NATO HQ, Brussels 6 June 2002

Transcript of Press Conference given by NATO Secretary General, Lord George Robertson LORD ROBERTSON Good Afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen. I think this is the third time in a little more than a month that I have had the pleasure of welcoming you to a major NATO press conference. Last month NATO Foreign Ministers met in Reykjavik in Iceland, then two weeks ago the NATO-Russia Summit was held in Rome, and of course today the Defence Ministers of NATO have been meeting here in Brussels. NATO has been very busy indeed. Following in the footprints of the Foreign Ministers, NATO Defence Ministers today have adopted and made some fundamental decisions and these decisions will have a profound impact on the future development of NATO and they will ensure that the Alliance, and indeed conceivably an enlarged Alliance, will remain vital and effective. Today's decisions pave the way for a successful Summit meeting of NATO in Prague later this year which will see the emergence of a modernised updated North Atlantic Treaty Organisation equipped to face the new and daunting challenges which confront us today. At the end of the day our decisions on capabilities, on the review of NATO structures and on measures to counter weapons of mass destruction are all about one thing, and that is maintaining NATO's preponderance as the only military and political organisation capable of defending and promoting the collective values of democracy, freedom, liberty and the rule of law. Obviously the adaptation of NATO is an evolutionary process. It won't, it can't, happen overnight and it will require dedication and it will require money. And today Defence Ministers took a significant step forward by embracing a new more focused approach to capabilities based on firm commitments and on target dates, concrete initiatives they have put forward to improve our defence against weapons of mass destruction attack, in addition to the existing capability gaps that needed to be filled. Ministers also agreed to look again at the Alliance's overall command and control structures. This will be a comprehensive review and the aim is to take decisions on it by the summer of 2003. This clearly signals that NATO means business and when I look back on the process accomplished in a remarkably short period of time I have a distinct sense of pride in the organisation. Much has been done to take into account the most recent changes in the strategic environment from the tragic, like the attacks on the United States on 11 September, to some of the most extraordinarily positive in our new relations with Russia and the end of the Cold War division of Europe. So, Ladies and Gentlemen, the world is changing and so is NATO and together as NATO nations and as NATO's partners we are determined to make that world better and safer and we will do what must be done to continue to honour this solemn commitment which is the cornerstone of the North Atlantic Alliance. QUESTION: Secretary General, in this change which you foresee in the world in general, and NATO in particular, is it the intention to abandon any territorial limits which are for instance in the treaty? LORD ROBERTSON If you read carefully, Freddie, the communiqué from the Foreign Ministers Meeting in Reykjavik you will see that we have made it clear that we must be ready to deal with threats whenever they occur and wherever they occur, and the language in there is very explicit, very deliberate and is designed to make sure that people understand that an attack on the Alliance and the Alliance' interests is something that will be responded to from wherever it comes and we need to have the means to do that. QUESTION: … an attack on the Alliance? LORD ROBERTSON I said the Alliance, read the language, Freddie, it is very explicit and makes it absolutely clear what it is we are saying and what we are going to do. QUESTION: Mr Secretary General, are you in favour of the creation of a rapid reaction force inside NATO in the fight against terrorism capable to be deployed fast? LORD ROBERTSON We already have some of those. The Allied Command Europe's Allied RapidReaction Corps, more commonly known as the ARRC, is exactly thatphenomenon. It isn't a mobile headquarters but it has been used in a mobile context, it was used very effectively and successfully in Bosnia in 1995. But the form of NATO's force structure will create a range of mobile capabilities, people may like to call them rapid reaction forces but they will be in the form of Combined Joint Task Forces involving elements of both land forces as well as sea and air forces at the same time. So the reform of the force structure will give NATO a much greater flexibility in the kind of forces and the range of forces that can be deployed depending on what the threat is and what we need to do about it. QUESTION: Lord Robertson, given the wide gap in terms of defence spending between the US and the European countries, there are several ideas on the table to answer this gap. Do you personally think that the way forward is a specialisation of forces, and if so is it realistic to imagine that countries like the UK and France would accept this kind of specialisation? LORD ROBERTSON Well countries such as the ones you mentioned already do involve themselves in specialisations because they have got specialities that other countries haven't got. But we are looking at ways in which specialisation might produce elements for the toolbox that NATO would be able to deploy depending on the circumstances it had to face, but we are also looking at commonly funded solutions on the model of the Awacs fleet that NATO has at the present moment and which was deployed with such enormous effect to the United States of America last year after 11 September. As lead nation purchasing of capabilities which might be leased to other countries in the Alliance, we are looking at the possibility of leasing methods by which short term shortfalls can be addressed. This morning's meeting talked in very specific terms, not in general terms about funding and about commitments and promises, but at how the Alliance can get to grips with these capability shortfalls and making a crude statement about the capabilities of the United States on one hand and the capabilities of the Europeans on the other hand does not add up to the whole picture. The Europeans already have capabilities that add substantially to what the United States of America can supply, and if we get the strategic lift, the large planes, if we get air-to-air refuelling, if there are more precision guided weapons, if there are more planes with day and night all weather flying capabilities, then the Europeans will be able to participate in the vast majority of missions that the United States might lead, but they have to modernise in order to be part of that coalition with the Americans and that is the imperative that is driving Defence Ministers in the way that they are just now to find new and different mechanisms for getting those capabilities. QUESTION: Mr Secretary General, in this regard was there any specific plan adopted for what should be achieved, accomplished at the Prague Summit? LORD ROBERTSON Well we are addressing the capability shortfalls and what happened today was that the process has now been endorsed of moving ahead, we have a specific committee in here, the high level steering group, which has now been charged with the specific responsibility of identifying a smaller number of key missing capabilities and working on what mechanism can be used to procure them that will go to the Heads of State and Government at Prague. So at Prague we are not looking for a generalised support for a list of the capabilities that are missing, we are looking to the Heads of State and Government signing up to a plan on how they are going to be delivered by precise times. QUESTION (Barbara Star, CNN) Can you tell us what you are hearing from the Russians at this Ministerial meeting, any specific examples of what they have told to you about their particular interests in participating in this new NATO, in these capabilities that you are discussing? LORD ROBERTSON I am just meeting the Russian Defence Minister after I speak to you, so I can't give you any Moscow-based sentiment. But I can tell you what we talked about in Rome last week, both formally and informally, and what we have heard since then, and that is the very clear desire by the Russians to use the NATO-Russia Council to have the mindset that will allow issues to be discussed and debated to the point where joint decisions and then joint action can be agreed. And I think that what happened at Rome the week before last was to change the whole way of thinking, both on the NATO side and on the Russian side, about now moving into an atmosphere where we can get to grips with some of the common threats that exist and do it in a common way. It won't be an easy process, I don't think that achieving a complete change of mindset will be easy either in this headquarters completely nor on the Russianside, but everything that we have seen immediately before and in the 10 days since Rome indicates that the Russians mean business and that is reciprocated here. QUESTION: NATO is now more or less under American pressure accelerating all of a sudden its work on the capabilities front and more or less sprinting towards Prague. Doesn't that mean in retrospect that NATO has lost 3 years of work and is now taking a big risk? For instance, can you guarantee that NATO will come up with concrete results within 5 months time? LORD ROBERTSON I can't guarantee anything, I don't deliver the outputs. NATO is an organisation of nation states, they are the ones who own the capabilities, NATO simply brings it together and assembles it as and when it is required. So I am not in the position of delivering, but I am in the position of reminding people of the obligation they have to deliver on what they say and to be prepared for the kind of threats that we now know exist and might occur that would endanger the safety of our people and that is what today's discussions were about. There were some pretty tough briefings given by the Americans and by people in NATO, especially about weapons of mass destruction and in particular about biological weapons. There are a lot of capabilities to deal with conventional warfare. There is doctrine that deals with the use of nuclear weapons, there are actually methods of protection against some chemical weapons and we have got some capability in that area, but we have to face the fact that biological weapons, germ warfare is now coming on to the agenda for both individual terrorists and perhaps for terrorist states. And if you know the dangers and you are aware of the dangers then you take on yourself the responsibility to act on that part and you will see the decision that has already been taken about the five measures in relation to weapons of mass destruction leading up to Prague and I expect that the focus paid to this today will lead to more decisions taken. I count these particular decisions as a down payment. And just let me address the first point about the American-driven agenda. This is not an American-driven agenda, nor was the defence capabilities initiative a failure, it was not a complete success but it was not a failure. A lot of capabilities were delivered by the defence capabilities initiative, but some of the bigger ticket items have not yet been delivered or are only going to be delivered so far down the line that they are almost out of sight, and that is why all of the Ministers recognise the responsibility they have to the safety of theirpopulations and the responsibility they have now to deliver those capabilities that they are well aware must be obtained. QUESTION: Lord Robertson, is it your opinion that NATO fundamentally will become an offensive Alliance, and by that I mean do you envision the invoking of the NATO Charter to respond to a threat, especially a terrorist threat, and in advance of an actual attack? LORD ROBERTSON We are a defence Alliance, we remain a defence Alliance, we do not go out looking for problems to solve, we exist as an Alliance of free nations gathered together and now in association with 27 other nations in the Partnership for Peace. But what we have to do now is to soberly and sensibly look at the kind of threats that exist now, that might exist into the future. Even as Secretary Rumsfeld was saying today, we have to worry about what we don't know, never mind about what we do know, and we have got to find the methods by which we can deal with it. So threats in the future will not be the kind of threats we had in the past, the idea of large scale tank invasions of European countries is something firmly in the past, but the idea of chemical and biological attacks by states or by terrorists is certainly there and the threat of their use can also be a threat to our security and we must work out what we and others would do in circumstances where the threat exists. QUESTION: So yes, NATO might be invoked in the future against a threat, not against an actual attack? LORD ROBERTSON Are you answering my question or are you giving a question? It is quite convenient if you answer them because I don't have to say any more. QUESTION: … in that way. NATO as I understand up to now, an attack on one has been an attack on all, is it becoming we may use forces against a threat, not an attack on one of the countries? LORD ROBERTSON It would be foolish of me to give a straightforward answer to that question in the hypothetical situation that you put forward, but we need to assess what the threats are to the safety and security of the people who live in the countries who are members of the Alliance and act appropriately in the circumstances. That is why the toolbox has got to be much bigger than it was in the past because the range of options have got to be much greater than they were in the past because the range of threats are going to be much bigger and much more frightening than they ever were in the past. QUESTION: You talked about some pretty tough briefing from Secretary Rumsfeld and I think you said NATO briefing as well on weapons of mass destruction. Can I ask on that point, it is no secret that within the Alliance there are quite sharp differences in assessing the dangers from countries like Iran, Iraq, North Korea. Is there a consensus within the Alliance for accepting that the threats, as described say by Secretary Rumsfeld, are indeed as they are? The Russians I know in the new arrangement are not part of the formal decision-making structure but clearly have different views on Iran, how does that work, we can have one leading country - the United States - stressing the particular dangers from certain countries, does everybody accept that? LORD ROBERTSON We start off from a widespread agreement that these weapons exist, that proliferation has put them into the hands of people far less rational than people who were players in the past. But there is a general agreement ton the nature of the threat and the growth of the threat. There will always be differences of opinion about the interpretation of a lot of that information, but in the Alliance we work on the basis of the broad consensus, which is a worry and a concern about the growing threats that come, especially from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, there is also a concern that we do not have enough in the way of capabilities to deal with some of these new and emerging threats and that we must address that. The analysis on who might possess these threats and from where the threats will come will go on, but the American presentation today was not designed in any way to be divisive, nor was it divisive, it was simply a use of American intelligence to alert people to the fact that this threat grows much more real with every day that goes by.