As Delivered
Thank you, Dr. Szlajfer, and thanks, also, to the Royal United Services
Institute for the role it has played for 168 years in promoting
discussion and analysis of international security issues. This
conference is obviously very much in that tradition.
Rear Admiral Cobbold has asked me to provide an American perspective,
complementing, from a civilian and diplomatic vantage point, what you
heard Monday from Generals Shelton and Clark. My starting point, like
theirs, is a fundamental and enduring truth that has been one of the
themes of this conference: The well-being of the United States depends
in large measure on what happens in Europe -- the U.S. will not prosper
without an economically vibrant Europe; the U.S. will not be safe
without a secure and peaceful Europe.
That said, most Americans recognize that the phenomenon of "Europe" is
not static. Rather, it is organic. In the nature and composition of
its institutions, even in its geographical scope, Europe is constantly
reinventing itself. It is, in the vocabulary of Euro-speak, both
deepening and broadening. As Americans watch the evolution of Europe,
we have our own hopes and sometimes our own apprehensions about where
the process will lead. We want to see Europe define its identity and
pursue its interests in a way that not only preserves but that
strengthens the ties that bind your security to ours, and, of course,
ours to yours.
That brings me to the subject of NATO. Like Europe, the North Atlantic
Alliance cannot stand still -- as General Shelton said on Monday -- or
rest on its laurels. In fact, NATO has even more reason to change than
does Europe. Unlike Europe, which is a continent and indeed a
civilization, the Alliance is an organization, and it was organized
relatively recently. Quite a few of us in this room have been around
longer than NATO.
Moreover, unlike Europe (and, I certainly hope, unlike ourselves), NATO
originally came into being for a reason that no longer exists. Hence a
rude but persistent question echoes on our editorial pages and in our
parliaments: With the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact safely consigned
to the ash heap of history, why shouldn't NATO simply declare victory,
give itself a medal, and retire? What is the point of having an
Alliance at all, much less enlarging it, if NATO's principal adversary
has disappeared?
The question, of course, presumes that an alliance must have a single
nemesis to justify itself existence -- a Moriarity to our Sherlock
Holmes. That's not necessarily so. The archives of the Royal United
Services Institute, particularly from the 19th century, are rich with
commentary on European alliances that not only served to wage or deter
war, but that were devices for managing constructive, non-competitive
relations among states. Call it the political as opposed to the purely
military function of an alliance.
Actually, NATO is a 20th-century case in point. This Alliance has
always had broader political functions. During the 1950s, it provided
the security umbrella under which reconciliation between France and
Germany could take place, thus laying the foundation for the European
Union. In the early 1980s, NATO promoted the consolidation of
civilian-led democracy in Spain and, thus, the full return of Spain to
the European family. On several occasions, NATO has helped keep the
peace between Greece and Turkey.
More generally, throughout its existence, NATO's unified command and
its collective approach to defense have largely eliminated military
competition among West European powers. I stress that point because in
today's world, when the unity of Western Europe seems so natural as to
be taken for granted, it's easy to forget that it was not always thus.
For centuries, it was precisely the Western European powers -- anything
but unified -- that were almost constantly at war. NATO helped end
that pattern.
Now the benefits of collective defense, based on common political
values, are extending eastward. The day after tomorrow, the Czech
Republic, Hungary, and Poland will formally join the Alliance. At the
Washington Summit in 6 weeks, the leaders of the Alliance -- who by
then will number 19 -- will reaffirm that the door to new members
remains open. The Open Door is key if NATO is going to continue to
encourage integration among states that have suffered too much from
division and isolation.
What might be called the gravitational pull of NATO has already induced
a number of post-communist nations to accelerate internal reforms and
to improve their relations with one another. To cite a few examples:
Poland and Lithuania, Hungary and Romania, Slovakia and the Czech
Republic and, most recently, Bulgaria and Macedonia. NATO, in other
words, has helped to bring the very concept of Central Europe back into
our vocabulary -- and it has helped bring that region back into the
center of Europe, which, for many who live there, means being within
the ambit of the EU.
In fact, I would suggest that there is a direct, causal, and deliberate
connection between NATO enlargement and EU enlargement. When, 5 years
ago, President Clinton first set forth the idea of NATO's opening its
doors to new members, he made no secret of his hope that the EU would
do the same. Many of Europe's new democracies are well on their way to
meeting the economic conditions for EU membership. But for the EU to
expand eastward, its governments and investors must be confident about
the long-term security of that region.
Since security is NATO's principal business -- its principal export as
Prime Minister Blair said on Monday -- its enlargement is conducive to
both the deepening and the broadening of the European Union. In
supporting that great work-in-progress, the United States is advancing
its own self-interest. I say that because it is another basic premise
of U.S. policy that a united Europe would be an even stronger partner
to advance our common interests around the world.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, I have just uttered two phrases that might
seem anodyne but that have actually become somewhat controversial:
"common interests" and "around the world." These words have
generated
a certain amount of debate in the preparations that are underway for
the new Strategic Concept that NATO's leaders will unveil at the
Washington Summit. Let me therefore put those terms in to the proper
context.
For decades, the U.S. concentrated on the task of what it could do for
Europe, and that meant overwhelmingly what it could do for Europe in
Europe. That was what the Marshall Plan was all about, and it was the
day-in/day-out preoccupation of NATO, ever-vigilant in its deterrence
of the Soviet threat. Now the U.S. is thinking much more about what it
can do with Europe. And it's a Europe that, like the U.S., has global
interests, many of them ones that it can best pursue in common with the
U.S.
Just a few examples: together, the U.S. and the EU are alleviating
poverty and seeking to shore up the cause of non-proliferation in South
Asia; together, we are developing a global early warning network
against communicable diseases, fighting hunger worldwide, and combating
criminals, terrorists and drug traffickers wherever they may be.
What does all this mean for NATO? Let's start with what it does not
mean. It does not mean that there is on some drawing board in the
basement of the White House or the State Department or the Pentagon a
blueprint for a "global NATO." I spend a lot of time on those
premises, and I assure you there's no such thing. Hugh Shelton was
equally categoric on this point. What there is, however, is the
inescapable reality that in this increasingly interdependent world of
ours, we face a more diverse and far-flung array of menaces to our
safety than we did 50 years ago -- to name just two, the proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction and the scourge of terrorism -- they do
not fit neatly into the threat perception conjured up by old slogans
such as "The Free World" and "The Iron Curtain" -- or old geographic
simplicities that suggested ideological ones, like "East versus West."
What does it mean, then, to talk about "defending common values and
interests" as a fundamental task of the Alliance? It means that we
need to ensure that we have the forces, doctrines, and communication
assets that will allow us when necessary to address challenges, such as
ethnic strife and regional conflict, that directly affect our security
but that originate beyond NATO territory. That's what we have done and
are doing in the Balkans, where our failing to date has not been
excessive ambition but, if anything, the opposite.
By the same token, it is a matter of mere prudence and common sense,
not some sort of globo-hubris, to suggest that a truly modernized
Alliance should be able to cope effectively with the all-too-modern
challenges posed by the spread of ballistic missiles and weapons of
mass destruction. We must find better, more efficient, more timely
ways of sharing information and assessments so that our troops are
properly protected from an enemy equipped with nuclear, chemical, and
biological arms, and we must improve our ability to deal with the
consequences of a weapons of mass destruction attack against our
civilian populations.
Let me be clear: I am not saying there are no limiting factors on what
NATO can and should do. Of course there are. NATO is a consensus
organization, and it defines its common interests accordingly -- by
agreement among its members. We would not go anywhere as an Alliance
unless all our members want us to go there. No ally can force others
to acquiesce to a NATO action. Under Article IV of the Treaty of
Washington, NATO members will consult when their security is threatened
and together they will determine the appropriate response.
Nor are we suggesting that NATO act in splendid isolation from - or
high-handed defiance of - the United Nations or the OSCE. All NATO
Allies are members of both those organizations. We believe NATO's
missions and tasks must be consistent with the UN Charter and the
Helsinki Final Act. At the same time, we must be careful not to
subordinate NATO to any other international body or compromise the
integrity of its command structure.
We will try to act together with other organizations, and to respect
their principles and purposes. But the Alliance must reserve the right
and the freedom to act when its nineteen members, by consensus, deem it
necessary. That means, in the first instance, preserving our ability to
deal with the most fundamental contingency, the one envisioned in
Article V of the Treaty of Washington: an attack on a member-state.
NATO must maintain its capability to deter, and if necessary defeat,
what might be called classic aggression. Even though such a threat
does not exist today, two facts remain: first, it could arise in the
future; but, second, it is less likely to do so if NATO remains robust
and ready. At the same time, we as an Alliance must be better able to
deal with the non-Article V challenges that we are more likely to face
- the ones I alluded to earlier: ethnic strife, regional conflict, WMD
and missile proliferation.
In order to increase the flexibility and thereby the utility of the
Alliance, the United Kingdom, France and others have been further
developing the concept of a European Security and Defense Identity. Let
me speak as clearly as possible for my government here and, once again,
I'm echoing General Shelton: We're in favor of ESDI. We want there to
be a capability within the Alliance whereby the European members can
address and solve problems without always requiring U.S. combat
involvement. That's in everyone's interest.
We congratulate Prime Minister Blair for his vision and leadership on
this issue - as on so many others. He made the most compelling case
imaginable for the capabilities and other arrangements needed to make
ESDI successful in his speech before this conference on Monday. But as
with every aspect of modernizing and adapting NATO, this particular
innovation, ESDI, carries with it risks and costs; and it carries with
it an obligation for the highest possible degree of transparency and
consultation.
If ESDI is misconceived, misunderstood or mishandled, it could create
the impression - which could eventually lead to the reality - that a
new, European-only alliance is being born out of the old, trans-
Atlantic one. If that were to happen, it would weaken, perhaps even
break, those ties that I spoke of before - the ones that bind our
security to yours.
We, on our side of the Atlantic, have another concern as well: it is
essential that ESDI not take a form that discriminates against those
Allies who are not members of the EU. There are five member-states in
that category today, and, day after tomorrow, there will three more.
Of those eight non-EU Allies, six are European states, that therefore,
by definition, are covered by the "E" in ESDI, and, hence, that have a
direct, proprietary and participatory stake in the enterprise as a
whole. By identifying these two potential pitfalls of ESDI, I'm not
saying that either of them is unavoidable or that the very idea of ESDI
is fatally flawed. Not at all.
The Alliance Foreign Ministers agreed, at the North Atlantic Council in
Berlin in June 1996, on some bottom lines and red lines that will, if
we stick to them, keep ESDI from going astray. We've already
accomplished much of the hard work of translating the Berlin principles
into organizational and operational specifics. But that's where the
devil still resides - in the details of decision-making procedures, of
command structures, of arrangements for the sharing of assets and
planning capabilities. That work will not be finished by the
Washington Summit. However, the April meeting can, in the way it
addresses ESDI, provide an additional impulse for further development
of a common European foreign and security policy at two important
subsequent events, the WEU and EU Summits in May and June,
respectively. In other words, we hope that, looking back over the
calendar of 1996 through 1999, we will also see a map featuring a
clear, straight, well-lit path leading from Berlin to St. Malo to
Washington to Bremen and to Cologne.
Let me turn now to another challenge: the Alliance's determination to
build strong partnerships with all the states of the Euro-Atlantic
area, notably including with those that were, as recently as the
beginning of this decade, our adversaries. I'll start with the Russian
Federation. For Russians - including many of those who favor their
country's evolution in what I think we would all regard as the right
direction - NATO is a gut issue.
The intense objection across a broad spectrum to NATO enlargement has
not gone away, especially given the determination of the Alliance to
reaffirm its commitment to further enlargement at the Washington
Summit. We - the Alliance and Russia - will have to continue to manage
a profound disagreement. So far we have done so.
For its part, and to its great credit, Russia continues to work with
NATO on behalf of those principles and objectives where we do agree,
while for our part, we are committed to helping bring the new Russia
more fully into the new Europe, notably including in the security
sphere, where the new NATO plays a key role. This is not an
abstraction; it's already happening.
Russia is one of nineteen former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact
members that now belong to the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council.
General Zlinko, the Russian Federation's Deputy Chief of the Main
Directorate for International Military Cooperation, will be among those
participating in the SHAPE conference on NATO in the 21st century that
many of us are attending in Mons over the next two days. Even more to
the point, several hundred soldiers under his command serve side-by-
side with Allies and other partners in the former Yugoslavia.
Nor is that collaborative venture merely ad hoc: Russia has
institutionalized its cooperation with NATO - through the NATO-Russia
Permanent Joint Council, or PJC. At the same time, Russia is working
intensively with 29 other countries to reduce military equipment levels
in Europe as part of an adapted CFE treaty.
Ukraine is another key member of the EAPC and has developed its own
distinctive partnership with NATO through the NATO-Ukraine Commission.
Ukraine has recently hosted two successful international joint military
exercises. A NATO Liaison Office will open this spring in Kyiv; the
first NATO-Ukraine Summit will take place in Washington in April; and
Ukraine has offered the former Soviet base at Yavoriv, a modern
military training and exercise center, for use in the Partnership for
Peace.
Partnership for Peace is a unique and promising institution, certainly
one of the more successful programs in the Alliance's history. It has
played an effective role in breaking down Cold War barriers - including
those telltale vestiges of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall that
still exist in people's minds on both sides of those old dividing
lines. So, ladies and gentlemen - Allies and Partners - for all these
reasons, there is reason for pride in the legacy of NATO and reason for
optimism about its future.
But I must conclude on a cautionary note. Structures and institutions,
innovations and adaptations, strategic concepts and vision statements -
all these are necessary for NATO to prove itself relevant to a new era
and thus to earn the support of our citizens and parliaments. But
while they are necessary, they are not sufficient. In addition to
justifying its existence in theory, NATO must earn its spurs in
practice. It must answer the existential question - the question of
why it remains in business - in the way it deals with hard, ugly,
dangerous and perplexing realities of the here-and-now.
By that standard, NATO can be proud of the job it has done in Bosnia.
Yet, even though its work there is far from done -- as we've been
reminded in the last week -- the Alliance now confronts another
treacherous and urgent threat to the peace of Europe in Kosovo. Five
days from now, on March 15, the Contact Group and the parties to the
Kosovo conflict reconvene in France. If the talks and their aftermath
go badly, it will cast a pall not only over the Washington Summit but,
much more important, over the Allies' and Partners' ability to fulfil
the objectives that they will set for themselves at the Summit.
Come late April, we could be debating the fine points of a new
Strategic Concept while Europe faces a new humanitarian disaster, a new
flood of refugees and the fourth Balkan war of this century. But the
converse is also true: if the next round of diplomacy goes well, Kosovo
could vindicate the most ambitious aspects of the Summit agenda,
including the proposition that NATO is one of several institutions
capable of rising to the challenge of concerting and focusing their
energies and resources on a clear and present danger to the peace of
the European continent and the Euro-Atlantic community.
We started that process of institutional joint action in Bosnia, and we
have built on it in Kosovo. So far, despite all the difficulties we
have faced, we have seen six bodies - NATO, the EU, the OSCE, the
United Nations, the Contact Group and the PJC - develop an
unprecedented and promising degree of synergy. These disparate but
overlapping organizations have pooled and applied their strengths on
behalf of an urgent common cause:
-- The UN has lent its political and moral authority through
Security Council resolutions along with the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees and the International Criminal Tribunal on the Former
Yugoslavia;
-- OSCE, through its verification mission, remains on the
ground in
Kosovo to help keep the parties from each other's throats;
-- the EU has been deeply and constantly involved,
especially
through the good offices and statesmanship of its envoy Ambassador
Petritsch, working closely with Boris Majorsky of the Russian
Federation and Chris Hill of the U.S.;
-- the PJC has discussed Kosovo on at least a monthly basis
since
the spring of 1998, and it will do so again on March 17th - the first
such meeting, by the way, at 19+1 (that is, involving the new Allies);
-- and last, but not least - in fact, crucially and
indispensably -
NATO has been in the air over Kosovo, on the ground nearby in Macedonia
and at sea in the Adriatic.
In short, NATO is supplying the muscle that so often makes the
difference between diplomatic breakthrough and diplomatic breakdown.
Moreover, it will fall to NATO to provide the confidence and security
necessary for a political settlement to take root.
Kosovo, in short, is a moment of testing for Allies and Partners alike
- a chance for North Americans, West Europeans, Central Europeans and
East Europeans to prove, in practice and in real time, that we do
indeed have common interests - that we are capable of defending them.