By Jamshed Baruah Courtesy IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis
LISBON (IDN) - The NATO Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, is convinced that the meeting of 28 heads of state and government of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Lisbon will be "one of the most important summits in NATO's history".
History indeed will tell whether Rasmussen's opening remarks at the Summit on November 19, 2010 were characterized by wishful thinking or anchored in stark reality. Going by Rasmussen's view of the future, the Alliance emerging from Lisbon with a new direction for the coming ten years "will be more effective, more engaged in the world and more efficient than ever before".
He emphasized that with the new Strategic Concept "we will develop modern capabilities, to defend against modern threats" and that "we will reach out to partners around the globe".
Rasmussen outlined a truly ambitious agenda, including launching the process for transition to Afghan-led security, the aspiration to agree to cooperation on territorial missile defence for Europe, and a fresh start in relations with Russia. He added: "We will make a fresh start in our relations with Russia, with the aim of building a strategic partnership."
The NATO chief also highlighted that "we will streamline the Alliance to make it more efficient, by cutting fat and investing in muscle, so that our taxpayers get maximum security for the money they invest in defence."
"For all these reasons, this will be one of the most important Summits in NATO's history," he concluded.
Writing in the Lisbon Summit Edition of NATO Review, Rasmussen stated: "The world has changed. The threats have changed. So has NATO. We need and we will have a Strategic Concept that takes account of today’s realities and tomorrow’s challenges as well."
He added: "NATO and the EU are two of the world's most important institutions. They share 21 members. They have complementary skills and assets. And no other strategic partnership would offer so many benefits, including operational and financial benefits."
While stopping short of saying NATO is EU and EU is NATO, he went on to say: "In many cases, NATO and the EU share the same requirements for military capabilities. So let us identify priority areas and agree that, wherever possible, any capability work in one organisation shall be open to all members of the other too, making mutual cooperation the norm rather than the exception."
Rasmussen left no doubt that he wants to bring "NATO and the EU closer together".
As far as "launching the process for transition to Afghan-led security" is concerned, the esteemed Christian Science Monitor (CSM) newspaper reported on November 19, the opening day of the Summit: "US war planners have been signaling that troop withdrawals set to begin in 2011 will be mostly symbolic and that the handover to Afghan forces in 2014 is 'aspirational'.
"Such could cost American taxpayers handsomely at a time when deficit cutting has gripped Washington. According to one estimate, softening those deadlines could add at least $125 billion in war spending -- not including long-term costs like debt servicing and health care for veterans."
Todd Harrison, a defence funding expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said to CSM: "I don't think anyone is seriously talking about cutting war funding as a way of handling the deficit:" But higher war costs "could hurt the base defense budget (and) the rest of the discretionary budget."
Currently there are some 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, which includes the 30,000 troop surge announced by President Obama in December 2009. At that time, the president also said the U.S. would "begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011," notes CSM.
It remains to be seen, therefore, how the transition to Afghan-led security will work in practice.
The prestigious U.S.-based Council on Foreign Relations published several studies ahead of the NATO Lisbon Summit in an attempt to gauge the importance of NATO in a fast-changing world.
"NATO has been a cornerstone of security in Europe -- and of U.S. foreign policy -- for six decades. But its ability to continue playing such a central role is unclear," said a new special report by the Council for Foreign Relations, authored by James M. Goldgeier, senior fellow for transatlantic relations at the Council on Foreign Relations.
When NATO’s founding members signed the North Atlantic Treaty on April 4, 1949, they declared themselves "resolved to unite their efforts for collective defense and for the preservation of peace and security."
Goldgeier recalls that the greatest threat to these objectives was a military attack by a hostile power -- a prospect that led to the treaty's most famous provision, Article V, which states, "The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all."
Today, more than sixty years later, the threats facing the alliance’s members have changed considerably, observes the author. "An attack in North America or Europe by the regular army of an outside state is highly unlikely. Instead, the alliance must confront an array of more diffuse challenges, ranging from terrorism and nuclear proliferation to piracy, cyberattacks, and the disruption of energy supplies."
Indeed this concern forms the backdrop to the creation of an "Emerging Security Challenges Division" (ESCD) by NATO Secretary General Rasmussen in August this year. "It is not just an internal exercise, but also a strong political message. For the first time, NATO is systematically bringing together work on the areas that will increasingly affect the security of the Allies on both sides of the Atlantic: terrorism, cyber attacks, threats to energy supply, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," says Ambassador Gábor Iklódy, NATO's Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges.
In the Council Special Report, Goldgeier takes on the question of how NATO, having successfully kept the peace in Europe in the 20th century, can adapt to the challenges of the twenty-first. Goldgeier contends that NATO retains value for the United States and Europe. He writes, though, that it must expand its vision of collective defence in order to remain relevant and effective.
This means recognizing the full range of threats that confront NATO members today and affirming that the alliance will respond collectively to an act (whether by an outside state or a nonstate entity) that imperils the political or economic security or territorial integrity of a member state.
A central part of this debate concerns NATO’s involvement in conflicts outside of Europe, including today in Afghanistan. Analyzing the questions surrounding this involvement, Goldgeier rejects any distinction between traditional Article V threats and those to be found outside the North Atlantic treaty area. Instead, he argues, these threats can be one and the same. If NATO is unable to recognize this reality and confront dangers wherever they arise, Goldgeier contends, American interest in the alliance will wane.
Examining a range of other issues, the report argues that NATO should expand its cooperation with non-European democracies, such as Australia and Japan; outlines steps to improve NATO's relations with Russia; and urges greater cooperation between NATO and the European Union. Finally, on the issue of enlargement, the report supports the current policy of keeping the door open to Georgia and Ukraine while recognizing that they will not join the alliance anytime soon.
Another senior fellow of the Council, Charles A. Kupchan, pointed out in a paper published in October: "The trilateral summit (on October) between French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made some gains in drawing Russia closer to NATO, with Russia agreeing to attend the NATO summit in Lisbon . . . and leaving the door open to discussing cooperation on a European defense shield."
Kupchan says the effort has been difficult because many Russians, including Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, are sceptical of the West's intentions and many new NATO members from the former Soviet bloc are uncomfortable about closer ties with Russia.
A key issue was NATO's effort to forge a Europe-wide missile defense that would include Russia -- a discussion that began during the Bush administration, says Kupchan, who adds that Russia is suspicious about whether NATO and the European Union are sincere in their bid to make "Russia a card-carrying member of the Euro-Atlantic community."
