NATO Romania

Any institution worth its grain of salt has to be able to deal not only with what is urgent, but also what is important. We must tackle immediate challenges, of course, but not lose sight of those issues which will determine NATO’s future.

As some of you may remember, about a year and a half ago, I called for NATO to begin work on a new Strategic Concept. At that time many felt that my call was premature. Today, I feel even more strongly that we do need this document and that we need to start soon to prepare the ground.

There are many reasons why we need a new Strategic Concept. One reason is that our current Concept dates back to 1999. And although it has proven remarkably prescient, and thus has aged quite gracefully, it simply doesn’t take full account of what has happened since its publication: 9/11, Afghanistan, the bright and dark sights of globalisation, to name just a few developments.

We also need a new Strategic Concept for public diplomacy reasons. Our publics have found it difficult to keep track of NATO these last few years. A new Strategic Concept will help in explaining where we are, and where we are going. And why NATO remains essential for their security.

Another reason is the US election cycle. Starting work on a new Strategic Concept in 2009 will help to engage a new US Administration on NATO early on in its tenure. And with so many issues competing for Washington’s attention, both domestic and external, that is certainly a good thing.

However, the key reason for reviewing our Strategic Concept is a conceptual one. The burdens on NATO are greater today than ever before and this makes it ever more urgent that we have a clear strategic vision, clear priorities and above all a clear sense of the resources that we need to be successful. In other words, we need to answer the question: What kind of NATO do we want for the years to come?

If you look at NATO from a historical perspective, the answer should be pretty straightforward: it must be an Alliance that provides us with both immediate protection against immediate threats, and with an instrument to shape the strategic environment in a way that is conducive to our interests and values. NATO has always been able to do both. In the Cold War, NATO offered us protection against Soviet military power, while at the same time providing the umbrella for the political reconciliation and even integration of Western Europe. Since the end of the Cold War, and to this day, NATO has been a military insurance policy against any possible convulsion in Europe’s transformation, and we employed NATO operationally to address an immediate crisis in the Balkans. At the same time, NATO turned out to be an excellent framework for managing Europe’s longer-term transition, both through our partnership policies and the enlargement process.

Can NATO continue to perform this twin role in the strategic environment of the 21st century? Can it continue to provide immediate protection against threats, and fulfill a broader requirement to help shape a new international order? I believe that the answer to these questions is yes, provided that we base our policies on a sound evaluation of what is required. We need to be clear about the security environment we are going to be living in. And we need to be equally clear and honest about the limits to what can sensibly be achieved by our Alliance.

A few words on the strategic environment. Clearly, that environment will be characterised by a number of features that are quite different from those that determined NATOs past. Globalisation will continue to change the security dynamics in many ways. Climate change will put many of our key resources like food, water and land under considerable stress. The global competition for energy and natural resources will re-define the relationship between security and economics. Our growing reliance on information technology will make our societies more vulnerable to electronic warfare. Proliferation of WMD technology and know-how raises the spectre of terrorist non-state actors acquiring means of mass destruction. At the same time, collective defence, NATOs core function, will and mus remain a precious commodity.