SECRETARY GENERAL WORNER:  "NATO may have lost an enemy but it
has not lost its raison d'ˆtre:  which is to be a provider of
security and stability".
                                                               

VENICE:  The Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO), Mr Manfred Worner, said on Monday that
"NATO and the UN have been discussing ways of implementing a
peace plan in the former Yugoslavia...  I have no doubt that
if the Alliance is called upon to do more, it will respond
positively."  Addressing the Annual General Assembly of the
International Press Institute, Mr Worner told his audience
that at a time when the United Nations were increasingly
looking to regional organisations and arrangements to help
with peacekeeping tasks "in Europe the obvious choice is
NATO...  the UN has come to better understand the new r“le of
the Alliance; and it has seen that we offer unique assets in
accomplishing the tasks that the international community now
faces".

          Mr Worner, however, cautioned his audience that NATO
"cannot commit itself to supporting globally every
peacekeeping operation; especially where the conditions for
success are absent, where it believes that the mandate and
rules of engagement are inadequate, and where it cannot
exercise unity of command".  The Alliance's primary task would
remain "the self-defence of its members."  The Secretary
General in this respect underlined that NATO's traditional
mission had lost none of its importance:  "the global threat
may have gone but strategic vulnerability is still a fact of
life for our democracies... At a time when national defence
budgets are being reduced ... the Alliance is becoming even
more essential as the basis to maintain a collective defence
capability, the existence of which will continue to exercise
an important deterrent influence."  Nonetheless, Mr Worner
acknowledged that "if we maintain NATO only for our defence
and do not use its means and assets for crisis management and
peacekeeping, its public support will sooner or later wither
away".  As a result, "it is essential that we get on with the
task of developing NATO's peacekeeping and peacemaking
capabilities."

          The Secretary General also emphasized NATO's other
new role, namely "to project stability in Central and Eastern
Europe.... in that way we can try to defuse tensions before
they reach danger point, and build the practice of trust and
cooperation among nations that are in a painful process of
adjustment in their domestic and foreign policies".  Mr Worner
said that the Alliance was now moving its cooperation
activities "away from the general level and towards concrete
projects that address the specific military restructuring
challenges of individual cooperation partner countries".  One
important development was agreement on "a mechanism for
involving our cooperation partners in Central and Eastern
Europe in peacekeeping operations on a case by case and
voluntary basis".  It was important that the Alliance not
allow "the North Atlantic Cooperation Council to lose
momentum....  We must devote to it the necessary political and
military resources to convince our cooperation partners that
they can obtain tangible security benefits from our Alliance".

          Mr Worner believed that "coping with disorder in
Europe is inevitably going to be more complicated in future". 
Nonetheless "the institutions are there ..... our task is to
identify the particular merits of each organisation and find a
formula for having them interact together harmoniously".  This
objective was beginning to be realised:  "NATO has overcome
its old syndrome against so-called out of area operations.  It
is now contributing its assets and crisis management
capabilities to the quest for peace in regional conflicts". 
Moreover, "the increased authority of the UN and CSCE helps to
provide the legitimacy".  The Alliance had also encouraged
politically the development of the WEU; we have facilitated it
in concrete ways as well".  But "these essential instruments
are to no avail if a credible policy and the political will to
implement that policy are lacking".

          Finally, Mr Worner stressed that "in a world in
which the demand for interventions and peacekeeping is growing
all the time, leadership as well as burdens must be more
equitably shared between the US and Europe".  The Alliance's
future vitality depended on "a more politically integrated and
action capable Europe".  The Alliance's process of
transformation "opens up some new perspectives with regard to
the sharing of responsibilities, roles and command structures
between Americans and Europeans....  Nonetheless as in any
organisation influence in the Alliance is determined by three
factors:  unity, weight and contribution."


                 EMBARGO: CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY EXPECTED
              ABOUT 17:00 VENICE TIME ON MONDAY, 10 MAY 1993


          The full text of Mr. Worner's speech follows:








                        SPEECH BY SECRETARY GENERAL
                 TO INTERNATIONAL PRESS INSTITUTE, VENICE,
                              10TH MAY, 1993


Ladies and Gentlemen,

          A few years ago, a famous American commentator
achieved notoriety by comparing the end of the Cold War with
the end of history.  This may have been over-ambitious even in
the halcyon circumstances of 1989 and 1990; but there were
many who did feel justified in proclaiming that the era of
geo-strategy had been superseded by the era of geo-economics. 
"When the guns are silent", wrote the American columnist,
Flora Lewis, "money talks."

          Certainly we all hoped then that we had been spared
the famous Chinese curse of living in interesting times. 
Suddenly, and almost miraculously, the sword of Damocles of a
major and potentially cataclysmic war was no longer suspended
over our heads.

          In 1993, however, we must face a grim reality:
security, not economics, is still the central issue
confronting the Western democracies.  War and the threat of
war continue to define the most important questions when the
leaders of those democracies meet.  For it is the use of
military force in the former Yugoslavia and in the other
regional conflicts that is reshaping the international
environment.  These conflicts may not pose a direct and
palpable threat to our societies in the same manner as Soviet
tanks and missiles during the Cold War.  Yet, as they proceed
unchecked, they are bound to undermine the prospects for
peaceful change not only in their immediate regions but across
entire continents too.

          These ethnic and religious conflicts are not the
only urgent security problems we face.  Russia is in the grip
of a profound political, economic and even environmental
crisis while possessing enormous military power, including
thousands of nuclear weapons.  Looking to the south, threats
of a different order are emerging in the shape of religious
fanaticism, aspirations for regional hegemony and political
and economic resentment towards the West.  These factors can
be magnified by overarmament financed from oil revenues.  The
proliferation of nuclear, chemical and ballistic weapons,
combined with political cynicism and mounting demography, may
confront us with dangers as severe but far more irrational
than those once created by the Soviet Union.

          In addition to the immediate dangers there are also
longer term trends that must make us all thoroughly re-examine
our traditional approach to security policy.

          For instance, we are witnessing an increased
interplay between domestic problems and international security
concerns.  People, information, technology and resources now
cross international borders with increasing ease.  The flow of
refugees from the Yugoslav conflict has perhaps been the most
dramatic illustration of how events in one country can place
severe pressures on countries hundreds of miles away.  
Another example is the way in which the sale of weapons to
help remedy difficult economic circumstances in one place can
sharply change the military balance of power elsewhere.

          A second new challenge is to cope with the return of
nationalism which Giuseppe Mazzini once described of as "the
curse of Europe".  Coping with ethnic conflicts places policy
makers in all our Western countries before difficult and even
conflicting choices:  to intervene or not to intervene?  If
so, when, where and how?  And at what cost?  A reluctance to
intervene in the internal affairs of foreign states has to be
squared with the need to halt a classic campaign of
aggression.

          A third new feature is the very different political
geography of present-day Europe.  The old East-West fault line
that ran through Central Europe has gone.  The number of CSCE
participating nations has passed from 35 to the current 53. 
Two new states, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, have become regional
and even, if only temporarily, nuclear powers.  We must look
at whole parts of the Euro-atlantic area through fresh lenses
and come to terms not only with the aspirations of new states,
but also with older states whose strategic outlook and foreign
policies are wholly different from what we were used to during
the Cold War.

          Perhaps, however, the most dramatic change resulting
from the end of the Cold War has been the change in the way
sovereignty is interpreted.  Operation Provide Comfort in Iraq
is an instance where humanitarian concerns prevailed over the
tolerance of a regime's right to mismanage its own subjects
with impunity.  It is perhaps too early to say whether the
international community is moving towards a new precept of the
right, and even duty of humanitarian intervention.  But there
is a distinct feeling that in cases where genocide is being
committed, or where the governing structures of the state have
collapsed leaving chaos in their wake, as happened recently in
Somalia, outside intervention is both necessary and justified.

          So how can we reduce the dangers?  How can we
contribute to stabilising the political scene to the East and
to the South?  How can we protect ourselves against the
shockwaves of instability in the meantime?

          The most important response is to preserve and
strengthen the few factors of stability that we have at our
disposal.  On our European continent the two most important
are the European Community and the Atlantic Alliance.

          NATO may have lost an enemy but it has not lost its
raison d'ˆtre:  which is to be a provider of security and
stability.  The days when the Western democracies could
provide alone both for their physical security and for the
defence of their interests in the wider world have long since
passed.  The global threat may have gone but strategic
vulnerability is still a fact of life for our democracies. 
Just think in this respect of the proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction that can be carried over ever greater
distances.  Or of the build-up of sophisticated military power
in many countries on the periphery of Europe.  The only
palliative to strategic vulnerability is the Atlantic
Alliance.  By uniting the resources of Europe and North
America, it provides the military capabilities to deter
attack, and also the collective political response that can
help to prevent the risks of today from developing into the
threats of tomorrow.  The international situation can change
much faster than a collective defence capability can be
generated from scratch in response.  So at a time when
national defence budgets are being reduced as a result of the
disappearance of the old Soviet threat, the Alliance is
becoming even more essential as the basis to maintain a
collective defence capability, the existence of which will
continue to exercise an important deterrent influence.

          In a fast moving and uncertain world, NATO's
security-providing function is not less important.  Rather the
task is now to provide security in a different way.  No longer
by essentially military means and along a fixed line of
defence but instead by reacting rapidly, and with a more
sophisticated mixture of political and military options, to
incipient crisis situations beyond our Alliance borders.  The
capacity to change has become as important to achieving
security as the capacity to be consistent and predictable.  Of
course, restructuring may carry risks but not to adapt carries
far greater risks in the long run.

          In the past three years, NATO has undergone a
radical transformation.  The extent of this transformation is
not always appreciated in our member countries, even by
informed opinion.  Already this process has yielded results. 
We now have a new NATO strategy with a new command structure
and a new force structure.  This new strategy places the
emphasis on mobility, flexibility and multinational units
better suited for crisis management and peacekeeping than the
mass mobilisation armies of the Cold War period.  Our new
force structure comprises a triad of reaction forces, both for
immediate and rapid reaction, main defence forces and
augmentation forces. 

          We have also begun to increase weight and influence
of Europe within the Alliance.  Creating an alliance based on
genuine partnership of equals is the precondition of NATO's
longer term vitality.  The attitude of the United States
towards a European security and defence identity and the WEU
has changed; as was made clear by Secretary of State Warren
Christopher in his speech to the North Atlantic Council last
February.  As he himself has repeatedly said:  "not every
crisis need become a choice between inaction and unilateral US
intervention."  In a world in which the demand for
interventions and peacekeeping is growing all the time,
leadership as well as burdens must be more equitably shared
between the US and Europe.  

          We have wasted too much time in a sterile debate
between "Atlanticists" and "Europeanists"; the first seeing
any closer European defence cooperation as a threat to NATO,
the second seeming to suggest that a European security and
defence policy has to be played against NATO and United
States' influence to have any substance and credibility.  Both
are wrong.  A secure Europe and a cohesive Western world need
both a strong Alliance and a more politically integrated and
action-capable Europe.  The two processes - transatlantic
cooperation and European integration - have been
interdependent in the past and will remain so in the future.

          The transformation of the Alliance opens some new
perspectives with regard to the sharing of responsibilities,
roles and command structures between Americans and Europeans.
Nonetheless as in any organisation influence in the Alliance
is determined by three factors:  unity, weight and
contribution.  In this respect, the Gulf crisis and now
Yugoslavia have shown that Europe's political ambitions in the
field of a common security and defence policy run far ahead of
reality.  

          The Western European Union has an essential role to
play in this process of rebalancing the Alliance.  In view of
its recent enlargement and its extension of associate
memberships and observer status to the other European allies,
it represents not only the European security identity but is
also able to develop its complementary role as the European
pillar of the Alliance.  NATO has not only encouraged
politically the development of the WEU; we have facilitated it
in concrete ways as well.  For instance, by offering to make
our Alliance's assets available to the WEU to enable it to
act, following consultations.  We have taken steps to ensure
that the relationship between the WEU and NATO develops
smoothly and cooperatively.  Over the past few months an
effective "modus operandi" between the two organisations has
emerged.

          What we are aiming for is a relationship based on
transparency and complementarity.  Neither organisation can be
effective if it sees the other as a rival, or if we waste time
and effort in debates over institutional prerogatives or in
duplicating each other's actions.  There is plenty for both
NATO and the WEU to do.  The future lies in a pragmatic or
case by case division of labour that allows our combined
political and military assets to be used in the most efficient
and cost-effective way.

          The Yugoslav crisis is inevitably changing the way
we think about peacekeeping and peacemaking.  We have seen how
difficult it is for the UN to cope with complicated military
operations in an environment in which there is no peace to
keep.  The old approach of sending a few hundred blue helmets
whose authority is based more on what they represent than on
their military prowess is no longer sufficient.

          We are increasingly entering a grey zone between
peacekeeping and peacemaking.  We see more clearly that
peacekeeping covers the entire spectrum of operations from
humanitarian and police tasks in a non-hostile environment
right up to major enforcement actions under Chapter 7 of the
UN Charter. This requires troops that are trained not only for
classical peacekeeping missions but who have professional
expertise in a variety of missions, the agreed procedures and
the standardized equipment necessary to cope with dangerous
and deteriorating situations.

          As peacekeeping changes in nature, so does the way
the United Nations are dealing with it.  The United Nations
will retain the overall authority to deal with regional
conflicts and gross violations of international law and norms. 
It is the only body which has a truly world-wide membership,
the authority and means to provide international legitimacy
for action.  The authority of the UN has increased enormously
since the end of the Cold War, which permitted the Security
Council to function effectively at long last.

          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
wherewithal.        

          Thus, in my view, we have to develop not only the UN
structures but also the capabilities of regional organisations
and arrangements, all the more so should the day arrive when
the UN cannot achieve consensus to act in a crisis situation.

          The UN Security Council has begun already to
recognize these constraints and to appeal to regional
organisations and arrangements to help it implement its
Resolutions.  In Europe the obvious choice is NATO.  At first
there were some reservations in UN circles regarding
cooperation with NATO.  These have dissipated as the UN has
come to better understand the new role of the Alliance; and as
it has seen that we offer unique assets in accomplishing the
tasks that the international community now faces:

-    in the first place, practised political alliance
     collective defence organisation with the military
     structure, experience, traditions of training and
     operating together; and in particular the command and
     control capacity to ensure success in peacekeeping
     operations;

-    then, the political and military weight of the
     involvement of 16 allies.  I emphasize the number 16,
     because one of the very significant aspects of the
     Alliance's preparations for support for UN peacekeeping
     operations has been the full participation of all 16
     allies, including France.  We see this as a very positive
     development;

-    next, force and command structures that have been adapted
     to the post-Cold War environment in a way that enhances
     flexibility and mobility, characteristics that are
     essential for peacekeeping;

-    finally, a mechanism for involving our cooperation
     partners in Central and Eastern Europe in peacekeeping
     operations on a case by case and voluntary basis.  We
     have agreed to share experience and expertise with those
     cooperation partners in the planning and preparation of
     peacekeeping missions.  

          Already the Alliance's value as a partner to the UN
is being demonstrated in Yugoslavia.  We have helped the UN by
providing it with detailed contingency planning on such issues
as the supervision of heavy weapons, the protection of UN
humanitarian relief operations, the creation of safe areas and
the prevention of the spillover of the conflict into Kosovo.   
NATO and WEU ships are enforcing sanctions in the Adriatic. 
In recent days we have responded to the UN Resolution 816 and
begun the actual implementation of the no-fly-zone.  This
represents the first time that NATO forces are engaged in a
combat mission beyond their borders, and directly in a war
zone.  NATO command elements are helping the UN Protection
Force.  Moreover, NATO and the UN have been discussing ways of
implementing a peace plan in the former Yugoslavia if it comes
about.  I have no doubt that if the Alliance is called upon to
do more, it will respond positively.

          Let me emphasize that these actions in support of
the UN do not mean that NATO now sees its role mainly as that
of a "sub-contractor" for international peacekeeping duties. 
The Alliance, in the security interests of its own members, is
prepared to assist the UN; but it cannot commit itself to
supporting globally every peacekeeping operation; especially
where the conditions for success are absent, where it believes
that the mandate and rules of engagement are inadequate, and
where it cannot exercise unity of command.  The Alliance's
primary task will remain the self-defence of its members. 
But, at the same time, if we maintain NATO only for our
defence and do not use its means and assets for crisis
management and peacekeeping, its public support will sooner or
later wither away.  The test of NATO's continuing validity
will, for the time being, rest on proving its usefulness in
dealing with immediate crises and problems.  For these
reasons, but also because of the need to make the maximum
contribution to resolving the serious problems that we face in
the Euro-Atlantic area, it is essential that we get on with
the task of developing NATO's peacekeeping and peacemaking
capabilities.

          Prevention, however, is always better than cure. 
Once a conflict has started, it is frequently too late for
crisis management.  All that is left is damage limitation.  So
the other new role of the Alliance is to project stability
into Central and Eastern Europe.  In that way we can try to
defuse tensions before they reach danger point, and build the
practice of trust and cooperation among nations that are in a
painful process of adjustment in their domestic and foreign
policies.

          The Alliance can serve as a model of how former
adversaries can become partners, and as an example of how our
understanding of security has evolved from a once strictly
national perspective to a truly collective one.  After all,
NATO has proven that 16 nations widely differing in size,
population and culture can form an effective alliance, wherein
all  members can discuss security matters as equals.  

          In order to draw the countries of Central and
Eastern Europe closer to us, we have established a North
Atlantic Cooperation Council.  Since then, there have been
regular meetings of Foreign and Defence Ministers, Chiefs of
Defence Staff and numerous high-ranking experts' groups.  Our
Co-operation Partners have come to number 22 states.  The
practice of regular consultations at a working level has also
been reinforced through the opening up of NATO Committee
meetings to participation by Cooperation Partners, and by an
intensive sequence of bilateral visits and exchanges. 
Conversion of the armaments industry, co-ordination of air
traffic or democratization of military structures - there are
many areas where the Alliance is offering support and
co-operation to the Central and East European states.   We are
currently moving this cooperation away from the general level
and towards concrete projects that address the specific
military restructuring challenges of individual cooperation
partner countries.

          It is important that we do not allow the North
Atlantic Cooperation Council to lose momentum.  We must devote
to it the necessary political and military resources to
convince our cooperation partners that they can obtain
tangible security benefits from our Alliance without the need,
at least for the foreseeable future to become NATO members. 
Our cooperation can help to secure the progress of democracy
and reform and to foster throughout Central and Eastern Europe
a degree of reassurance and transparency that will facilitate
peaceful solutions to all problems.

          Coping with disorder in Europe is inevitably going
to be more complicated in future than in the past.  Many more
instruments are required, all of which have to support each
other.  
          
          The institutions are there.  The UN, the CSCE, NATO,
the European Community, WEU.  Our task is to identify the
particular merits of each organisation and find a formula for
having them interact together harmoniously.  The increased
authority of the UN and the CSCE helps to provide the
legitimacy.  Last but not least, NATO has overcome its old
syndrome against so-called out of area operations.  It is now
contributing its assets and crisis management organisation to
the quest for peace in regional conflicts.

          But these essential instruments are to no avail if a
credible policy and the political will to implement that
policy are lacking.  Neither the UN, nor a regional
organisation such as NATO can be expected to help resolve
difficult collective security challenges in which their member
nations are unwilling or unable to assume their
responsibilities as the enforcers of international will.

          Four years after the demise of communism in Central
and Eastern Europe only the vaguest contours of what the
future European architecture will be perceived.  On the other
hand, the new security challenges that the Atlantic Alliance
will have to overcome if it is to achieve its ultimate vision
of a just and lasting peaceful order in Europe have imposed
themselves with almost brutal clarity.  In the shape of the
transformed Atlantic Alliance, we have one of the fundamental
conceptual and institutional tools to meet these challenges. 
It will be the task of political leaders to use it in the
right way and to the right end.