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Updated: 30-Oct-2006 NATO Speeches

At NATO Annual
Conference

Brussels

14 April 2005

Wrap up session

by NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer
Transforming NATO – A Political and Military Challenge

Thank you very much Generals, John Colston, for what was the very interesting presentations I think. I think I can keep your political commissars at rest General-

If Hans-Ulrich Klose is right, and I think he is right ladies and gentlemen, the peace dividends indeed has been taken and it is time for reinvestments. And when I say reinvestments, I think this day has shown that the time is now for political reinvestment and military reinvestment.

The new facts are clear and have been discussed, and when I hear Minister Martino at lunch saying that this change requires a move from a doctrine of defence/territorial defence to a wider doctrine of security then he's right because if he would be wrong, General Diesen would be right in saying that we would have an ineffective response to an irrelevant problem and that is not, I think, the way this Alliance should have an ambition to operate.

Security as was discussed by many, among which General Jones and Admiral Giambastiani, security requires both hard and soft military capabilities in order to see the doctrine through. It's not either/or as I said myself this morning, it is both 'ands'(?). But in a security doctrine we also need to meet threats where they arise and have these hard and soft capabilities as deployable capabilities and when I say, or when you hear me say, to meet the threats where they arise that is not to say that NATO should have the ambition or does have the ambition to be the world's policemen. That's certainly not the case. I think the Alliance has nor the ambition nor the capabilities nor the financial means but, having said this, who of you five years ago would have dared to predict that NATO would be running a UN mandated operation in Afghanistan?

But deployable capabilities is of extreme importance I think.

Professor Cordesman indicated that, and rightly I think, that whilst transformation still has a long way to go it should not become an end in itself. It must be carried out with clear goals in mind, and if I mention military transformation and political transformation, I think it was Mr. Banás who said that transformation of the mind is very relevant in this aspect as well.

So if we discuss deployability and sustainability, then I think we can conclude that these are useful macro level indications but more micro level clarity is required. We need to get the details right as well and that is where we might meet the devil, but nevertheless we still have to do it.

In the same way it is no use having high-end capabilities if our decision making process at the political level remains too slow and will inhibit the use of these capabilities.

If we discuss the NRF as we have done and if we say it should be deployable within five days, we need, not only political decision making procedures inside NATO which makes that possible, but I know of many parliaments--having been a member of parliament myself for a long time--who cannot afford to organize hearings before the NRF can be deployed. Otherwise- it needs a political decision making process inside NATO it makes it possible and it needs, in the member states or in those member states that parliament has a say or a heavy say in that matter, it needs others decision making procedures there as well because we cannot have an NRF and not to be able to deploy it when we have the political decision and the consensus to deploy it.

Therefore as military transformation continues, I see my opinion strengthened that we need close political involvement as well, both to make use of our transformed militaries but also to effect meaningful transformation in the first place.

NATO is a political-military alliance and if I mention the word military alliance, it's a military alliance to achieve political ends, a military alliance as such has no right of existence. We try to achieve political ends.

And to achieve political ends in the framework of the new threats and challenges means enhanced political dialogue because if this Alliance wants to achieve consensus, and I think consensus is the overriding principle, consensus is not the weakness of NATO, consensus is the strength of NATO. But if we want to reach consensus in our political decision making process we might well have political debate also in many instances where that does not lead to military action by NATO. Discussing a political subject does not mean at all that on every subject we discuss military action would follow.

But still, to reach the consensus if we need to, we need to have enhanced political dialogue and that is the reason that I'm saying, and I chose as the theme of this conference, that military and political transformation are two sides of the same coin.

And if I say political transformation, or political discussion, it is the background for the remarks I made this morning about a close political involvement with the European Union, with the United Nations; and that is something- a process I'll ride(?) forward as I said this morning.

Let me say finally that I think we have today achieved one real transformation because I think it is the first Conference on Transformation which is about more than military transformation; that is an achievement. We should have more conferences of this kind and of this sort.

It's my job now and that's a pleasant one, to thank once again RUSI, to thank the Public Diplomacy Department of NATO for organising this conference, to thank the speakers, to thank you as participants.

I think it was a successful one and certainly one we can build on in NATO while we continue our transformation process and as you know, I've said it many times before: Transformation is not an event, it is a process.

And I think I can side with General Helsø finally that we'll see many more years of transformation and I'm sure, as far as NATO is concerned, successful transformation.

Thank you very much for coming.

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