Published: May 17, 2010
Courtesy Of "The New York Times"
PARIS — NATO must be willing to fight and operate far from its borders to defend its members in a new world of terrorism, piracy and cyberattacks, according to a proposed strategy for the alliance released Monday.
The proposal, “NATO 2020,” also urges the alliance to restore credibility to its pledge of collective security, which it said was a prerequisite for efforts farther afield.
“NATO must be versatile and efficient enough to operate far from home,” former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, who led a team of experts in writing the report, said at a news conference in Brussels. “In order to sustain the political will for operations outside its area, NATO must see that all its members are reassured about the security of their home territories.”
One of the main purposes of the new strategy, NATO officials said, is to recommit the alliance to its core mission of collective self-defense, known as Article 5 of its original charter.
But the report also says that the alliance must not fail in its current battle against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, which NATO forces entered in collective defense of the United States after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“In today’s world we may have to go beyond our borders to defend our borders,” said Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the alliance’s secretary general. “I can mention Afghanistan as a case in point.”
Already this year, 200 NATO soldiers have died in Afghanistan, according to the Web site iCasualties.org, which tracks military fatalities, compared with 119 in the same period last year.
The report, commissioned by NATO, is meant to provide the guidelines for a new strategic concept to replace the one NATO adopted in 1999. Mr. Rasmussen will refine the guidelines and present them to the 28 member governments for comments, with the aim of adopting a new strategy at the organization’s summit meeting in Lisbon in November.
In a post-1999 world of terrorism, nuclear proliferation and the spread of missiles to more aggressive countries and even nonstate actors, like Hezbollah and Hamas, and threats to the security of energy supplies and the Internet, the alliance must reform to remain relevant, the report said. It added, “Although NATO is busier than it has ever been, its value is less obvious to many than in the past.”
The report also urges the alliance to improve its ties and security cooperation with Moscow, working together on areas of mutual interest like missile defense, counterterrorism, maritime security and the fight against narcotics. “NATO should pursue a policy of engagement with Russia, while reassuring all allies that their security and interests will be defended,” the report said.
With Iran believed to be working to develop a nuclear weapon and ballistic missiles, partnership with Russia on missile defense makes sense, the report said. “Missile defense is most effective when it is a joint enterprise, and cooperation between the alliance and its partners, especially Russia, is highly desirable,” it said.
The panel urged NATO to maintain a nuclear deterrent “at the minimum level required by the prevailing security environment,” rejecting arguments by some European governments that American battlefield nuclear weapons be removed from the continent.
In a time of tight budgets, the panel said, members should spend more efficiently and do more to buy weapons jointly and to pool resources, like military transport planes. In 2008, only five NATO members met a target of spending a minimum of 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense; one of them, Greece, is in deep difficulty over its debts.
The report also suggests that the alliance be ready to intervene in humanitarian disasters, in cases of genocide, large-scale violations of human rights and the chaos of failed states.
A separate report, published this month by the Center for European Reform in London, says NATO needs to address the security concerns of newer members in central and eastern Europe.
As a gesture of nonaggression aimed at Russia, the alliance has done little planning on how it might defend newer member states like Poland and the Baltic countries from a Russian attack, whether military, naval or through the Internet. Some eastern European officials fear a Georgia-like local or regional conflict, where existing antagonisms could be manipulated.
“Some of the allies worry that NATO would not be able to come to their defense in a crisis,” said Tomas Valasek, one of the authors of the London report, who also was a civilian adviser to Ms. Albright’s group.
“If they feel secure at home,” the report says, “they will have less need to invest in equipment needed for self-defense and have more reasons to buy the hardware needed for far-off missions such as Afghanistan.” And fewer reasons, the report says, to fear Russia and oppose a new NATO relationship with Moscow.
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