RSS

17 atlantic-community.org members from the United States, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Poland, Turkey, as well as Russia, Finland and Azerbaijan, discussed the future of NATO in op-eds, as well as in a one hour Skype Strategy Session, which ended with a vote on the most important policy recommendations.

After further online discussion on a draft memo, the final Atlantic Memo "A New Strategic Policy for an Alliance in Transition" was published and sent to Ambassador Jiřί Šedivý, NATO's Assistant Secretary General for Defense Policy and Planning. Ambassador Šedivý has reviewed the recommendations and sent us the following feedback:

The memorandum "A New Strategic Policy for an Alliance in Transition" is both timely and topical as NATO nations started discussing -- still informally -- the first draft of the new Strategic Concept on the 6th of October.

Despite the fact that the Secretary's General draft is a highly classified document for the time being and thus, impossible to refer to, one still can give an educated guess about the relevance of the memorandum's conclusions for our work.

It is safe to say that the memorandum's first part -- "Align the scope of the Alliance with its capabilities" -- grasps perfectly well one of the major challenges for NATO, i.e. balancing Art V.'s collective defense capability with its crisis management and out-of-area role.

I believe that in the final draft of the Concept, we will have a strong emphasis on maintaining the traditional core function of collective defense on one hand while still confirming NATO's continuing role in crisis management.

Regarding NATO's capabilities, there is an understanding among Allies that most of the deployable capabilities can serve in NATO's territorial defense as well. And, in the context of shrinking resources, this multiple use of capabilities should be combined with more emphasis on collective solutions and multinational projects in developing them.

Partnerships, which are addressed in the second part of the memorandum will most likely receive a strong impetus in the Concept. It has been our experience over the past nearly two decades that co-operation with partners produces multiple "wins": Stabilization through defense and security sector reform co-operation. Some partners become NATO members, others reinforce the Alliance in operations, etc. NATO is opening its toolbox of instruments more widely for partners of all kinds and the Concept will enhance this process. However, this will probably not happen in such an ambitious way as proposed by the memorandum.

As for the memorandum's public diplomacy recommendation, I can only agree on the importance of strategic communication. While we often achieve remarkable success in the field, we are not always able to communicate it effectively.

On the other hand, launching "broad public diplomacy initiatives to make the case for NATO's existence" as the memorandum recommends is a bit beyond the scope and capacity of our public diplomacy, not least due to the shrinking budgets on one hand and growth of demands on NATO on the other. Last but not least, it should be the governments of NATO Allies above all who should address their citizens in this respect more intensively and convincingly.

This leads me to few additional comments. Secretary General Rasmussen has launched a number of reform initiatives with the aim of making NATO a more efficient and cost-effective organization. We have been searching for savings wherever possible, reprioritizing our activities, reviewing investments, etc. This key aspect is not addressed in the memorandum.

Realizing all the memorandum's proposals would require quite a substantive increase in our budget. It must be noted that we are now operating for the sixth consecutive year within a zero growth budget. NATO cannot be a jack of all trades or a Swiss army knife.

What I do not get from the memorandum is how the Concept may establish a new rationale in developing capabilities to address threats such as cyber security, proliferation of WMD and missile technologies. One can also hardly imagine that the Concept would ignore arms control and disarmament.

To conclude, I very much appreciate not only the memorandum, but also -- and at least as much as it -- the process, the work behind the final paper. This has been a really open and participatory deliberation. The number of op-eds published by members of the Atlantic Community goes toward cultivating global debate about security and, indeed, enhancing the general understanding of our Alliance.

Thank you for that.

Ambassador Šedivý joined the NATO International Staff as Assistant Secretary General for Defence Policy and Planning on 29 October 2007. Prior to his appointment, he served the Czech Republic as Deputy Minister for European Affairs, and as Minister of Defence, in 2006.