Blog Posts from January, 2012

After a busy week of meetings and presentations in London, Berlin, and Washington DC, I am beginning to see the outline of key NATO conversations at the summit in May.

Every two years, the alliance holds a meeting at the level of heads of state and government. Prime Minister Cameron of England, Chancellor Merkel of Germany, President Obama of the USA, and all of their contemporaries will attend. It is an opportunity to conduct the business of NATO at the very highest level.

 The last summit was held in Lisbon, Portugal, in the fall of 2010. The key "deliverable" at that summit was the new Strategic Concept for NATO, the guiding document we are following as we move forward in this turbulent 21st century. The previous Strategic Concept had been written in 1999 -- before 9/11 -- and was clearly out of date.

Over the intervening two years, the alliance has continued to work hard operationally on three continents. We have made progress in Afghanistan, conducted a UN-sanctioned mission in Libya, reduced our force size in the Balkans while delivering a safe and secure environment, begun to implement missile defense over Europe, and taken on other challenges.

As I look ahead a few months to Chicago, I suspect this will be conversations on a handful of important issues.

Here I am saluting Afghan police students during my visit to NPTC in Wardak, Afghanistan.

The first will certainly be Afghanistan. From my level as essentially the "operations officer" for NATO, I think the nations need to decide what our mission will look like post-2014. There are already important pledges in place indicating the alliance's intent to remain significantly engaged in Afghanistan. What will that mean specifically?

Will there be a troop presence? How will we collectively fund and support the Afghan Security Forces?

A second important conversation will center around missile defense.

Given the increasing threat from the proliferation of ballistic missile technology, NATO has committed to an alliance missile defense capability. This will be an important conversation, and will of course hopefully include the Russian Federation.

In addition to these operational issues, a third topic will probably be Smart Defense. This is a term coined by Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, and implies a wide range of pooling, sharing, and specializing. While not designed to rationalize cuts in defense, the concept will deliver efficiencies and maximize the capabilities delivered by the member nations.

Fourth, given the range of missions and locations in which we are engaged, it seems logical that there might be a conversation about partnering beyond the 28 member states of NATO. Today in Afghanistan, 50 nations are present with "boots on the ground."  In Libya, our Arab partners were particularly effective. The counter-piracy mission off the Horn of Africa has India, Russia, China and many other "non-traditional" NATO partners involved together. How to enhance and develop these kinds of

partnerships will probably be part of the conversation.

There is a lot to discuss, and world events may change the agenda between now and Chicago. But I'd guess those four topics will be part of the conversation, representing as they do some of the key challenges the alliance faces today.

Admiral James Stavridis
Commander
U.S. European Command