11 May 1999
(Amb. Vershbow on crisis management, Russia, NATO enlargement) (2890) Brussels -- Commitments to crisis management, NATO enlargement and cooperation with Russia were major decisions made at the recent NATO50 Summit in Washington, according to Alexander Vershbow, the U.S. Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Council. Vershbow spoke on the outcome of the summit May 6 at the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels. Perhaps the most important decision made at the Summit, he said, was the approval of a new Strategic Concept. The new concept "now lists crisis management -- including so-called non-Article 5 crisis response operations going beyond Alliance territory -- and partnership with other countries in the Euro-Atlantic area as fundamental tasks of NATO." This, Vershbow said, "brings NATO theory into line with practice, reflecting today's reality in which 80 percent or more of our time is dedicated to crisis management (our operations in Bosnia and Kosovo) and working with Partners." The Summit also "reaffirmed NATO's commitment to working with Russia as much as possible," Vershbow continued. "In this regard, we hope that Russia's decision to suspend its participation in the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council (PJC) will be reconsidered soon ... We need the PJC for foul weather as well as fair, and we should use it to work together in achieving and implementing a just settlement in Kosovo." Vershbow also said that "the Summit gave a very strong endorsement to the further enlargement of NATO ... Continued enlargement is a key part of NATO's strategy for creating a democratic, prosperous and secure Europe in the next century." "Summit leaders agreed on a new Membership Action Plan or MAP, in which NATO commits to help aspiring members become the strongest possible candidates for joining the Alliance," he added. "By giving aspiring members more feedback and guidance on their defense reform and their modernization efforts, the MAP will help them present the strongest possible candidacies in the shortest possible time." Following is text of Vershbow's remarks, as prepared for delivery: (begin text) NATO'S NEXT 50 YEARS Ambassador Alexander Vershbow U.S. Permanent Representative on the North Atlantic Council Center for European Policy Studies Brussels, Belgium May 6, 1999 Thank you, it is an honor to be here today. I promised to talk about "NATO's Next Fifty Years." Even if I skip over a few decades, in order to finish in time, I had better dive right into it. If one were to ask the average newspaper reader what the NATO Summit in Washington was about, the first answer would probably be "to deal with the crisis in Kosovo." Well, that's partly true. Alliance heads of State and Government displayed a striking degree of unity and resolve behind NATO's Military operations in Kosovo and issued an important statement defining NATO's political and military strategy. Specifically, they agreed to intensify the air campaign -- both in scale and in scope -- and to take other steps to complete the strategic isolation of Serbia. They also repeated the Alliance's irreducible conditions for ending the air campaign. Milosevic must: end the violence and ethnic cleansing; withdraw his forces from Kosovo; accept an international military force to safeguard the return of all the refugees; and agree to negotiations on a longer-term political settlement for Kosovo. NATO leaders also outlined a broader plan for seeking to integrate the southeast European region into the European mainstream over the next 10 to 15 years, and launched a now cooperative forum with the states of the region. Not bad for a day's work, but this is not really what the Summit was about. Ask the same question a few months ago, and the answer would have been to celebrate the admission of the three new members and the 50-year success story of the Alliance. This is also partly true, as Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic did become full members on March 12 and they did participate in their first NATO Summit meeting at Washington. And NATO does have a remarkable record of success -- protecting freedom and democracy during the Cold War, and adapting to the new possibilities in Europe that have emerged in the decade since the fall of the Berlin Wall. But this isn't the whole story either. Although overshadowed by Kosovo and the temptation to look back at the past 50 years, what the Summit was really about was looking ahead to ensure that NATO is prepared to handle the challenges of the next 50 years, Here, above all, I think we can claim that the Summit was indeed a success. At Washington, Allied Heads of State and Government signed the "Washington Declaration." Just nine short paragraphs, this declaration is itself a powerful political statement about NATO's future. In the declaration, Allied leaders recommitted themselves to the fundamental values that lie at the root of the Alliance and to working together through NATO to defend and support those values, for all the people of Europe and North America. The defense of common democratic values is very much at the heart of NATO's decision to act in Kosovo, and will guide the Alliance as it confronts future threats to the security of the Euro-Atlantic area. Indeed, Kosovo is a metaphor for many aspects of the 21st century Alliance launched at the Washington Summit. Kosovo highlights the vital role of the Alliance in managing crises in Europe and on its periphery; the need to equip NATO forces with the military capabilities to project power and deal decisively with any adversary; the importance of partnership and cooperation with other European democracies to prevent the spread of instability and facilitate joint action in crisis management; and the value of NATO's commitment to enlargement as an incentive for good behavior and cooperation with the Alliance. As Secretary Albright has said many times, Kosovo shows that if we didn't have NATO to deal with major Crises like Kosovo, we would have had to invent it. Let me briefly review the Summit decisions that will ensure that the NATO of the 21st century remains as the effective as the NATO now being put to the test in Kosovo. Perhaps most important among the Summit decisions is the approval of the Alliance's new Strategic Concept. The Strategic Concept defines in great detail the nature, purpose, and fundamental security tasks of the Alliance; the strategic environment and new security challenges; and -- of greatest importance -- the guidelines for NATO's defense planners to build the right kind of military forces (a subject to which I will return in a moment). In updating the 1991 Strategic Concept, NATO quite understandably dropped the idea of "strategic balance" with the Soviet Union. Instead, it now lists crisis management -- including so-called "non-Article 5 crisis response operations" going beyond Alliance territory -- and partnership with other countries in the Euro-Atlantic area as fundamental tasks of the NATO. This change brings NATO theory into line with practice, reflecting today's reality in which 80 percent or more of our time is dedicated to crisis management (our operations in Bosnia and Kosovo) and working with Partners. The Strategic Concept, in reaffirming all the Allies' commitment to the Washington Treaty and the UN Charter, also preserves the necessary flexibility on the thorny question of the legal mandate. It acknowledges that, as in Kosovo, the Alliance may face situations where there are legitimate grounds to use force even when the UN Security Council is not able to fulfill its "primary responsibility" for the maintenance of international peace and security. In putting increased emphasis on non-Article 5 activities, the Strategic Concept does not mean to imply that collective defense is no longer NATO's number-one mission or, on the other hand, that NATO is going to turn into a global policeman, set to intervene in every crisis both inside Europe and out. Rather, it is merely a recognition that in the new strategic environment, though the goals remain the same, the ways in which NATO provides for the security and stability of the Euro-Atlantic area are changing. As we have seen in Bosnia and in Kosovo, when NATO acts to deal with instability outside its borders, it will usually seek the participation of non-Allies as contributors to a NATO-led operation. Thus at the NATO Summit -- and in the subsequent Summit meeting of 42 Heads of State and Government of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council -- leaders endorsed a new "Political-Military Framework for NATO-led PFP operations." Despite its tongue-twisting title, the Pol-Mil Framework will be the key to involving Partners more closely in future non-Article 5 missions. This will include involvement early in the planning stage, as well as participation in the command structure and political direction of a given operation. The Summit also approved another document with an equally catch name, the "Operational Capabilities Concept." It lays out a plan for NATO to work with Partner country military forces to improve their interoperability and military effectiveness for NATO-led operations. Let me stress that this new operational focus within PFP is not replacing the old Partnership for Peace. For the past five years, PFP has been successful in promoting democratic and military reform in partner nations, encouraging cooperation among countries whose historical suspicions might otherwise run unchecked, and helping to promote and extend stability well beyond NATO's borders. This broad commitment to Partnership, now a fundamental task of NATO, will continue. Within NATO's partnership agenda, building a cooperative NATO-Russia relationship is one of the most important and difficult challenges we face. Summit leaders, looking beyond the current impasse over Kosovo, reaffirmed NATO's commitment to working with Russia as much as possible. In this regard, we hope that Russia's decision to suspend its participation in the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council will be reconsidered soon. The PJC made considerable progress in its first two years in developing concrete cooperation on a wide range of issues, from weapons of mass destruction to Y2K. It has been a valuable forum for consultation on the most sensitive issues, including Kosovo. We need the PJC for foul weather as well as fair, and we should use it to work together in achieving and implementing a just settlement in Kosovo. The Washington Summit also marked the first-ever Summit meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission, symbolizing the importance of this distinctive relationship and providing a vehicle for defining further joint NATO-Ukrainian cooperation aimed at bringing that strategically important country into the Central European mainstream. The Summit gave a very strong endorsement to the further enlargement of NATO, The participation of the three new allies -- and the commitment of all 19 allies to continuing the enlargement process -- delivered a clear message: Stalin's division of Europe is truly over. Continued enlargement is a key part of NATO's strategy for creating a democratic, prosperous and secure Europe in the next century. Indeed, for the first time, enlargement is mentioned in the Strategic Concept as an element of the Alliances overall approach to security for the 21st century. Summit leaders agreed to review the process of enlargement at their next meeting, which they agreed will be held not later than 2002. This date was not meant to be read as a guarantee that new invitations will be issued to any particular candidate at that time. But it does show the Alliance is committed to maintaining the momentum of the enlargement process. To put meat on the bones of their commitment to further enlargement, Summit leaders agreed on a new "Membership Action Plan," or "MAP," in which NATO commits to help aspiring members become the strongest possible candidates for joining the Alliance. The MAP builds on existing tools within Alliance-Partner relations, but puts them together in a more tailored and pro-active framework to help those countries that seek to join NATO. Of course, the issuance of an actual membership invitation will depend upon a political decision by the Allies that a nation's membership in NATO will contribute to our overall security. But by giving aspiring members more feedback and guidance on their defense reform and their modernization efforts, the MAP will help them present the strongest possible candidacies in the shortest possible time. Returning to the intra-Alliance side, a further key decision at the Summit was agreement on Secretary Cohen's proposed Defense Capabilities Initiative, or DCI. This initiative, which flows from the defense guidance in the now Strategic Concept, is aimed at matching real capabilities to the new strategic requirements by agreeing on a common concept of operations that prepares all the Allies for the 21st century battlefield. The DCI -- to be further developed over the next two years by a High Level Steering Group -- places emphasis on getting away from overly large, standing forces and instead focuses on developing greater mobility, deployability, sustainability and survivability, The United States and the other Allies must ensure that the communications and weapons systems on which they will rely for the future are modern and capable enough to operate effectively together across the full spectrum of Alliance missions, in the full range of foreseeable circumstances. Kosovo highlights the serious disparity between U.S. and European forces -- both in quantity and quality. We hope that this lesson will translate into a serious commitment to the success of the DCI. The DCI very much relates to another important aspect of the Washington Summit, and one of great interest to this audience NATO's support for the development of the European Security and Defense Identity. In Washington, Allied leaders marked the completion of all key elements of the arrangements agreed at the 1996 Berlin Ministerial on developing ESDI within NATO -- including arrangements that will permit the Western European Union to take the lead in some operations, drawing on NATO assets and other support. Summit leaders also laid down principles for the further evolution of ESDI -- including the possibility of a "friendly takeover" of the WEU by the European Union as part of the evolution of the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy. The Summit decisions reflecting a carefully balanced formula that takes account of the concerns of EU and non-EU Allies alike. These include: -- reaffirmation of the principle that Allies will act through NATO "wherever possible"; -- recognition of the resolve of the EU to develop the capacity for autonomous action in situations where the Alliance as a whole is not engaged; -- acceptance of the need to ensure effective mutual consultation between NATO and the EU by building on existing NATO-WEU mechanisms; -- agreement on the importance of strengthening European defense capabilities while avoiding unnecessary duplication; -- a commitment to ensure the fullest possible participation of non-EU Allies in potential EU-led operations; and -- agreement to develop further the Berlin decisions -- in particular the concept of "separable but not separate" assets for WEU-led operations -- in the context of a greater EU defense role. Based on these principles, NATO has committed to develop arrangements to facilitate "ready access" by the EU to NATO assets and capabilities -- thus giving a strong boost to the future of ESDI, while preserving the coherence of our existing collective defense arrangements within NATO. In the past, discussions about ESDI focused almost exclusively on institutional arrangements. But the current discussion about ESDI needs to focus at least as much on capabilities. At present, the U.S. provides the lion's share of the strategic lift, logistical support, intelligence assets, all-weather aircraft, and precision-guided munitions needed to sustain military operations beyond NATO territory, as we are seeing in Kosovo. If ESDI is to mean something in practice, it must address the question of capabilities. If it does; it will be a genuine "win-win" result for both Europe and the United States. If not it will be an empty slogan. Hence the importance of the Defense Capabilities Initiative not only for future NATO operations, but for giving real substance to ESDI. Now that the Washington Summit is over, the action is shifting to the WEU Ministerial in Bremen and the EU Summit in Cologne. ESDI will continue to be developed as a parallel exercise, with the WEU and EU moving forward, and NATO also returning to the issue in its Ministerial Meetings in December. Such parallel development will ensure the coordination and transparency needed to make ESDI a success for both NATO and Europe. I have covered most of the Summit decisions. Let me just briefly mention one more, the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) initiative. We are very pleased that Allied leaders recognized the growing risk posed by the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and their means of delivery -- including the increasing availability of long-range ballistic missiles that can reach the territory of all Allies. NATO will now move to establish a WMD Center to promote better information sharing about WMD challenges and to better organize Alliance defense activities to deal with the risks to Allies' forces and societies. This is the full Summit agenda, one that lays out a substantive and challenging way ahead for NATO in the next century. While Kosovo may have stolen the headlines, the behind-the-scenes work was done to ensure that NATO's next fifty years will be as successful as its first fifty. Thank you. (end text)