NATO Updates Strategic Concept

 


 By Linda D. Kozaryn

 
American Forces Press Service




 BRUSSELS, Belgium -- In meeting after meeting, the allied defense 

 experts work through the document word by word, sentence by 

 sentence, page by page. They have to get it just right so all 

 will agree. Otherwise, they'll have to go back to the drawing 

 board in 16 nations.

 

 Consensus is everything at the North Atlantic Treaty 

 Organization. Whether updating a policy document or deploying 

 forces, the United States and other NATO members are equal 

 partners when they make decisions and set policy. Each nation is 

 bound by a treaty commitment to defend each other and years of 

 promoting mutual security interests.

 

 At present, a NATO policy committee is updating the Strategic 

 Concept, the document second in importance only to NATO's 

 founding treaty.

 

 "The Washington Treaty of 1949 is NATO's cornerstone; the 

 Strategic Concept is its framework," explained U.S. Air Force 

 Col. Chris D. Miller. "The treaty sets out why you have an 

 alliance. The Strategic Concept sets out what the alliance is, 

 where it's going and, in a very top-line, general way, how it's 

 going to get there." 

 

 Miller, a former deputy commander of a B-1 bomber group who holds 

 an Oxford master's degree in international relations, serves as 

 defense planning policy adviser at the U.S. Mission to NATO in 

 Brussels. After a year on the job, the American officer said he's 

 still awed by the amount of painstaking work involved in such 

 NATO endeavors.

 

 "We had one meeting for three and a half hours mostly talking 

 about one sentence," he said. "But it was an important sentence 

 that distilled some very important policy direction on NATO 

 enlargement."

 

 The United States and its NATO allies must agree on each word, 

 each comma, of the Strategic Concept's 60 or so paragraphs, 

 Miller said. This time-consuming process is "sometimes very 

 painful," he said, "but the strength of it is, when it's done, it 

 really does mean something. What's there, people feel compelled 

 to support."

 

 NATO's Strategic Concept is designed to provide the political and 

 military background for the alliance strategy. It also provides 

 guidance to alliance military authorities on how to implement 

 that strategy. Originally classified, the concept became a public 

 document when last updated in 1991.

 

 In July 1997, the leaders of the 16 member nations directed NATO 

 authorities to examine the Strategic Concept to ensure it is 

 consistent with Europe's new security situation and challenges. 

 NATO expects the concept update to debut at its 50th anniversary 

 summit in Washington, D.C., in April 1999.

 

 NATO's security environment has changed considerably since 1991, 

 Miller noted. "NATO's old Strategic Concept has some simply 

 outdated language, such as references to the Soviet Union and 

 Czechoslovakia. The size and character of conventional risks to 

 European security are different. The potential risk posed by 

 proliferation is different."

 

 NATO itself has changed, Miller said. It has opened the door to 

 new members, created the Partnership for Peace and the Euro-

 Atlantic Partnership Council, and developed new, positive 

 relationships with Russia and Ukraine. And for the first time, 

 the alliance conducted military operations outside NATO 

 territory.

 

 In Article 4 of the treaty, the allies agree to consult on 

 matters of concern or threat to their security, Miller explained. 

 Until Bosnia, no Article 4 consultation had ever led to a NATO 

 military operation, he said.

 

 Bosnia represents NATO members' realization that outside 

 engagement is sometimes in their best security interests, Miller 

 said. "You don't always just lock your doors and close your 

 windows and let things go by in the world outside. Sometimes the 

 best way to take care of yourself is to work with neighbors to 

 improve your neighborhood," he said.

 

 The new Strategic Concept will acknowledge that the alliance can, 

 in certain cases, take action to maintain security outside 

 members' territory, Miller said. The concept will allow NATO to 

 prepare to act in a variety of situations. 

 

 "It should allow us to be flexible, and it should give us the 

 capability to act where the political will exists to do that," he 

 said. "Making provisions for situations like Bosnia is probably 

 the biggest real change between the 1991 and the 1999 Strategic 

 Concepts."

 

 The new strategy will not be a radical change from its 

 predecessor, however, because the goals of the alliance remain 

 fundamentally the same, he continued. In the 1991 concept, NATO's 

 broad approach to security involved dialogue, cooperation and 

 collective defense.

 

 "Those are just as valid today as they were in 1991, because the 

 alliance continues to do things in all of those areas," he said. 

 "What is different and worth noting is that we have taken 

 cooperation and deepened it dramatically. We created the 

 Partnership for Peace and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, 

 and we cooperate now with many nations with which NATO had no 

 relationship during the Cold War. These are very positive 

 developments."

 

 The Strategic Concept will ensure NATO allies continue to defend 

 each other and that they're prepared to act outside allied 

 territory if necessary, Miller said. It will reflect a NATO 

 that's "better prepared to make the right decisions using the 

 right folks to do the right thing at the right time," he said. 

 American service members and other NATO military personnel can 

 rest assured, "if they have to go to something like Bosnia, 

 they'll be there for a good reason, with the right stuff to get a 

 job done that's worth doing."