Union.  It is time to move on.  We cannot continue to have a limited, selective relationship with the European Union.  That’s something that needs to be changed.  There is a need for a strong political initiative because I believe that we need a strong institutional relationship between the Alliance and the European Union.

Secondly, we need to work strongly with other partners, and Russia is a very relevant one of them.  I remind you that Russia was the first partner with which we said we want to have a strategic relationship.  Beyond the sense of partnership, “strategic” means recognizing the relevance of a certain country.  Therefore, we hope that Russia will also want to engage in this strategic relationship.  Certainly, there are fundamental issues that have occurred over the last few years which have moved us apart.  There is strong divergence on certain issues – Georgia, for example – it’s as simple as that.  We don’t agree on certain issues, but the fact that we don’t agree does not prevent us, first of all, from engaging and understanding what happened and why we believe that what happened was wrong, but to do so, in any case, we have to talk.  And, secondly, we have to move forward because, in the end, if you look at what happened in World War II, many Allies fought to the death against Germany and Italy and now we are Allies and friends in NATO and the EU.  So the memory of the past cannot continue to haunt us forever, and although we have fundamental problems with what happened in Georgia, we can move forward and try to solve this issue because, in any case, we need frank engagement, as we need to also work with others, meaning other countries, other organizations such as the United Nations, the African Union and other regional or functional organizations.

I believe that that’s why we have a relationship with countries of the Gulf through the ICI – the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative – and why we have a relationship with the countries of the Mediterranean through the Mediterranean Dialogue.  That’s why we’re engaged in putting up partnerships with countries that work with us from Iraq to Afghanistan, because beyond the training mission in Iraq and the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, we want to build a long-term, enduring relationship with those countries.  We are engaged with Japan, with Australia.  That’s why China, for the first time, sent a military delegation to visit NATO Headquarters where I met with them formally, and not only for a cup of coffee, so, if China comes to Evere, it means that there must be an interest in developing a relationship with us.

There is another issue that I want to spell out clearly because it divides us, but there is a need to understand each other.  It is the issue of NATO’s open door policy.  You read the open door policy in one way, which I don’t think is the right one, but I’m ready to be challenged.  Fundamentally, the Atlantic Treaty is an Alliance between the Europeans and North Americans based on values.  But it’s a free Alliance and the charter of the Atlantic Treaty, which was signed in 1949, or 60 years ago, says that this Alliance is open to any European – and the sense of what constitutes an European country is open to debate -- I repeat, any European country that is willing to share the same values and willing to engage to protect those values, in other words, to give and to receive, is welcome.  So, that fundamental sense of openness is what really counts.  We’re not expanding, we’re not forcing anyone to join us, we’re not looking for expansion, we are an open organization, we are an open but demanding club.  Any European country that wants to freely join us, and is willing and capable to share the same values and contribute to common security, can do it.  It’s as simple as that.  So that’s why I don’t like this expression of expansion.  We’re not Alexander the Great; we’re not Napoleon, who certainly did not come to Moscow by invitation.  We are a free organization of democratic States willing to share security among themselves and with the others.  So that’s why, I think, you really need to change the way you look at us, the Alliance.  We are neither a threat nor a danger to Russia.

So I will now close with a motto.  In the very early days of the Alliance, the first Secretary General of the Alliance, Lord Ismay, answered to somebody who asked him why the Alliance was created – remember that we are talking about 1949 so don’t misunderstand me – and he said “oh, it’s quite clear, the Alliance has been just created because we want the United States in, engaged in Europe; we want the Germans down, having recently ended a total war; and we want the Soviet Union out.”  That was the simple explanation which was provided at the time.  If Lord Ismay was here today, in this room, and was asked what he thought the new NATO should look like and why NATO is still relevant, well, I think he would say that it’s because we want to continue to have the U.S. in; Europe, which includes Germany, up; Russia and others with; and dangers out.

Thank you very much.