Richard LeBaron, Deputy Chief of Mission

Speeches & Remarks

19 January 2010
NATO and Europe : The Power Of Partnership

Remarks at the Higher Command and Staff Course (HCSC)
Joint Services Command and Staff College (JSCSC)
Shrivenham

Thank you very much for inviting me to join you today.

I understand that you all are departing this afternoon for Brussels, where you will be hearing from colleagues at both NATO and the EU. So I’m glad to have the chance to give you an American perspective on the challenges we face together. Frankly, I hope to influence how you approach your trip and the questions you ask, and the discussions we have in the future. Because you will be the ones implementing the decisions we make as we take on the tough problems facing the Alliance.

A few weeks ago, we marked the twenty-year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the changes that brought to Europe and our transatlantic partnership. One of those changes was a vigorous debate over NATO. The Warsaw Pact was gone. Its former headquarters was a conference center hosting human rights seminars. What did the end of the Warsaw Pact mean for the Alliance?

It meant we needed to re-assess the challenges of a new era.

It wasn’t the first time. Last November, newspapers in the U.S. and the UK ran the obituary of a 98-year old Belgian statesman, Pierre Harmel. He had served his country for a quarter-century. But for the Alliance, his major achievement was his proposal, in 1966, for a one-year examination of NATO’s long-term objectives.

At the time, the Alliance was less than twenty years old – yet its direction and purpose was being questioned. Harmel’s examination of “Future Tasks of the Alliance” reaffirmed the Alliance’s original purpose – strong mutual defense – while also advocating détente as a complementary tool. Many credit the “Harmel doctrine” with laying the groundwork for the Helsinki accords of 1975.

Harmel’s work – and the work we have done since – shows the essence of the Alliance: that it was and is an organization that adapts to new threats. We are continually asking the question: what is NATO for? That’s good: it shows we are engaged in a healthy debate that keeps us flexible and balanced.

This year, the question “what is NATO for?” will be the driving force behind our examination of NATO’s Strategic Concept. The last revision was 10 years ago: before 9/11, before 7/7, before 12 new members joined, before Afghanistan. Clearly, the threats we face now are different.

Today’s threats are more varied and less predictable: nuclear weapons proliferation, cross-border terrorism, climate change, piracy, pandemics, crisis, drug trafficking, transnational crime including cyber crime, and energy security. The players, too, have changed, as more threats come from non-state actors. The challenges we face are global – but with local impact.

By definition, these global challenges cannot be solved by any single state alone. The complexity of these challenges, and the financial resources needed to solve them, mean we have to tackle them together, as partners. Secretary Clinton has talked about “tilting away from a multi-polar world and toward a multi-partner world.” That makes our long-standing NATO partnership even more important.

As a partnership, NATO has had to begin addressing these threats operationally. It is why, following 9/11, the Alliance invoked Article 5 – the commitment that says an attack on one member nation is an attack on all. Al Qaeda’s safe havens have been the source of attacks against London and Amman and Bali. This is why we are in Afghanistan, together – because it is in our own interest, in the interest of national security of all Alliance members -- to destroy al Qaeda’s terrorist network. By doing so, we are protecting our common security.

In December, President Obama committed an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. Prime Minister Brown has also committed additional troops to this cause as have other NATO allies at their December ministerial meeting. The United States is also committed to working with partners to pursue a more effective civilian strategy. At the end of January, London will host an international conference as another step toward making that a reality.

Some see Afghanistan as a test of NATO’s credibility – but I would argue we’ve moved beyond that. Allies – YOU -- are contributing troops and WE are fighting and dying together in Afghanistan not over an abstract question of whether we are “credible,” but because we believe, as President Obama stated, that what is at stake is the security of our allies and the common security of the world. We have fought together and we must come together to end this war successfully.

That makes our discussion of NATO’s Strategic Concept an opportunity we can’t waste. It’s an opportunity to state what we are for, to show where we are going, and how we plan to get there. NATO has designated a group of eminent persons to spearhead the review. But I’m bold enough to make a few predictions about what it might include, which you might want to check with officials you meet in Brussels.

We are for reaffirming our commitment to collective defense as outlined in Article 5 of the Washington Treaty. That fundamental commitment is essential to our ability to plan together, operate together and direct our economic resources effectively. As President Obama has said: “Article 5 is a promise for our time, and for all time.” So we should reiterate that in the Strategic Concept – because it is still true. We should not give anyone anywhere any room for doubt.

We are for matching resources to the challenges we see ahead. In constant dollars, European defense spending has remained flat since 1998. But NATO is not a static organization contained within a twenty-mile radius around Zaventem airport. It never truly was. But now NATO has sent bridges to Indonesia after a tsunami. It has sent helicopters to rescue earthquake victims in Pakistan. It has organized ships to protect vessels from pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden. And it is fighting an insurgency 3,500 miles from NATO headquarters. NATO’s response to the global challenges of the last few years demonstrates clearly that NATO is a mobile, active force.

To stay active, to answer these diverse calls on NATO’s expertise, it needs resources. The global financial crisis has affected every aspect of our budgets – not least defense procurement. We must spend smarter in order to invest in capabilities that can address territorial defense as well as threats beyond NATO’s borders. Shortfalls in strategic lift, air-to-air refueling, intelligence sharing, medical support and logistics are some of the primary limitations to NATO’s ability to respond effectively. The Strategic Concept gives us an opportunity to redouble our efforts to advance a policy of defense integration. And part of the answer to the resource challenge may lie in multinational arrangements that would allow us to pool resources to help reduce costs and redundancy. If NATO wants to remain relevant, our resources must match our missions.

The U.S. sees missile defense as a key area for multinational cooperation. The Ballistic Missile threat is one of the most important and dangerous challenges facing NATO members today. Our Phased Adaptive approach to missile defense architecture is inherently collaborative and will, we hope, form part of a wider NATO missile defense system.

We are for building effective partnerships. Seventeen partner nations are now contributing to NATO-led operations, from Afghanistan to the Balkans to maritime missions. This extends NATO’s influence and capacity to contribute to international security. We have global partnerships with Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand – in addition to NATO’s three geographically-defined partnership structures: the Partnership for Peace, Mediterranean Dialogue and Istanbul Cooperation Initiative. These are practical partnerships that work, not just around a table but on the ground, in theater.

We are for keeping NATO’s door open. For some European countries, partnership is not enough. These nations want to join the Alliance, becoming a member of the community of like-minded democracies that sit at the North Atlantic council table. The press is fond of questioning the ability of the Alliance (and others) to reach consensus as members grow. But is it really preferable for a limited number of countries to take decisions that affect regional security? Do we really want fewer contributors to critical operations? The Alliance’s strength is consensus, the key to forging a common view among its members. NATO has been able to undertake its missions precisely because of the individual and combined strengths of its members.

We are for tackling the tough issues. And there are plenty of them: the balance between Article 5 and expeditionary operations, NATO’s relationship with Russia, counterterrorism and counter-insurgency, non-traditional threats. The United States is re-setting its relationship with Russia and was glad to see that the NATO-Russia Council resumed its work this past year. At the same time, however, Allies should be frank with Moscow in areas where we disagree. For example, we want to dispel the false notion that NATO enlargement is directed against Moscow. An enlarged NATO is not a threat to Russia. Instead, NATO enlargement has helped consolidate democracy, security and stability in the region – leaving Russia more, not less, secure.

We are for getting the public on board. Let’s face it: it’s only in a forum like this one – at a Defense Academy -- that I can assume everyone understands and accepts the need for a Strategic Concept. But will it be something that BBC Breakfast Time – or the Today Show in the U.S. – picks up next November? Will it be something that defines our security challenges and planned responses so clearly that the Twitter generation recognizes why NATO is essential to security in the Euro-Atlantic space? Will the process of creating the Strategic Concept be inclusive enough, its message clear enough, that our elected representatives can support the resources we need? Because it’s not enough to have the consensus of governments – we need public consensus, too. We need to be able to explain, to the 900 million people we represent, how we intend to face today’s security challenges. And why we need the resources to address them.

We are for cooperation with the EU and other institutions. The debate over whether NATO and the European Union are complementary or competitive is over. Each organization has distinct capabilities. In a world in which unemployment or lack of governance capacity can strengthen insurgency, we have shown we can work productively together. Sometimes it’s hard to define the NATO working model – no organizational chart can truly capture the ways we’ve worked together in the Balkans – but it has been effective. And while there are still points of difficulty, both organizations are dedicated to working those out. We support steps that strengthen the EU’s capacity to contribute, and we look forward to close, result-oriented NATO-EU cooperation in future. When you ask your questions in Brussels, I’m betting you get the same response from both NATO and EU colleagues, too.

We – you and I – naturally think of ourselves as Atlanticists. We recognize the strong links between Europe and the U.S. as we tackle these global challenges. But both the U.S. and the EU are developing their relationships broadly across the globe. As we do, some have wondered whether there is going to be a trade-off. As the U.S. develops partnerships with China and India, will that somehow downgrade its relationship with its European allies? Will the U.S. turn away from the transatlantic alliance and focus its efforts elsewhere?

My answer is that Allies and partners come in many shapes and sizes. The U.S. has been a power in the Pacific for a long time; this is not something new. Not all of our developing partnerships will be the same. Nations will always have interests that do not align – on trade, on borders, on resources. But that does not mean that we cannot develop a form of partnership between them.

India’s extraordinary growth has given it a powerful new, global role. The Obama Administration is determined to deepen the ties between the U.S. and India on issues from counterterrorism to nonproliferation, education to agriculture, science and technology to women’s empowerment. India has a central role to play on virtually all of the major challenges of this new century.

We are also working hard to build new cooperation mechanisms with China – recognizing that virtually no major international problem can be solved without it. We do not see China’s rise as a responsible player in world affairs as a zero-sum game.

Europe’s stability hinges in part on the security of its neighbors, including Africa. As former Secretary General Japp de Hoop Scheffer said last May at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Center in Ghana, NATO and Africa were two words that you would not expect to find in the same sentence. That has changed. In recent years, there has been an emerging relationship between NATO and the African Union, a relationship that focuses on peacekeeping and addressing transnational threats.

That makes NATO one structure in a multilateral world of growing partnerships. It has proven its adaptability and flexibility. New partnerships, new dialogue, new multilateral initiatives strengthen the network of dialogue and cooperation.

Sixty years ago, forty years ago, twenty years ago – we keep asking: what is NATO for? The threats and challenges keep changing, and NATO has changed with them. Why? Because NATO is still for our common defense. It has had the flexibility to change with the threats because it has had the firm commitment of its members. Some have suggested – in the early nineties, and even now -- that the way forward is to go backward – scrapping our existing structure of security organizations and starting from scratch. But it is surely better to keep the tools that have worked in the past, and are working for us now. Flexibility, balance, and consensus have proven to be NATO’s greatest strengths. Asking what NATO is for -- asking often, publicly, analytically – keeps us focused on challenges that change. NATO is an example of the power of partnership. It isn’t always easy; it takes sustained effort. But in a world of globalized problems, it demonstrates what countries can achieve together.

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