|
| Updated: 16-Oct-2003 | NATO Speeches |
| At
the NATO 16 October 2003 |
Securing the Peace: The NATO Vision Speech
by NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson
I don't need to explain at length why this is a most timely conference. Over the course of this year, NATO's evolution has made a quantum leap. By taking the lead in ISAF in Afghanistan, and by supporting Poland in post-Saddam Iraq, the Alliance has taken up new security roles well beyond the Euro-Atlantic area. The fact that we took on these missions in addition to our long-standing Balkans commitment has made some observers wonder whether we are about to overtax ourselves. Can NATO and its members cope with so many different missions in different places without the danger of overstretch? I believe that we can cope - indeed, that we must. For taking on new missions is not a choice that is entirely up to us. Rather, it is an imperative imposed on us by a new strategic environment - and it's not going to get any better. We will be facing more instability in the years ahead. The Caucasus, Central Asia, Northern Africa and the Greater Middle East all offer a rich menu of such instability. This instability will not be confined to the areas in which it originates. There will be spillover into Europe and North America. Spillover through migration, rising numbers of people seeking asylum, a booming industry in people smuggling, and all that goes it with it: violence, drugs - you name it. In short, geography will no longer act as our shield. I also have no doubt that there will be more terrorism. On September 11, 2001, a special breed of terrorism has come to the fore - driven not by achievable political aims, but by fanatical extremism and the urge to kill. It is difficult to imagine how one could return this cruel genie to its pre 9/11 bottle. There will also be more failed states. In the past decade or so, we have seen states collapse, fragment into numerous small regions, run by warlords, who finance themselves by drug smuggling and other criminal activities. As Afghanistan under the Taleban demonstrated, such failed states are a safe haven for terrorists. There will be more proliferation. Despite the best efforts of our diplomats and counter proliferation experts, the spread weapons of mass destruction will be a defining security challenge of this new century. It will lead to more fingers on more triggers. And not all of these fingers will belong to rational leaders. What does all of this add up to? Bluntly put, it adds up to a guaranteed supply chain of instability. It adds up to a security environment that will pose difficult challenges. A security environment that does not afford us the luxury of fighting theoretical battles about what is "in" and what is "out-of-area". We will have to be able to act wherever our security and the safety of our people demand action. With this in mind, what are the most important ingredients for NATO's future missions? Essentially, I see three: First, transatlantic unity. Europe and North America represent the nexus of democracy, pluralism, market economy, and technological innovation. This gives our two continents a unique strategic responsibility for upholding global security. It is a common responsibility. Wherever possible, it should be exercised in common. In the Balkans, we missed this point, at least initially. The Cold War had so shaped our thinking that we had no recipe for dealing with a regional conflict on our own doorstep. The United States argued that they "didn't have a dog in this fight", and tried to stay out. European nations, on the other hand, were ill-prepared to fill the void. Some Europeans may have boasted that this was the "hour of Europe" -- but they were premature. As Jacques Delors once put it, the EU’s policies reminded him of an adolescent taking up an adult problem. It took a very long time until both sides of the Atlantic realised that a solution could only emerge if they made a concerted effort. But together, we were able to break the cycle of violence that had been haunting the Balkans for so long. In this sense, our successful engagement in Bosnia was a crucial lesson on the value of transatlantic solidarity. We should never forget that lesson. My plea for transatlantic unity should not be misunderstood. It does not mean that we use NATO to address each and every crisis. It does not mean US leadership in each every case. Some problems might be better addressed by the EU, or perhaps by coalitions of the willing. In some cases, a division of labour will turn out to be the most practical solution. But whatever the best solution in individual circumstances, Europe and North America must always co-ordinate their approach and avoid working at cross-purposes. And in most cases, their cooperation will make the difference between success and failure. Indeed, despite popular theories that Europe and North America are drifting apart, I believe that transatlantic unity remains in strong supply. We have been building a new consensus on the nature of the new threats, and on the instruments and strategies to combat them. The result was the transformation of the Alliance agreed at last November’s Prague Summit. True, the Iraq crisis earlier this year was a setback for NATO as for other international organisations. But the rifts were within Europe and within North America as well as across the Atlantic. And differences over Iraq do not change my judgement that a new transatlantic consensus is coming together. You saw that consensus in the hard won decision to reinforce Turkey against Saddam Hussein. You saw it in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia(1) , where we implemented a successful handover from a NATO mission to the EU. You can see it in Afghanistan, where NATO is now leading the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul and is now considering an expansion into the provinces. You can see it in NATO’s support for the Polish-led multinational division in Iraq. You can even see it in the convergence of transatlantic positions on the Middle East Road Map for Peace and the importance of Iranian compliance with nuclear non-proliferation regimes. The second key ingredient for NATO’s success is that it must always engage with a political vision. In the Balkans, NATO entered the crisis management business as a hesitant newcomer. But we learned quickly. We learned that to succeed, NATO had to know where it was going. For that, it developed a vision of its own – one which reinforced the vision and the efforts of other actors, but which took into account NATO’s unique mission and unique abilities. A vision for an "end state", that could serve as a yardstick against which to measure progress. A vision that allowed us to put pressure on the different ethnic groups to get their act together. A vision of cooperation among the international community as a whole, within which NATO could play its full and constructive part. In Bosnia, the Alliance helped stop a war and then helped create a country that is stable, secure and increasingly comfortable with its multi-ethnicity. In Kosovo, NATO intervened not only to defend an oppressed minority, but also to defend the principle that all minorities must be able to live in peace. In the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the Alliance used a range of political and military means, in cooperation with the EU, to help avert civil war, and to promote ethnic reconciliation and a sustainable peace. All of these cases vindicated our decision to make the Balkan cause our cause. We also used our enlargement process, and our partnerships in PfP, to help promote the kinds of political, economic and military reforms this region needs to move closer to integration with NATO and the European Union. A few days ago, Serbia and Montenegro offered to send several hundred troops to serve in Afghanistan alongside NATO forces. There is no better illustration of NATO's success in the Balkans: as a military and political player. In Afghanistan, NATO’s political vision is already forthcoming. Two weeks ago, we agreed on a Longer Term Strategy for NATO in its ISAF role. Of course, every operation is unique, and Afghanistan certainly poses unique challenges. But as this commitment evolves, I am sure that many tools from our Balkan toolbox will come in handy. In Afghanistan, as previously in the Balkans, NATO is poised to become a political player -- and our Balkans experience will prove a useful guide. Now to my third and most important priority for future NATO missions: the need for sufficient military power. George Orwell had it right: language can corrupt thought. In military terms, at least, a term like "crisis management" can be deceitful. It implies a limited commitment and, hence, a limited effort. NATO has not fallen into this trap. When IFOR deployed to Bosnia it did so with impressive strength. We deployed no less than 60,000 troops. That number was a statement in itself: don't even think of messing around with NATO! And that message was understood. Tens of thousands of heavily armed troops, with robust rules of engagement, have provided the platform of stability on which all the other progress depends. The same applied equally successfully in Kosovo where KFOR deployed initially with approximately 39,000 soldiers. These investments have paid off many times over. They allowed other organisations, like the UN, the EU and the OSCE to do their work. It has allowed hundreds of NGOs to offer their help. Together, all these efforts have achieved what ten years ago seemed like an impossible dream: the return of southeast Europe into the European mainstream. This success has been built on the foundation of security provided by tens of thousands of robust peacekeeping troops. It is a lesson we should not forget, as we look to other crisis areas. Of course, not all of the Balkans experiences can be applied elsewhere. If you applied the Bosnia template to Afghanistan, you would need to deploy some 700,000 soldiers - a staggering number! Sending that many troops to Central Asia is neither practical nor necessary. But even maintaining our current strength of around 6,000 has been a challenge. So we need to think through a question that will become ever more crucial for NATO's future as a crisis manager: How "usable" are our forces? As the saying goes, there are lies, damned lies, and then there are defence planning statistics. So I won't bore you with many numbers. In a nutshell: we have more than 1.4 million regular soldiers under arms in Europe and Canada, plus a million or so reserves. Yet the vast majority are at present useless for the kind of missions we are now mounting. Indeed, with only 55,000 soldiers out of this total currently deployed on multinational operations, most NATO countries feel themselves overstretched. The reasons are many and various. Some countries have outdated legal or constitutional constraints on where they are able to deploy their forces, especially if they are conscripts. Other countries do not have the capabilities required to deploy them abroad and supply them when they are there. Others still say they cannot afford to do so. Or their Governments do not have the political will to argue the case for doing so with Parliaments and publics. What must be done? Here are my suggestions: First, each nation must review its force structure to maximise the level of forces available to deployed operations. Second, each nation must review national legal or political restrictions or caveats which reduce the usability of deployed forces. Third, each nation must review whether it has the right enabling capabilities in its force structure to support deployability. Fourth, each nation must make the necessary financial provisions to be able to maintain a certain portion of its forces on operations. Finally, I would suggest that NATO Allies together review the process of force generation and provision of logistics support for deployed operations. None of these suggestions will produce miracles overnight. But they would substantially increase the forces available for operations. And they would make it easier for governments to take the difficult political decisions needed if we are to share the burden of meeting our obligations more equitably. I do not want to talk about failure. NATO does not fail. Nor should other international organisations. But if we cannot raise many more deployable and usable soldiers, that will be failure because our political ambitions - whether in the UN, NATO, the EU or ad hoc coalitions – would prove unachievable. And that, in my view, would be a terrible setback not only for NATO’s credibility but for the multilateralism which we all support. Ladies and Gentlemen, If we are to tackle effectively the challenges of today and tomorrow, these are four key lessons that must guide our Euro-Atlantic community. There is a fifth lesson as well: the importance of engaging with our publics. The security environment is changing so quickly that even experts have trouble keeping up. Threats such as terrorism or WMD are invisible until they strike. And we are now engaging in parts of the world that seem very far away indeed, to the average citizen. It is critical to explain what we are doing, and why we are doing it, to our populations. They will not support what they do not understand. And the public must support our operations, if they are to succeed – especially where there are casualties, or where the mission drags on. We also need public support for defence reform, because it costs money. Our publics will support defence spending, if they understand why it is necessary, and believe that it is being done with a focus on value for money, rather than political posturing. For all these reasons, public diplomacy has become more important than ever, but also more challenging. This afternoon, a panel will address that very issue, and I encourage you to have a frank discussion. Because we can have the best strategy, and the most modern armed forces – but we must ensure that, as we move forward, we don’t leave our publics behind. Thank you. 1. Turkey recognises the Republic
of Macedonia with its constitutional name. 
|
