Colorado Springs 9 Oct. 2003

Introductory Statement by NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson at the press conference following the working session for Allied and Invitee Defence Ministers I said yesterday that the message from this Ministerial Summit in Colorado Springs is that in a dangerous world we need real deployable soldiers, not paper armies. I am delighted that the Defence Ministers gathered here have all agreed with me. Not just the 19 NATO Defence Ministers but the 7 Invitees and Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov as well. 27 Defence Ministers singing the same song. This has been a meeting dedicated to transformation, usability and NATO operations. On transformation, yesterday's very successful study seminar has been followed by productive discussions on the progress we are making to implement NATO's Prague agenda. We have not yet met all our goals for the NATO Response Force, Prague Capabilities Commitment and New Command Structure, which are at the core of transformation, but Ministers have concluded here that we will do so. Transformation is now truly the central pillar of NATO's future effectiveness. Equally important is the challenge of making today's forces more deployable, useable and survivable for current and future operations. Defence Ministers agreed that the deployability figures I gave you yesterday were unacceptable. Setting aside the United States, 18 countries with standing armies of 1.4m soldiers and 1m reserves must be able to field more than today's 55,000 troops on multi-national operations without being overstretched. We are collectively failing to spend tax payers' money wisely or well; and at the same time we risk the failure of critical NATO operations. NATO will leave Colorado Springs with a new comprehensive programme of work that will include an end-to-end review of decision-making, an overhaul of our force generation process and a range of new output measures to increase usability across the board. Ministers also today took a long, hard look at NATO's current operations. This is an Alliance ensuring stability and safety from the Straits of Gibraltar, through the Balkans to Afghanistan. And Ministers have today been discussing the challenges of expanding the International Security Assistance Force beyond Kabul. NATO delivers. Just ask the ship owners who benefit from NATO patrols in the Mediterranean. Ask the people of Bosnia and Kosovo who now live in peace. Ask the Afghan people in Kabul. With a transformed Alliance and more usable forces, I believe we will be able to do even better in future. This meeting demonstrated that 26 NATO members, current and future, are committed to the same goal: modern forces making a real contribution to 21st century challenges.