The Road to NATO's Prague Summit: New Capabilities, New Members, New Relationships

With the end of the Cold War behind us, it has become fashionable in Washington circles to question whether or not our NATO Alliance is still relevant. The Soviet menace is gone. Why do we need a multinational transatlantic security organization? And why do we need a bigger one with new members?

Then there is the "capabilities gap." U.S. military capabilities now far outstrip those of our European Allies. The conflict over Kosovo in 1999 proved that the Europeans are simply not equipped to wage modern warfare like we are. Most lack the ability to deploy and sustain troops in the field and to direct bombs and missiles – to "put steel on target" as my military colleagues say – with the devastating accuracy that the U.S. military has developed.

And, there is the alleged disparity in U.S. and European views about what we should be doing in the world on security, environmental and human rights issues. Do we really share values? Do we share security interests?

In the wake of September 11, it has become clear that the United States does share security interests with Europe. We need our NATO Alliance of like-minded nations that stands for peace and the rule of law. And the Alliance must project power beyond Europe to defend its members against today’s new menaces. At the same time, we need to reach out to the emerging new democracies in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus. By encouraging their regional stability, we directly contribute to our own security.

It turns out that the American and European publics agree more than they disagree. A recent poll conducted by the Chicago Council of Foreign Relations and German Marshall Fund shows that opinions on both sides of the Atlantic are similar.

Consider the following:

-- Europeans and Americans share support for international solutions to international problems and believe their countries should play an active role in world affairs. 78% of Europeans believe this, as do 71% in the United States.

-- Europeans and Americans have comparable perceptions of friends and allies and strong affinity for each other. When asked to rate the warmth of feelings on a given scale Americans and Europeans like and dislike the same countries – with Iraq, by the way, at the bottom of European and American rating scales.

-- Europeans generally see threats the same way – if not at the same intensity – as Americans. Asked to rate threats to their country’s national security over the next ten years, the same threats appear at the top of both lists: international terrorism, Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and religious fundamentalism. Europeans, as well as Americans, give conditional support for an attack on Iraq.

-- A majority on both sides of the Atlantic believes the World Bank, IMF, the World Trade Organization, the UN, and NATO should be strengthened.

-- The UN gets strong support from roughly three-fourths of Europeans and Americans.

-- Americans show strong support for international, rather than unilateral, approaches to foreign policy. Long-standing American support for doing things with allies and friends has been reaffirmed and in some cases strengthened in the aftermath of Sept. 11, with 61% of Americans saying we should work more closely with other countries.

The evidence is clear that, contrary to what critics might say, there remains a solid, shared foundation on both sides of the Atlantic for the Alliance. Yes, there are arguments within the Alliance about what policies to pursue, and yes, there are disparities in capabilities that sometimes sharpen differences.

But, at the end of the day, there is no greater example of the strong and enduring ties between Europe and America than the NATO Alliance, which remains the essential glue binding the new world to the old. And it is still a growth industry, with emerging new democracies in Eastern Europe eager to join and new relationships being built with Russia, Ukraine and young, increasingly important countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus.

On November 21 in Prague, NATO leaders will come together in one of their periodic summit meetings to discuss and make decisions on the future of the Alliance. This NATO summit -- the first in a former Warsaw Pact capital -- has twofold significance. Symbolically, it is testament to the changes that have taken place in Europe since the end of the Cold War. Prague is a city that Winston Churchill once lamented had fallen behind an Iron Curtain. It later became synonymous with rebellion against oppression and striving for democracy during the Prague spring of 1968. And in 1991 it came full circle by hosting the meeting that dissolved the Warsaw Pact.

In practical terms, the Prague Summit marks another milestone in the process of transforming NATO, a process that began with the end of the cold was and then accelerated following the events of September 11. Our agenda for Prague is threefold. We want to move NATO’s center of gravity further to the east extending NATO membership to more of Europe’s new democracies. We want to build a stronger and more durable relationship with Russia and Ukraine and extend the hand of Partnership to the increasingly important countries of Central Asia and Caucasus. And we want to develop the new military capabilities that NATO needs to fight the new threats we are facing to today.

The President’s new National Security Strategy states: "In pursuit of our goals, our first imperative is to clarify what we stand for: the United States must defend liberty and justice because these principles are right and true for all people everywhere." As the President makes clear, U.S. foreign policies must start from our core belief in freedom and democracy "and look for ways to expand liberty."

This is the underlying logic of NATO’s enlargement, to integrate the countries to the east of NATO, former members of the Soviet Union, into the community of shared Western values, and into the Western institutions – of which NATO is the most important – that define and defend those values. As the President observed last year in Warsaw, "Yalta did not ratify a natural divide, it divided a living civilization." He made it clear that his goal is to erase the false lines that have divided Europe and to "welcome into Europe’s home" every European nation that struggles toward democracy, free markets, and a strong civic culture.

The process of enlargement, launched in 1997, has made NATO stronger and more vital and brought us closer to completing the vision of NATO’s founders of a free and united Europe. At Prague, the Alliance will be prepared to offer NATO membership to another group of European democracies. These democracies have shown that they are irrevocably committed to our common values and are ready to share the responsibilities of NATO. Bringing in new members will extend the area of security and stability in Europe further to the east and bring new Allies into our struggle against the new threats that we face, such as terrorism.

For the nine countries currently seeking to join the Alliance, the prospect of NATO membership has served as a strong incentive to spur them on to initiate far-reaching democratic, economic, and military reforms. We have been working particularly closely with them to try to support their preparations. The progress we have seen along the way is both inspiring and is sure evidence that we are on the right path.

-- Take Slovakia. The Slovak Government took a huge gamble by pressing ahead with tough, unpopular political and economic reforms in an election year. These were NATO and EU stipulated reforms, with clear reward of membership in both organizations at the end of the process. The government’s courage was rewarded when, on September 21, the Slovak people returned them to office. This is the first time a government committed to democratic principles, rule of law, and economic reform was consecutively re-elected in a former Warsaw Pact nation. Despite the hardships of economic re-structuring, Slovaks voted to continue on the path to NATO and EU membership, ensuring their continued integration into the West.

-- In Albania, popular support for NATO membership is more that 90 percent, the highest of any of the ten countries currently aspiring to NATO membership. This, again, has created political momentum for needed reforms.

-- Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, three countries that had been forcibly annexed by the Soviet Union, now free, are motivated by a burning desire to integrate into western institutions and reclaim their place in the European family of nations. All three have undergone extensive political and economic transformation in the short period since they regained independence from the Soviet Union eleven years ago. They have become fully functioning democratic and free-market countries. And they are successful multi-ethnic democracies. NATO provided both the encouragement and confidence to these countries to better integrate their sizeable Russian-speaking populations. By protecting Russians’ language rights and offering naturalization, they reduced a source of tension with Russia, further contributing to regional stability.

-- These three countries have also takes steps to deal with their Holocaust past, as have many of the other countries of Eastern Europe. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have all three joined the International Holocaust Education Task Force, and all three Baltic nations have also created national Holocaust Remembrance Days. And all three are working on other ways to educate their publics and deal with the horrors of the past. The Lithuanian government, for instance, is working with Jewish groups on communal property restitution and the restoration of Vilnius’ Jewish quarter.

-- In Slovenia, the government has undertaken important political and economic reforms, has seen record growth in foreign investment, and is ranked second of 27 "nations in transition" by Freedom House.

-- With NATO and EU encouragement, Romania and Bulgaria have both taken important steps to reduce corruption and to protect classified information. In Romania, a new Anti-Corruption Special Prosecutor now has 30 prosecutors at his disposal.

-- Romania was one of the first countries to sign an agreement with the U.S. to protect Americans from being handed over to the International Criminal Court. Although they came under tremendous heat from some European countries for doing so, they were vindicated when the EU voted to allow its own members to enter the same kinds of agreements with the United States.

We have not yet decided whom we will support in this round of enlargement, but all the aspirants have made great strides and deserve to be commended for their reform efforts.

These will continue regardless of whether they are invited to join NATO this year because the publics in these countries now fully grasp that the reforms serve their own interests.

On enlargement, we will consult with out Allies and with Congress before final recommendations are made to the President. He will make the decision in early November regarding which nations we will support. All may not be chosen, but in all likelihood most of them will. And for those who are not chosen the door to membership will remain open, serving as a continuing incentive to these countries to intensify their political, economic and military reforms.

But NATO is not just about membership. It is also about relationships, particularly with the countries that have emerged from the former Soviet Union. This includes Russia, Ukraine, and the increasingly important countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus. NATO is reaching out to these countries and drawing them into closer and more cooperative relationships, helping ease their transformation into modern, increasingly democratic states, all while enhancing security and stability throughout Eurasia.

NATO and Russia have taken steps to give new impetus and direction to their extensive cooperation in the aftermath of September 11. President Bush’s vision is of a Russia "fully reformed, fully democratic, and closely bound to the rest of Europe," which is able to build partnerships with Europe’s great institutions, including NATO.

Last spring at a summit meeting in Rome, NATO and Russia took an historic step to create the NATO-Russia Council that will facilitate joint decisions and actions in areas of common concern. The Council permits Russia to sit at the table on an equal basis with the 19 current NATO Allies to work on carefully selected projects. This "at 20" relationship has given Russia the opportunity to demonstrate its willingness to cooperate with NATO in areas such as counter-terrorism, civil emergency preparedness, airspace management, and joint training and exercises.

Under the auspices of the NATO-Russia Council, we conducted a civil emergency planning exercise just a few weeks ago in Noginsk, Russia. This exercise ran uninterrupted for 48 hours with more than 800 emergency responders and observers from 30 Allied and other nations. It helped the U.S. and other participating countries refine and improve their capability to respond to a terrorist attack involving chemical contamination. Exercises like this create the potential to save hundreds of lives through previously unimagined cooperation by first responders from all over Europe.

The new relationship has also improved the tenor and substance of NATO’s discussions with Russia on such critical subjects as counter-terrorism, peacekeeping, weapons of mass destruction, and missile defense. Russia will have no veto on NATO actions; this is not a backdoor to NATO membership. But we do hope it will serve to expand and deepen the cooperation between NATO and Russia over time, a development that is in all of our interest.

While forging new links with Russia is important, our vision for NATO embraces all the members of NATO’s successful outreach program, the Partnership for Peace, including Ukraine and the nations of Central Asian and the Caucasus. In the wake of September 11, all of these states made important contributions to Operation Enduring Freedom and gained well-deserved attention as frontline states in the war against terrorism.

It is very much in the interest of the entire Alliance that NATO extends its strategic reach to this group of new nations. And we can use the special relationship created through Partnership for Peace (PfP) to draw these nations closer and more cooperatively toward the West. This effort extends some of the security and stability that NATO has provided to Europe into the heart of Eurasia. We look forward to Irish, Finnish, and Swedish leadership in PfP, just as we work to enliven the PfP programs that forged new relationships with the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia before September 11. Since then, look at how our partners are contributing:

-- There are now approximately 2,000 Coalition forces stationed at Manas Airfield in Kyrgyzstan. The Manas operation is multi-national: supporting U.S. Marine F-18s, French Mirages, Australian tankers, Spanish C-130s, and units from several other nations. The U.S. Air Force Base Commander has worked closely with Kyrgyz government and local officials to ensure smooth operations and create goodwill in the community. One Kyrgyz parliamentarian told our Ambassador that he was so impressed by a visit to the Manas base that he wanted to join the U.S. military.

-- Coalition forces also established a major military base at Khanabad, in Uzbekistan, and all of the governments in the region granted crucial overflight permission and shaped vital intelligence.

-- Equally important, but relatively unreported, was the crucial access provided by these countries to the international community that allowed donor countries to create a "humanitarian aid corridor" to prevent famine in Northern Afghanistan last winter. All of these military and humanitarian successes stem directly from the Partnership for Peace experience that these countries have shared with NATO.

Through Partnership for Peace, we believe NATO ultimately can contribute to spurring faster reforms in Eurasia, the Caucasus and eventually the Balkans. This, in turn will strengthen regional stability and help these countries to meet common threats and foster reformed, stable, democratic societies. This is the very bedrock of what NATO can offer other countries in its timeless effort to help build a more stable and secure world.

NATO is still a military organization responsible for the defense of its members. At the end of the day, it will matter little how many members it has or how many Partnerships it enjoys if it is unable to take effective military action against the threats that face the Alliance. NATO is under no illusion as to what those threats are. In devising a new Strategic Concept in 1999, NATO defined these threats explicitly: "oppression, ethnic conflict, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and the global spread of weapons technology and terrorism." While we have recognized the new threats, we have more to do to prepare NATO to meet the role it must play in the future.

The September 11 terrorist attacks demonstrated that NATO needs to be able to deploy at short notice flexible and well-armed forces capable of conducting sustained operations anywhere in the world. The U.S. currently possesses such forces; in large measure our European Allies do not. In order to fight effectively alongside us, European forces need to identify key shortfall areas and agree to pool appropriate resources and specialize, which will enable them to do collectively what they are increasingly unable to do as individuals. Our European Allies share our concern over the imbalance between our forces. At Prague, we expect NATO to take decisive steps to begin redressing the imbalance.

This is not to say that our European Allies are not contributing to our security. In existing NATO operations, primarily in the Balkans, the Europeans are carrying most of the load. In Macedonia, Task Force Fox is European-led and manned, with U.S. forces on standby to provide special "enabling" roles, such as emergency medical evacuations, intelligence support, and the like. With Task Force Fox on the scene, Macedonia was able to move ahead with national elections that were fair and peaceful.

At Prague, we will also seek Allied agreement to have these more capable European forces brought to a higher level of readiness through creation of a NATO Response Force. Participation in the Response Force will rotate among Allies. Its creation will ensure that NATO possesses a pool of forces at any given moment capable of responding at short notice to emerging threats. I’m happy to report that we believe this proposal has broad and enthusiastic support from our allies. Even more germane to our discussion, all nine aspirants know that NATO involves serious commitments and solemn responsibilities. Many are already working hard to develop these key military "niche" capabilities that can help our European Allies close the gap and allow NATO as a whole to meet the new threats that we face today.

-- For example, the Czechs created a special military unit with unique expertise in nuclear, biological and chemical weapons detection and decontamination. This unit is now deployed with our troops in Kuwait. We are very grateful for their presence.

-- The Bulgarians have provided the International Security Force in Afghanistan with a fully equipped decontamination unit.

-- Slovenia is making an important contribution to the fledgling Afghan National Army, donating over 80 metric tons of equipment and ammunition. Slovenia has also brought proven expertise in de-mining to assist NATO operations in the Balkans and has succeeded in removing more than 30,000 mines and left in the territories of its Balkan neighbors.

-- The Romanians have not only provided troops for peacekeeping as part of the Security Force in Afghanistan, but also sent a mechanized infantry battalion, the so-called "Red Scorpions," there to combat al-Qaida in Operation Enduring Freedom.

-- The Lithuanians recently approved the deployment of 40 Special Operations Forces to support U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and provided doctors to the Czech medical unit in ISAF. The Estonians sent two explosive detection dog teams for airbase operations in Afghanistan. And all three Baltic states have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the U.S. in the Balkans, contributing personnel to peacekeeping efforts in that region.

These are examples of not only how the aspirants and NATO’s new members have stepped up to the plate and helped us, but also how relatively small militaries can extend our common security through niche capabilities. We want to develop more of this within the Alliance.

So there you have it. New Capabilities. New Members. New Relationships. This agenda, while moving NATO in new directions, is rooted in NATO’s enduring values and common goals as set out in the 1949 Washington Treaty: to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of our people, live in peace with all peoples and governments, and promote the stability and well-being of the Trans-Atlantic area.

More that fifty years after its creation, NATO continues to renew itself and to adapt to each new challenge that comes its way. Some have asked in the aftermath of September 11 whether NATO should remain a priority. Our answer is unambiguously "yes." The events of September 11 reinforced the importance of even closer cooperation and integration between the United States and the democracies of Europe, and between those democracies and the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union to NATO’s east.

I want to take a moment to talk about the State Department’s leadership role in American foreign policy.

-- We manage diplomatic relations with other countries and international institutions. The peace and security of the American people require constructive relations with other countries and with international institutions.

-- We promote peace and stability in regions of vital interest. Through diplomatic intervention, the State Department prevents local conflicts from becoming wider wars that could threaten allies, embroil American troops, and create instability. We respond to humanitarian crises to help save lives.

-- The State Department brings nations together to address global challenges. We fight terrorism, international crime and narcotics. We prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the spread of communicable diseases, nuclear smuggling, humanitarian crises, trafficking in women and children, and environmental degradation.

-- The State Department creates jobs in U.S. by opening markets abroad. In the last 20 years we have helped facilitate more than 250 trade agreements. Trade has expanded 25-fold since 1970 and nearly 120% since 1990. This expansion has created more than 15 million new jobs. America’s economic well-being, global leadership, and national security are all reinforced when American companies successfully compete in the global economy.

-- We provide services to U.S. citizens traveling or living abroad. We protect Americans abroad during international crises; we provide information critical to traveling and residing abroad; we help U.S. citizens obtain emergency funds. We assist U.S. travelers who become ill or are arrested while overseas. We check on the welfare/whereabouts of U.S. citizens who are abroad. We assist in international child custody disputes and adoptions. We issue American passports – more than 7 million in 2000.

-- We assist absentee voting, distribute federal benefits payments, and advise on property claims. We issue visas to foreigners wishing to enter the U.S., more that 9 million in 2000.

The American government spends just a little more than 1% of the total federal budget on international affairs in contrast to the approximately 16% spent on defense. Of late, State Department responsibilities have expanded enormously to include combating threats like terrorism, as well as international crime, and narcotics trafficking.

This small investment protects American interests and people and allows the Unites States to maintain its position of leadership. The State Department conducts its responsibilities with a work force smaller that 10 of the 14 U.S. Cabinet departments.

Foreign and Civil Service Officers in the Department of State and U.S. missions abroad represent the American people. The Foreign Service is a corps of about 9,000 employees. These officers are America’s first line of defense in a complex and often dangerous world.

The Foreign Service is a way of life that requires uncommon commitment – unique rewards, opportunities – sometimes hardships. FSOs can be sent to any embassy, consulate, or other diplomatic mission anywhere in the world, at any time, to serve the diplomatic needs if the United States.

There are about 6,500 Civil Service employees, most of whom are headquartered in Washington, DC. Civil service employees are involved in virtually every area of the Department—from human rights to narcotics control to trade to environmental issues.

So as you can see, the State Department will continue to play an ever-important role not only in transatlantic relations, but also in the relations among nations around the globe as we endeavor to build a pluralistic global village.

Thank you.