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| Presider: | Robert E. Hunter, senior advisor, RAND Corporation; former ambassador, NATO |
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| Speaker: | Jaap Scheffer, secretary general, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) |
November 11, 2004
Council on Foreign Relations
Council on Foreign Relations
New York, N.Y.
ROBERT HUNTER: Welcome, everyone, this morning, on a holiday morning. A tribute to you, sir, that people were willing to give up some of Veterans Day to come and hear you. I’m supposed to start off by, people, [by] saying this is all on the record, but turn off your cell phones, please.
Mr. Secretary general, former Dutch foreign minister, welcome to New Amsterdam. [Laughter.]
JAAP DE HOOP SCHEFFER: [Laughter.]
HUNTER: Changed a little bit since 1623, but we have had no better ally in all of that time. Secretary General of NATO Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the third Dutchman, former foreign minister, former chairman in office of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe, so has a broad mandate, and actually was at NATO at one point, it’s an honor to have you with us.
Now a lot of us since the election have wondered whether the United States was going to take NATO seriously, whether we were going to bypass it, whether it was going to be secondary. Yesterday, the president of the United States gave a major signal. Today, he’s seeing the British prime minister [Tony Blair], who has been extremely helpful. But coming in ahead yesterday in an event I can tell you is unprecedented, the first foreign leader that President Bush saw after his election was the NATO secretary general. And it’s a tribute to your leadership, and I hope it presages something in terms of the continuing American commitment and what you’re going to be doing. So everybody wants to know, what did you talk about? [Laughter.]
SCHEFFER: Conversations with the president are entirely confidential. No, [laughter] what we did talk about, of course, first of all, and you mentioned it yourself—thank you for the invitation to come here. Thank you, Bob, for moderating this meeting.
Well, first of all, as you say, it is a signal that the NATO secretary general is the first, very first foreign visitor in the White House. But what we did discuss, of course, is the way NATO should go in the coming years and the coming time. We can go into details about that. We discussed NATO’s different operations and missions, future of Afghanistan, Kosovo, the training implementation mission in Iraq. We discussed, of course, first and foremost, the state of the transatlantic relationship; the political role of NATO; I mean, interesting subjects, for 35, 40 minutes. And we have no gaps in the conversation, Bob, I can tell you. [Laughter.]
HUNTER: Did you get a sense from the president that the United States is fully committed to NATO and is going to be looking to it as a leader in what we’re trying to achieve in our foreign policy, or was this just a courtesy call? What’s your judgment?
SCHEFFER: No, definitely not a courtesy call, because the way we discussed the subject, as we discussed them, it had nothing to do with a courtesy call. By the way I had met, in my capacity, the president four or five times on different occasions here in Washington and elsewhere. So it had nothing of the elements of a courtesy call.
But I—the message I have—my key message was, let’s use NATO as the principal political-military security forum we have in the transatlantic relationship. Let’s see that’s—if we want to have the support, the full support, of all NATO allies for what NATO is doing, and I can tell you, it’s not easy in European public opinion, and that’s—we’re dependent of, in the long run—it’s not easy to answer the question, Why is NATO defending valleys at the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan? That’s not an easy question to answer. Let’s use this as the principal political forum.
I have the impression that NATO was more—the NAC, the [decision-making] North Atlantic Council—you would know, Bob—was more political, when I look at 10, 20 years ago, than it is now. It is a military organization. It has, of course, the unique character, with its integrated military command, its integrated structure, but—and then you can compare it to the European Union, to other organizations—it is the principal forum where the greatest power in the world, the United States, is permanently at the table. Now, since it is my strong conviction that a secure and stable world order without the full and active participation of the U.S. is not possible, we have to use that North Atlantic Council, and we have to do it more than we have done in the recent past, I think.
So that was my key message. And if you want all 26 democratic nations on the consensus principle with you—you want to have them with you—then we should discuss these problems, also discuss the Middle East, discuss Iran. You can say that’s not relevant to NATO. It’s very relevant to NATO, very relevant indeed. Use it as a political forum. Invite foreign people to come to speak to the council, have discussions on these important subjects, not because NATO’s playing a direct role everywhere and anywhere. NATO is not the world’s policeman. But these developments do matter to the transatlantic alliance.
HUNTER: Following the election and coming out of our election here in this country, obviously a key preoccupation with Iraq, the battle for Falluja going on—we’ve now had casualties over 1,100—people here, and I’m sure this would have been true if the other man had been elected president, [are] looking to the allies to be as helpful as possible in seeing Iraq through to success. NATO itself has a limited role there. I wonder if you can say, as the leader of the alliance, what are the chances that allies are going to do more than they’ve done in the past? And what’s required to get them to do it? If you have your magic wand, first what would you like them to do? But secondly, the tough, heavy lifting, how do we get there?
SCHEFFER: Well, first of all, I think all allies agree, and that was, I think, also let’s say, the cornerstone or the key of the Istanbul declaration—the Istanbul summit at the end of June—that you can look into the rear-view mirror as many times as you like and say we had a fundamental split, fundamental difference of opinion in the run-up to the Iraqi war about its legality, its legitimacy. I was very much involved in this debate in a former capacity. But where we have to agree is that Iraq now going up in flames, becoming a failed state in that pivotal region is in nobody’s interest, because the consequences would not only be regional, but would stretch far beyond the region, of course.
Having said that, as you know, at the moment 15 out of the 26 NATO allies do still have forces on the ground in Iraq, not in a NATO operation, but as part of the multinational force. I would think it’s important to see that that coalition stays intact. On top of that, NATO is at the moment in the process of setting up the training implementation mission. You might remember that [Iraqi Interim] Prime Minister [Ayad] Allawi wrote me a letter before the Istanbul summit at the end of June asking specifically for NATO training of Iraqi security forces. That is what we are setting up now. We are building a training academy near Baghdad to do in-country training. You know that not all allies agree—want to participate—in in-country training, that also a few allies will do out-of-country training, which is a legitimate position. I would rather like to see more allies doing in-country training, but that’s a fact. I have to reckon with that fact. And I hope that in the coming weeks, let’s say before the end of the year, we can have this training academy functioning, which will mean that if we build up the number of trainers we can do a lot alongside the training program—the huge training program which is being done by the multinational force.
And this is where we are at the moment in NATO. There is no debate and there are no discussions, let’s say, about further or other forms of assistance to Iraq. The Iraqi interim government is not asking for other forms of assistance. I was struck by the fact [that] when we had the discussion on in-country and out-of-country training that the Iraqi foreign minister [Hoshyar Zebari] told me, “Secretary general, it’s all nice and fine, out-of-country training, but we are a proud people as Iraqis, and we want as soon as possible to lessen our dependence on the multinational force. But we are a proud people. Come and train our security forces inside Iraq. Why do it in Jordan? Why do it in Kuwait? Why do it in the NATO school in Oberammergau, NATO defense college in Rome, NATO training center in Stavanger in Norway? We’re all doing this. And it’s useful and it must be done. But,” he told me, “secretary general, please come and do it inside Iraq.”
That’s the situation at the moment. I would exaggerate if I would say that Iraq is an easy subject in the NATO Council at the moment. It is not. It is not. But allied leaders in Istanbul forgot about the rear-view mirror and took a forward-leaning approach. What will be the consequence over time of that approach, it’s a bit difficult to predict for me at the moment. I’m focusing very much on making a success of this training implementation mission.
HUNTER: NATO’s got an incredible agenda, so I’m going to hop-scotch around a little bit. Afghanistan, where NATO is leading the ISAF, the International Security Assistance Force. NATO, as you have repeated, has never failed, but you’ve also been saying that in taking on the Afghan mission, NATO is going to have to do it right, and it’s going to have to do a lot more. And you’ve been chastising various allies—you did it at Istanbul and otherwise, other places—finding helicopters, getting lift, doing things. How do you plan to lead the alliance to get the kind of support so that NATO will have success and not risk a failure in Afghanistan? [Gap in recording] People in this country, frankly, are not paying much attention to it.
SCHEFFER: No.
HUNTER: But what do charge us with doing?
SCHEFFER: I can imagine. Let me start picking up, Bob, your sentence about people in this country; the same goes for Europe, of course. My daughter who is—my oldest daughter—who is 25 and has a university degree, is a [inaudible] lawyer, asked me a few months ago, “Daddy, what’s your traveling schedule next week?” And I said, “I’m going to Kabul.” She said, “Kabul? Isn’t that the Afghan capital?” I said, “Yes, correct. Fine, you’ve done your homework.” [Laughter.] But then she asked, “What is NATO doing in Afghanistan?” And then I had to explain to her that defending values at the Hindu Kush in the present-day international climate, where we have to fight terrorism wherever it emerges, [that] if we don’t do it at the Hindu Kush, it will end up on our doorstep.
If I have to explain to my well-educated, and I hope well-brought-up daughter, that NATO is defending values at the Hindu Kush, what about the people moving around here in New York or in Amsterdam or in Berlin? In other words, this perception gap in the long-run must be closed and must be healed. And that, for NATO’s future, is of the utmost importance. That’s a preliminary remark.
Coming back to Afghanistan proper, NATO has delivered, as you said. NATO has never failed on its promises, including Afghanistan. But it is ridiculous—I have no other word for it—that the secretary general of NATO has to work the phones to plead for two helicopters and four C-130 fixed-wing aircraft. So there’s a disconnect in the political commitment we enter into vis-a-vis an operation in Afghanistan, and the force-generation process we have in NATO, and that must change, and we are going to change this.
But we have lived up to our promises, and at the moment the signs are good that NATO is going to expand ISAF, the International Security Assistance Force, into the west of Afghanistan. We have covered the north now with a number of so-called provincial reconstruction teams [PRTs]. We will now go west, setting up what we call a forward-support base in Iraq, and then convincing nations of building PRTs in that region as well. And then we want to move counter-clockwise to the south and the southeast of Afghanistan as well.
We have supported the electoral process. It was great to see—it was great to see those millions of Afghans going to the ballot boxes—away with the burqa and to the ballot box—from the one “b” to the other, and that’s the right direction. And we’re going to support the parliamentary elections, which will be held in the spring, again by bringing in extra forces, extra battalions to support the electoral process, because we think the parliamentary elections might be a bit more complicated than the presidential elections. Why? Because there’s more—let’s say there are more regional issues at stake, more issues for warlords at stake. But we’ll do that again, we’ll expand.
We can do whatever we want, if you mention Afghanistan. We can try to build security and stability, and we have been reasonably successful up till now. But we will not succeed unless the international community—and that goes far beyond NATO—is not taking deadly serious the problem of narcotics. This country is covered with poppies, this country is covered with heroin laboratories, and the price of heroin has gone down considerably in Berlin and Amsterdam and Paris because of the huge production in Afghanistan.
In a moment I’ll go to Kofi Annan to pay an official visit to the secretary general of the United Nations—the first as a NATO secretary general. And this afternoon, which is also a first, I’ll address a formal session of the Security Council. Interesting developments. I’m saying this because the U.N., as the leader of the international community, should see to it—but they can’t do it alone, either—that we have a concentrated, integrated, international policy on drug eradication in Afghanistan. And now you’ll say that’s easier said than done; point very well taken. I don’t have the panacea for the solution of Afghanistan developing, if we are not careful, into a narco-state. And the warlords are financed by the drugs. And the farmers do not have any alternative; there is no alternative crop. So it will be a combination of eradication of poppy fields, destroying the laboratories, presenting the farmers with alternatives to see to it that this development doesn’t go on. And for that we need—excuse me for my long answer, Bob—the whole international community joining hands. ISAF and NATO does not have in its mandate drug eradication. On the other hand, you cannot stand completely [inaudible] if you see the development of the poppies [inaudible].
This should happen. In the meantime, I think we should have a discussion—[gap in recording]—which is called ISAF, and the Operation Enduring Freedom, which is coalition-run [inaudible] American-led. I think in the longer run we should find more synergy between these two operations. ISAF is nation-building; Operation Enduring Freedom is hunting Taliban and al Qaeda. And the more successful we are, and the more successful Operation Enduring Freedom is in hunting down the final pockets of Taliban, we should see that we find more synergy between the two operations, which, by the way, is not easy in NATO, because allies have some differences of opinion on the future of these two operations. But I think it is unavoidable that we find more synergy between the two operations.
HUNTER: Before I open it up, I have two more questions. One, you’re sitting here about five miles or less from Ground Zero, where we were attacked on September 11, 2001. I work in a place called Pentagon City. I’ve got a panoramic view. It reminds every day of the Pentagon. When you were foreign minister you visited Ground Zero. Let me ask you: What more can and should NATO do in regard to fighting terrorism?
SCHEFFER: Well, first of all, what NATO should do also—perhaps, let’s say, outside the direct [inaudible] of its competence, that is, participating in narrowing the perception gap—transatlantic perception gap which still very much exists, in my opinion. Every time I come here, every time I come here—and I’ve been here many times since 9/11—but every time I come here, and I speak not only to the elites but to—in my conversation with any American I meet, I feel again, this huge perception gap where it concerns the fight against terrorism. And we have to bridge that gap because we need to bridge it to be as effective as we can in the fight against terrorism.
What can NATO do? What is NATO doing? Well, first of all, remember my story about Afghanistan. If that country would become the black hole again it was under Taliban rule, and becoming a net-exporter of terrorism—and we know where they came from on 9/11 [inaudible] participation in fighting terrorism. Number two, we’re running an operation in the Mediterranean called Operation Active Endeavor, a naval operation which is basically an anti-terrorist operation. We’re working closely together with Russians and other partners in fighting terrorism. The Istanbul summits took a number of very practical measures in the fight against terrorism, ranging from, how do you protect a civilian airliner against shoulder-fired missiles, to how do you protect your helicopters against these forms of terrorism? NATO is doing a lot in this respect, also together with its partners.
I was in Central Asia two weeks ago. I was in the Caucasus last week. Everywhere you come, the fight against terrorism is first and foremost on the agenda. But we, Americans and Europeans, even a few years after 9/11—we have to bridge this perception gap. And we can only do that by talking to each other, and we can only do it by not having the elites talking to each other, because quite honestly, we are the elites sitting here. But as I want to explain to that New Yorker why NATO’s at the Hindu Kush, we also have—we need this debate very dearly between Europe and the United States on how we’re going to address this problem and this perception gap. And NATO is doing this with its partners. NATO is doing this together with the European Union; I mentioned Russians. But I take the point of critics who will say, “Should not more being done?” Yes, my answer is more should be done.
HUNTER: Twenty years ago at NATO, I used to joke that people would come to work in the morning and there would be a big sign on the thing. It would—one—there would be an arrow, and one end would point to war and the other to peace. It would always point to peace, and so they’d go home. Today you’re responsible for dealing with just about everything in the world. I’m going to give you one more before opening it up.
Eleven o’clock last night our time [President of the Palestinian Authority] Yasir Arafat died. Do you see an occasion in which NATO would provide a peace force in Palestine with or without a Palestinian state?
SCHEFFER: Well, that’s a bit far away at the moment. But let me say this about NATO. As I said, I think in answering one of your previous remarks, Bob, NATO is not, and should not develop into, the world’s policeman. To say it in French, “L’OTAN n’est pas le gendarme du monde.”
HUNTER: Better in French. That’s—[Laughter.]
SCHEFFER: Yeah. But well, I like the French very much, and the French language. My wife is a French teacher, so why shouldn’t I? And let’s not forget that the French—I mean, the French are leading two major NATO operations at the moment, in Afghanistan and in Kosovo. Two major NATO operations are led by the French. So you can’t say about the French that they are not serious NATO allies. They are. But to say it in French, NATO is not “le gendarme du monde.”
But on the other hand, if the 26 NATO allies consider there’s a NATO interest in going somewhere, and they find consensus on a certain operation or a certain mission, be it Afghanistan as an operation, be it Iraq as a training mission, I’m not going to exclude here this morning and today that on the basis of a peace agreement NATO could be called upon by parties to provide something.
Let me say it rather [inaudible]. In this physical region of what we call the broader Middle East—but I’m not going to say here and now, of course, Bob; yes, of course, we—I mean, we need a framework for peace, we need a peace agreement, we need the consent of parties. And I hope that the death of Yasir Arafat will lead to sensible people on both the sides of using a possible window of opportunity to move this deadly embrace in which the two parties have each other since decades—to move this problem a bit forward. And we know they can’t do that alone. People being in a deadly embrace can’t solve that embrace all by themselves. So they need other people, first and foremost the United States of America, and the European Union, for that matter. And I don’t want to hear, let’s say, gloomy talk about “the road map is dead.” The road map might not be in everybody’s attention, but if responsible people in the region and outside the region do not use this window of opportunity, I don’t know what window of opportunity they’re going to use.
But coming back to your question, I can imagine in the long, long, long run, if there’s a peace agreement, if parties so request NATO, that we certainly would have a discussion in the North Atlantic Council to answer that question. What kind of answer that will be I do not know, but I’m not saying no.
HUNTER: Thank you very much. Let me open up to the audience now. First, wait for the microphone and speak directly into it. Please stand, state your name and affiliation. Please, only one question, and questions—not long speeches, short speeches. Yes, sir? In the corner.
QUESTIONER: Thank you. Excuse me. Barnett Rubin, Center on International Cooperation, New York University. As you know, General Rick Hillier, who was the commander of ISAF in the previous command and is now the head of Canadian land forces, found during his turn there that the mandate of ISAF forces really was ill-defined and that the resources they had were not commensurate. And he’s characterized ISAF as having a list of things it won’t do but not a clear mission. Is there a process under way, or can you support a process under way, for defining a clearer mission for ISAF under NATO command, and a way of overcoming the national caveats which have thus far made all of the PRTs having somewhat different mandates that are incoherent and leave our counterparts somewhat confused as to what we’re trying to accomplish?
SCHEFFER: Thank you. I don’t mind—to pick up on your last remarks—I do not mind very much that the PRTs in Afghanistan are a bit different in structure and character, because I think we should not have one-size-fits-all PRTs. The Germans in Konduz and Feyzabad do it a bit differently than the Brits in Mazar-e Sharif, or the Dutch in Bagram, or you name them. I don’t mind very much. It’s a good example, up to now, of civilian-military cooperation. And what is the most important thing: the Afghans appreciate and like the PRTs very much. I think we should have more. But let them be a bit diverse in nature. I don’t mind.
On General Hillier’s report, because I read it, it’s always good that a commander, based on his experience in the field, writes a report. I appreciated it even more if he writes it or tells me when he is a commander and not after he has been a commander. [Laughter.] It’s a general rule for soldiers, also in NATO, to tell me when there’s something wrong if you’re on the spot, and don’t start telling me if you have ended your command. But anyway, I’ll answer your question seriously, because Hillier has a few points. I think what Rick Hillier criticized was the fact that NATO did not live up to its promises, at the time he wrote his reports, about the number of PRTs, about the expansion to the west. And NATO has—I said answering one of Ambassador Hunter’s questions—NATO did simply not live up to its promises as far as the boots on the ground and the fixed-wing aircraft and the helicopters were concerned.
I think we have bettered the alliance in the meantime. The national caveats have been lifted to a certain extent, but national caveats are a big problem in NATO. You know national caveats? National governments limit the scope of activities of their forces, and that’s a problem in Afghanistan, it’s a problem—and it was a problem in Kosovo as well, as you well know. So my fight is a permanent fight against national caveats and in favor of lifting as many caveats as we can. But given the fact that many countries have fairly heavy parliamentary procedures before their soldiers are going to be sent abroad, unlike the United States or unlike Great Britain or France—but take my country, the Netherlands, there’s a very heavy—I was a member of Parliament for 16 years—a very heavy parliamentary procedure before soldiers can be sent abroad, and from time to time, parliaments place the caveats. Now, you can say governments should fight those parliamentary caveats. That’s right. But I know from experience that that is not always easy.
So Rick Hillier had a few, I think, very relevant points. I’m trying to do something about those points. The ISAF mission as such is all right. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with the ISAF mission as such. I mean, we can do very well with the ISAF mission.
HUNTER: Does that mean the NATO Response Force [NRF] is never going to work?
SCHEFFER: No, Bob, it doesn’t. It doesn’t. I hope not, anyway, because we have—I mean, the NATO Response Force, which was a—I think, a very positive and good initiative by [U.S. Secretary of Defense] Don Rumsfeld and others, is alive and kicking. It has reached its initial operational capability a few weeks ago when defense ministers were meeting in Romania. It will reach full operational capability at the end of 2006.
Now, the question at the moment, also discussed within the NATO alliance, what is the NRF for? As you might know, the NRF has a very broad mandate, but we need to discuss what the NRF is for. Let me tell you one thing which we just discussed at the table here. NATO is doing a lot of nation-building in Afghanistan, to a certain extent, to a lesser extent in Kosovo. It might—it has done so, and it’s still doing so until the 2nd of December in Bosnia-Herzegovina—in BH—before handing over to the European Union. But NATO should also have the capacity to fight. That’s the less attractive side of the mantle, of course, but NATO is the only organization in the world which can put up a fight, if necessary. And it might be necessary to fight—to fight a war, not with peacekeeping, but to fight a war, which we call—if we want to avoid the word “war fighting,” we call “peace enforcing.” Forget it, forget about the jargon. And that’s what the NRF is for, as you know, to be used as an initial entry force. So let’s further develop the NRF.
I am of the school—and it’s not an easy discussion—but I’m of the school that on the one hand you must say, Look, not using the NRF is losing NRF. What do you have the NRF for if you never use it? If there’s a major crisis, you have to use it in its fighting capacity, but you can use it in different capacities, as we have shown in Afghanistan. There was an Italian NRF battalion lifted into Afghanistan for the electoral support of the presidential elections. So not using it is losing it, is the one line on the one hand.
On the other hand, the fact that we have the NRF should not lead in nations to the notion, “Well, we don’t have to worry that much about force generation because we have the NRF. And if we’re not participating in a certain NRF rotation, we’re off the hook.” So on the other hand, the NRF may not take the place of as sort of reserve force which will make nations fall asleep.
Now, we have to find the middle ground. But I am of the opinion that since we have the NRF, we have to use it. I was very much in favor of using it into Afghanistan, to have an Italian NRF battalion lifted into Afghanistan. And I think we could do the same again in the parliamentary elections in Afghanistan in the spring. The NRF can also be used in civil emergency situations. I mean, why not?
HUNTER: Yes, sir?
QUESTIONER: My name is Kenneth Bialkin, Skadden, Arps. I’d like you to expand, if you would, on the use of a phrase that you used several times in your remarks; namely, the perception gap. You said you came here and found a perception gap, by which I think you meant that there wasn’t an adequate appreciation here of the danger and extent and force that terrorism might assert. You also commented that in places in Europe, they are taking terrorism extremely seriously and working hard against it. Do you mean, by perception gap, that there are forces or people looking at terrorism, who do not evaluate the threat as direly as we do—some of us do; namely, that there are a group of people, Muslim extremists, who wish to destroy the Western society and civilization, and not enough people take that seriously in terms of meaning? I wonder if you could clarify.
SCHEFFER: I must have been too vague, because I meant exactly the opposite of what you’re asking me. What I mean by perception gap is that, on the European side of the Atlantic Ocean, there is not enough perception of how serious that is, and in the United States there is. I’ve been too vague, apparently, because it’s exactly the other way around. The perception gap, in my opinion, is that in this country over the past years since 9/11, terrorism—and quite rightly so—is taken very seriously indeed; and that on my, quote-unquote, continent, in Europe, we still have complicated discussions, be it in the European Union or be it in national discussions, of how far governments could go in the relationship with their citizens in the fight against terrorism. So in other words, I think Europe should catch up here, not the United States.
And I entirely side with you, sir, that this terrorism is a universal threat because, exactly as you say, those terrorists are not fighting our governments or our societies because of the policies we have or because there is a center, left-of-center, right-of-center government or what have you, but they’re fighting our societies because of what they are: open, free, democratic societies.
So I entirely agree, but if the perception gap has to be bridged, it has to come from the European side rather than from the side of the United States of America. I think the impact on your society, understandably so, of 9/11 has been much bigger and measures more rigorous than the impacts in Europe on horrible tragedies like the one in Madrid or Beslan or—you name the places where terrorists have struck. And I think that this perception gap is one of the reasons that we have from time to time complicated discussions in the transatlantic relationship. May I mention my own country, where we had the murder last week of a movie maker—film maker—by an Islamic fundamentalist, which is shaking the country at the moment. Shaking the country. For me, it’s the proof that, I mean, we have to discuss these problems, and we have to discuss these problems, I think, more seriously than we have done—I’m talking now about my own country—than we have done in the past years, taking the blame and responsibility myself as well because I have been in Dutch politics for 18 years, as a member of Parliament and as a minister. So I’m not blaming anybody in particular, but including myself. We have to take this seriously.
HUNTER: Yes, Elizabeth? And then here and here.
QUESTIONER: Thank you, Bob.
I’m Liz Sherwood-Randall from the Council on Foreign Relations. We had Timothy Garton Ash here earlier this week, and he made a plea that United States policy must find a way to respond to the evolution of the European Union so that we encourage and strengthen the hand of the Euro-Atlanticists and diminish the strength of the Euro-Gaullists. That’s his characterization of the debate in Europe. And I wanted to ask you, as the secretary general of NATO, what can the United States do to facilitate the development of the European Union so that it is consistent with our interests in Europe and can work in a constructive way with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization? Thank you.
SCHEFFER: Let me first of all tell you, and I think I mentioned the same thing when we met in Berlin a few weeks ago, as the secretary general, of course, I’m an Atlanticist at heart, but I have a European vocation as well. And I think that European integration, including the development of a European security and defense identity, is in the interests of NATO and it’s in the interests of the United States of America as well—which, by the way, is a subject I discussed with President Bush yesterday as well in my meeting.
Two words are of relevance here; that is that what’s developed in the framework of the European Union is developed in complementarity with what we’re doing in NATO. We can’t have European battle groups competing with the NRF, and for that we need an intensive discussion between NATO and the European Union. And secondly, that there’s no duplication. There’s no need at all to reinvent the wheel, which has been invented inside NATO for decades. So if those two words, complementarity and no duplication—three words—are kept in mind, I think that’s Europe taking on a larger responsibility, which is a decade-old U.S. wish, as you know—I mean, my university thesis was on the American military presence in Europe. It’s a long-standing ambition: Europe, please, take on a larger share of responsibility!
If Europe develops this security identity, develops the battle-group concept, fine, fine. That’s complementarity and no duplication. Having said that, we need to intensify because that agenda is too lean at the moment to mean the NATO-EU dialogue because of the—what we call in our diagram the asymmetrical threats we are faced with: terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, failed states. You know them. NATO needs, but also the European Union needs, strategic partnerships so we can do that together. So in other words, to answer your question, what the U.S. should do—the U.S. in the framework of NATO, as the most important NATO ally—should stimulate and support—which is, I think, what the U.S. is doing—a broadening of the dialogue with the European Union. The European Union should realize, for its part, that—and this is a political remark I’m trying to make now—that uniting Europe against the United States of America is a dead-end street. If Iraq has taught me one lesson or two lessons, it is, one, that trying to unite Europe against the United States of America will end in a completely split and divided Europe, and that situation has not fundamentally changed in the run-up to the Iraqi war. That’s my first point. And my second point is I know for sure as a European and as somebody with a European vocation that there is one scenario in which in Washington nobody will listen to the European voice, and that is when that European voice is garbled and divided, and that’s logic. I mean, if I were a U.S. administration, I mean, and I would see a completely divided Europe, is there any need to listen? No, there isn’t.
There is a need—there is a need to listen to each other. There is a need for Europe to listen to the U.S. There is a need for the U.S. to listen to Europe. That’s again coming back to my political role for NATO because NATO is the framework in which that process should take place. But if Europe takes the attitude, I say it again, of uniting against the U.S., it’s a dead-end street. If you have complementarity, no duplication, I think Europe can add a lot of value. The EU can add a lot of value to NATO, including its defensive security identity.
HUNTER: The gentleman here?
QUESTIONER: Richard Thoman, Corporate Perspectives and Columbia. I wanted to go back to some of the basic issues around NATO’s origin and what it now does. NATO could be said to have a legacy responsibility to defend Europe in the case of Soviet aggression in the old days, and it has new responsibilities. I’ve spent much of my life in the private sector, where when you have legacy responsibilities and new responsibilities, very often companies don’t do their legacy responsibilities very well and they never really get to the new ones very well. So I’d like you to talk about the two or three roles you see NATO playing looking forward, and how competent you judge NATO today to be in those roles.
SCHEFFER: Let’s not, sir, forget of course about—I mentioned it—NATO’s core function, which is integrated defense. If we forget that, if I would forget it and there would be somebody in this room this morning representing one of the Baltic States, who would say, “Secretary general, it’s interesting that you talk about all kinds of new operations and new missions, but don’t forget NATO’s core function,” and I take that point. That’s—that was—is still of the utmost importance, although there’s no threat in Europe as we have known it through the decades of the Cold War and we have a good partnership with Russia.
But apart from NATO’s core function, NATO of course—and we have discussed them one by one in the course of this morning’s breakfast—NATO is more and more an organization which will be called upon to run, quote-unquote, operations. And I think this demand on NATO will not diminish in the coming years or decades, it will increase. So there is, in other words, a political transformation process going on within NATO, started by my very able and competent predecessor, Lord Robertson, which I’ll try to follow on. It’s a fundamental political transformation process, because if you are at the Hindu Kush—if NATO is at the Hindu Kush, I do not want to be NATO only the sort of executive branch of political decisions taken elsewhere, I want to see NATO play a political role as well in the political end-state. How long are we going to stay there? On what force levels are we going to stay there? When can we leave?
Same thing in Kosovo. Kosovo is entering a crucial year, because in the middle of 2005 we’ll have a standards evaluation in Kosovo; 17,000 NATO forces in Kosovo. I think NATO should be very much involved in the political process there as well.
So it’s political transformation. It is military transformation—not having big paper armies, but having the forces we can use in operations. We call that in our horrible NATO-speak “usability.” Do we have the right forces to send to the Hindu Kush? Can we get them there? Are we going on that I have to phone Mr. Antonov in Ukraine if I need strategic lift for NATO forces? Of course not. So NATO should develop, and is developing, its own strategic lift capability, to get a battalion from A to B. Do we have sustainable forces? Afghanistan and Kosovo are not operations where NATO is participating for half a year or a year. I don’t know for how long, but I mean, for the foreseeable future, ISAF will be in Afghanistan and KFOR will be in Kosovo. So, usability, deployability, and sustainability are three key words. No large territorial-oriented paper armies—that’s the major thing—defensive structuring, not only for the, quote-unquote, “old allies,” but specifically also for the new allies. And it’s not only difficult in this respect to keep up a defense budget, because you know most defense budgets are going down. And I am, of course, unhappy about defense budgets going down.
HUNTER: The gentleman right here.
QUESTIONER: Jan Tromp is my name. I’m the correspondent of a big national newspaper in the Netherlands. Secretary general, the [inaudible] of your message is, let NATO be de-political between the U.S. and Europe. Now, with all due respect to the training program in Iraq, in my opinion, they think here it’s not enough; they want more burden-sharing. And yesterday, I heard you talk about, “We’re going to deliver.” What are you going to deliver precisely?
SCHEFFER: Well, as I said, Mr. Tromp, what we are going to deliver is what we promised to deliver, which is a big NATO Training Implementation Mission, or 15 NATO allies are delivering not in the NATO framework—I’ve said that before—is being in Iraq with forces on the ground. What we are delivering is exactly what the Iraqi interim government is asking us in Iraq, and that is, given the situation in the run-up to the Iraqi war, in my opinion, quite something. Is it enough? I do not know if it’s enough. I mean, the Iraqi government, I do not exclude, might at a certain stage ask NATO to do more. When the Iraqi government asks NATO to do more, we’ll seriously consider if and how that’s possible. But let’s not forget one thing in Iraq. And I was talking about the Iraqi minister who told me, “We are a proud people like you Dutch or you Americans.” Let’s face the fact that it’s about Iraqi ownership. Let us not impose anything on the Iraqi government, on the Iraqi interim prime minister. I sincerely hope that they can have their elections in January, although it will not be easy.
My job at the moment is to make this Training Implementation Mission to a success, and that is not always easy, I can tell you, because as I told you, Iraq is not the most easy subject within the alliance. But it goes without saying that also, as far as Iraq is concerned, NATO is delivering; NATO is living up to its promises. Can we do more? Will we do more? I don’t know, because let’s, first of all, listen and see what the Iraqi government would like us to do. And if I speak for the Iraqi government—and Prime Minister Allawi was in the NATO Council last Friday—then it is: “NATO, please make the Training Implementation Mission to a success.” That’s what we are doing.
HUNTER: The gentleman back here, then over here.
QUESTIONER: Mr. Secretary general, my name is Roland Paul. I’m a lawyer with Ivey, Barnum, and O’Mara. And my question somewhat follows the last one. NATO is putting a training mission in the country in Iraq, and I wondered therefore maybe you have a little better sources of information than we, who just rely on the media, as to how the overall operation in Iraq is going, maybe drawing on your conversations yesterday and with the prime minister of Iraq, et cetera. How are things in Iraq?
SCHEFFER: Well, that’s not an easy one for me to say, being in New York and not in Iraq at the moment. As I see it and as I hear it, there are luckily large parts of Iraq relatively—I underline the word “relatively,” it’s not the Netherlands—quiet and secure. And there are, of course—I mean, you watch the television; I do—there is a part of Iraq which is not stable and not secure at all.
But having said that and coming back to NATO, that should not stop NATO from doing what it is asked for by the Iraqi interim government, and that will not stop us doing this. So what I hope with you, I think, is that there will be a situation—and I’ll certainly discuss this with the secretary general of the United Nations in a moment—that there is a situation that the U.N. can play a bigger role in Iraq than at the moment. If we can secure the safety and security of those U.N. staff being in Iraq that we’ll see the run-up to elections in Iraq—which will not be elections, without any doubt, as we see them in Belgium or France or Spain or the United States of America—but I hope there will be elections as a first step.
And building on that, I mean, if I speak to the Iraqi leadership, they keep telling me, This is what the Iraqi people want, please help us doing it. That is their strong plea, and we will not say no. We will help them. We’ll assist them in what they’re asking us.
HUNTER: Martin, and then the lady over here.
QUESTIONER: Martin Feldstein, Harvard University and the National Bureau of Economic Research. Let me take you back to Afghanistan. And you talked about the importance of narcotics there and the need to pursue eradication both of poppy fields and also of the laboratories. But I think you said that that was not something that ISAF was authorized to do. Why not? Should it be? Could, as part of its responsibilities, it take on that, which seems to me to be critical for nation-building in Afghanistan?
SCHEFFER: Thank you, sir. The first responsibility is for the Afghan government and the Afghan national authorities and the Afghan National Army, which is also being trained, by the way, and the Afghan police. We should not have a shift in responsibilities, and [Afghani] President [Hamid] Karzai very much agrees with me. I know because I discussed it with him. The prime responsibility for drug eradication and fighting the narcotics culture is with the Afghan national government, but they need support from the outside world.
What I said is that under the mandate, as we discussed, of ISAF, and with the force levels ISAF has, it is not possible that ISAF would take prime responsibility for drug eradication. It’s simply not possible. This is not the structure in which we are in Afghanistan. What should happen, and that was the background of my remark, is that the U.N. and the G-8 [Group of Eight industrialized nations]—and United Kingdom is lead nation from the G-8 initiative on the drug eradication—should take the initiative and much more should be done, and ISAF could assist and ISAF could help. But ISAF, sir, does not have the strength and will not have the strength, and it’s not up to provincial reconstruction teams to take on poppy fields, let alone to take on warlords who have—who are financed by the poppy growth.
Karzai is committed. I know Karzai is very much committed to do this. He should get all the international support he can get. But a shift which I’m hearing from time to time, “Why is ISAF doing nothing against poppy growth and heroin?” It is because of that. That might sound defensive, but again, ISAF is simply not there to take on this—to take on this whole thing. On the other hand, I say if a huge international program could take shape, would take shape, ISAF would certainly not stand idly by. I mean, that’s the other extreme, of course. We have to find the middle ground here.
But ISAF is a, let’s say, relatively modest operation, in the military sense. I don’t know how many divisions the Russians had in Afghanistan, but there were many, and they didn’t succeed in controlling the country. It’s a huge problem. And my thesis is, you can’t have a stable and secure Afghanistan without addressing this problem fundamentally.
HUNTER: Yes, ma’am?
QUESTIONER: Patricia Huntington, Network 20/20. My question has to do with NATO looking east. Based on your increasing activity in the Caucasus and the greater Middle East, do you see the Partnership for Peace [PFP] expanding to include many of those key countries in the next five, 10 years? And if so, do you see Turkey playing a greater role than it currently is in training Partnership for Peace countries and possibly having a NATO kind of eastern center in Turkey?
SCHEFFER: As far as now the Partnership for Peace is concerned, I think I mentioned in passing that two weeks ago I made a trip through Central Asia, partnership—NATO’s partner countries. Last week I was in the Caucasus, in Georgia—I mean Azerbaijan, NATO partners. They all want to extend their partnership with NATO. Even Armenia has now applied for a so-called individual partnership action program, which means that we’re going to develop a tailored—Armenia-tailored partnership program with that country, with Yerevan. And that goes for the Central Asian nations as well. So that partnership is developing very well.
We need—by the way, the Central Asian nations and the Caucasian nations play an important role in supporting the ISAF operation, because we need the lines of communication—to say it in military terms, transit agreements—with the Central Asians to see that we can adequately run the ISAF operation in Afghanistan, which is, as you will appreciate, logistically a very complicated operation. At the moment, we only have Kabul International Airport and Termez in Uzbekistan where things can be flown in, and the Americans, of course, have Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. But that’s about it, apart from a few other, smaller bases. But we are developing this partnership. And Turkey is playing a role, like other NATO allies as well, but Turkey also—I mean, to be very active in training and other activities in the framework of the Partnership for Peace program.
The PFP is developing very well. You mentioned briefly the Middle East. Istanbul had—took another important decision. That is, to strengthen considerably the Mediterranean dialogue. And I hope in the beginning of December we’ll have a foreign ministers meeting with our Med[iterranean] dialogue partners, the Maghreb in North Africa, Israel and Jordan.
And we are developing the so-called Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, along a parallel track, which is reaching out to the broader Middle East, not that it will be done exactly along the lines of a Partnership for Peace, but we’ll have certainly, I hope, in the long run, PFP types of relationship with those countries. And a number of Gulf countries have reacted very positively to this NATO initiative to see if we can enter into a form of dialogue.
HUNTER: One more question before I ask the final question. Somebody in the back. Yes, sir.
QUESTIONER: [Inaudible]—Handelsblatt, from the Netherlands. I was wondering, you said several times that you don’t want NATO to be the “gendarme du monde.”
HUNTER: Now that sounds even better in Dutch. [Laughter.]
QUESTIONER: But isn’t that exactly what we need in the face of international terrorism?
SCHEFFER: No, I don’t think that’s what we need. We don’t need one “gendarme du monde,” and certainly not NATO. In the same sentence, you’ve heard me say that where the NATO allies consider their interests at stake, NATO will go. And NATO should go, in my opinion. But to have NATO as “le gendarme du monde,” which means, in my interpretation, that wherever there’s a crisis in the world, let’s ring the NATO sec gen’s doorbell and say, “NATO, can you do something?” This is not the way I see NATO developing. That’s not what NATO’s for.
But the fact that NATO is operating in Afghanistan, in Kosovo, in Iraq, by the way, with the training implementation mission, under the U.N. mandate, means that I consider my visit to Kofi Annan and my appearance in the Security Council this afternoon as an important occasion, because I think, given the facts and seeing this happening, that the NATO-U.N. relationship is becoming more and more important.
On the other hand, as you know and as I know, the NATO treaty specifically stipulates that NATO can and should also be able to act without and outside a United Nations Security Council mandate. That has been the NATO treaty since its inception. But more and more you’ll see NATO operating under the U.N. umbrella. But to qualify NATO as “le gendarme du monde” is, to say it in Dutch [inaudible] the “gendarme” [inaudible] that’s not in the books.
HUNTER: Thank you.
SCHEFFER: You need some Dutch book.
HUNTER: There you go. Let me say one word, and then I’m going to ask you the toughest question of all. You have a lot of friends here, as you can see. This is your foot on the ground in New York. And I can—I think you can hear from the questions and the responses that we in the alliance are blessed that you are the leader of the alliance at this point, and let me emphasize the word “leader.” This is, I think, NATO’s most difficult moment, because there are questions about whether it is relevant [inaudible] the future, which you’ve, I think, handled supremely well; questions about whether the United States is going to work effectively through NATO, which you, with the president yesterday, have set us in the right direction. So having you at the helm of NATO right now, as you’ve demonstrated today—this is a fantastic blessing for all of us, and you can count on the support of everybody here as you do this important job.
Now, let me ask the most difficult question. We have a superb ambassador at NATO, Nick Burns—best ambassador we’ve ever had—a man of very deep passion and deep commitments, and I know that he has vouchsafed to you the things that are so close to his heart—and I speak, of course, of his great devotion to the Boston Red Sox. [Laughter.] You’re a diplomat as well as everything else. You’re in New York City today. A final question: Who’s your favorite baseball team? [Laughter.]
SCHEFFER: The Mets. [Laughter.]
HUNTER: Thank you very much. [Applause.]
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