It is a pleasure for me to join you this afternoon for this, my initial press conference, in my new capacity as the Chairman of the Military Committee. For one, it allows us the chance to get to know one another and for two, it gives me the opportunity to provide you some thoughts on our past and ongoing operations in and around Kosovo.
I specifically mention opportunity because I did not deem it appropriate to speak to you of the media until this time. I know the importance of the media but let me say that the reason is very simple. While the Alliance was fully engaged in its first combat operations, my place and forum to speak, offer advice and discuss issues was either in the Council or in the Military Committee. Under such warlike circumstances, I remained convinced that the Alliance needs to be heard with one voice. For political and policy matters that voice was the Secretary General himself, or his spokesman, who is here, while for military matters, it was the operational commander.
While I may not have joined you earlier for a press conference, I can assure you that, for some time, I was indeed very busy and the fact that I assumed the Chairmanship in the middle of NATO's Air Campaign produced some extra challenges. But believe me, there was no loss of momentum and this for several reasons. First, I was, and had been, an integral part of the Alliance military decision-making process for the past five years in my capacity as the Italian Chief of Defence Staff. Hence, I was already quite familiar with many of the pressing Alliance issues. Second, my role as the CMC is to provide military advice to the Secretary General and to the North Atlantic Council.
Thus, I normally deal with strategic, policy or politico-military issues and I am the interface between the Alliance political and military authorities. In performing such functions, similar in nature to my previous appointment, I also had the added advantage of being able to draw upon the advice of my predecessor whom I knew very well during our brief overlap, on the expertise of the Military Committee and the International Military Staff here at NATO Headquarters, and last, but not least, on the support of the Secretary General. As a result, I can state with confidence that there was neither a loss of continuity nor a lack of consistency in the military advice provided to the Council.
But with Phases 1 and 2 of Operation ALLIED FORCE terminated and KFOR fully engaged working to create a secure and stable environment in Kosovo in which all can live in peace and democracy, I feel now is a good time to briefly review the accomplishments to date and look forward to the challenges which await us.
Given your profession and experience, I realize there is no requirement for me to summarize NATO's Air Campaign and the related operations. What I believe is of more interest at this stage is to assess the lessons learned so that the Alliance is better prepared and structured to address crises in the future. It is, however, too early to extract all the possible lessons learned with precision since much research and analysis has yet to be completed. That said, there are a few broad military considerations which I feel I can make with confidence.
The first is that the United States not only provided approximately 70% of the air assets for NATO's Air Campaign, it also provided the lion's share of the sophisticated aircraft and weaponry plus other strategic assets. Indeed, without the United States' assets, the Alliance could never have mounted an impressive air campaign such as this. Quite frankly, the rest of the Alliance members simply do not have the required capacity, and not just in terms of air assets. Once again, the American national contribution to the Alliance efforts was absolutely instrumental to achieve NATO's overall success. To put it another way, unless there exists a real European resolve to acquire the necessary resources, the European Defence and Security Identity will remain nothing more than a noble concept. And this I think is an important remark.
The second military lesson learned I wish to highlight today deals with intelligence. It is now obvious that in this day and age good military intelligence is not sufficient to ensure success. Indeed, in a crisis prevention/crisis management scenario such as Kosovo, it was the broader aspects of intelligence, specifically those in non-military fields, which can often hold the keys to success or failure. Thus NATO, which has few intelligence assets of its own and which is already dependent on its member nations for intelligence contributions, must solicit its members for considerably more than was previously the case. This implies both the acquisition of additional intelligence platforms, the Alliance Ground Surveillance being a case in point, and an expansion and reorientation of actual intelligence efforts into more non-military domains.
A third lesson for your consideration concerns NATO's force structures. The Kosovo crisis demonstrated quite clearly that the Alliance needs sufficient modern mission-effective forces with the necessary readiness and availability. These latter two capabilities are crucial if we wish to improve, as we must, our ability to react to emergencies. This is an urgent requirement since while we did our best this time, such as pre-deployments into the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, we were surprisingly close to our limit. Indeed, one needs only to recall that to support the Kosovo-related operations, the Alliance had to deploy virtually all of its immediate and rapid reaction forces and headquarters including AMF (L), the ARRC, SNFM, SNFL, MCMFORMED and MCMFORNORTH. What if another crisis had developed elsewhere? No doubt, we must reinforce the Alliance's force structure. Not only does this make military sense, it also makes sound political sense since the availability of more such units provide the Alliance political authorities more flexibility in their options and greater time, if desired, to make decisions. As an aside, I can assure you that we in the Military Committee are seized with this issue and that we will address the full force structure implications shortly.
The last lesson I wish to underline is the value of the Partnership for Peace Programme. Intended to foster collaboration and transparency, the existing programme proved to be a crucial and extremely effective vehicle for consultation, passage of information, and cooperation in this very demanding circumstance. The positive developments stemming from the meetings at 19 plus 7 neighbouring states provide several examples in this regard and helped create the strategic isolation of Yugoslavia. Furthermore, I cannot over-emphasize the invaluable political and practical assistance rendered by Albania and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia under the most trying of conditions. We are most grateful to all these nations for their unwavering support in our collective efforts to bring about a just outcome in the Kosovo crisis.
All in all, the NATO Air Campaign was a very complex operation aimed to achieve the well-known NATO five conditions. Spread over a long period, hampered by often unfavourable weather conditions, and hindered by a number of well-known constraints, the campaign itself presented a daunting challenge. But in the end, the Alliance proved to be more than a match for the challenge. Our ultimate success rested on three pillars. The first was the cohesion of all Alliance members, reinforced by the strength of the transatlantic link. The second is the quality, training, professionalism and dedication of the men and women serving in the forces of our member nations and their outstanding commanders. And the third is the superior quality and reliability of its equipment and what we call technological superiority.
And it is, ladies and gentlemen, many of these same exceptional NATO servicemen and servicewomen who, having secured the peace in Kosovo, are now presently engaged and contributing to build a new future for this war-torn province and Her inhabitants. Indeed, members of KFOR or the elements which support KFOR are now part of a larger, international effort to restore hope and stability to Kosovo. Under the lead of the United Nations, several key international institutions such as the UNHCR, the OSCE, the EU and the ICTY have already commenced coordinating and cooperating hand in glove with KFOR to achieve our common objective. Moreover, we are also fortunate that several NGOs including the ICRC are deeply committed to achieve similar aims.
Speaking of international effort, even the composition of KFOR will change as it transforms itself from a purely Alliance force to a truly international military enterprise. In fact, SHAPE has already received offers from Argentina, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden and Ukraine. In addition, Jordan, Moldova, Morocco, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates have indicated their intentions to contribute to the NATO-led Force in Kosovo. Furthermore, Russia, as a consequence of the Helsinki Agreement, has agreed to contribute a sizeable contingent to KFOR and discussions to finalize the detailed arrangements for their participation are ongoing with SHAPE. Needless to say, these developments are all very positive. We in NATO warmly welcome the participation of all these nations, and any others who may wish to join us, in the collective effort to promote and maintain a secure and stable environment so that reconstruction and reconciliation can take root.
We have no doubt the challenges ahead of KFOR are still numerous and imposing. But when you combine the extremely competent leadership and proven structures of KFOR with the unified will of the participating nations exemplified by their men and women, and when you then combine this potent mixture with the complementary efforts of so many international institutions, organizations and agencies, it is hard to imagine anything but ultimate mission success for KFOR.
And on this optimistic note, ladies and gentlemen, I believe now is a good time to conclude my remarks except to say that looking beyond KFOR, we in the Military Committee still have a host of other issues to contend with. For example, we need to continually assess our progress in other key operations such as SFOR and AFOR while, at the same time, address the issues stemming from the Washington Summit including the European Security and Defence Identity, the Defence Capabilities initiative, and the force structure review to name but a few. That said, these are perhaps topics for future conferences so allow me to stop here and take your questions.
Thank you very much.
