NATO’s new concept: Enlargement with an eye to Russia’s concerns

It looks as though NATO has determined a new strategic concept to be adopted at the Jubilee Summit on April 3–4. “The enlargement process will continue, but we will make it equally clear that Russia’s legitimate security concerns won’t be ignored or overlooked… The new strategic concept must make it very clear that both tasks [NATO enlargement and good relations with Russia] remain essential,” Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told a conference at the sidelines of the meeting of NATO defense ministers in Poland on Thursday, February 19.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk also believes that NATO should strengthen transatlantic ties and uphold “the open-door policy for the democratic countries of Europe that share our values and wish to join the Alliance.” He said he hoped the new strategic concept will help develop NATO and stressed that its strategy must focus not only on the problems and needs of the member countries, but also on the hardships experienced by NATO’s global partners and countries that seek its membership.

Russia was discussed although no officials of its defense ministry were invited to Krakow. (Russia-NATO contacts were severed after Russia’s invasion of Georgia.)

Scheffer declared that NATO will try to identify common interest and cooperation areas with Russia despite fundamental disagreements on some issues: “Relations with the Russian Federation have been rocky in the recent past and there are fundamentals on which we fundamentally disagree... but there are areas where we can work very well with the Russian Federation — to mention the collective fight against terrorism or Afghanistan… The bottom line is that NATO cannot do without Russia and Russia cannot do without NATO. Not talking to Russia is not the solution.”

Nor does US Defense Secretary Robert Gates rule out the need to cooperate with Russia while stressing that America is worried about Russia’s conduct. “This administration does believe the time has come to reset the relationship with Russia and move forward,” he said. At the same time, his country remembers Russia’s certain actions that are still problems. He believes that Russia’s attitude to Afghanistan is equivocal. This attitude is especially evident in the case of the Manas air base. One the one hand, Russians proclaim their cooperation with the US in Afghanistan, but on the other hand, they are counteracting America. This is particularly true of the air base which is very important for America. How can this kind of cooperation continue?

In Krakow the defense secretary made it clear that the US has no intentions of discarding its missile defense plans for Poland and the Czech Republic: “I told the Russians a year ago that if there were no Iranian missile program, there would be no need for the missile sites.”

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski (mentioned among the Secretary General’s most likely successors) came up with an interesting proposal aimed at the development of relations between the West and Russia. In his opinion, NATO should offer Russia—if it is willing—an opportunity to become part of the West in the broad sense of the word. “It [Russia] must make this decision,” said Sikorski, adding that the Russian Federation will be able to choose between recognizing itself as part of the global system or as a country trying to bring back the autocratic Soviet past.

Afghanistan, however, was the main issue on the Krakow agenda. The NATO Secretary General and the US Defense Secretary called on all countries taking part in peacekeeping and renovation operations in Afghanistan to coordinate their efforts more frequently and send more troops and military instructors; also, to provide more nonmilitary aid to Kabul. Scheffer stressed the inadmissibility of the NATO mission’s failure in Afghanistan: “We cannot afford the price of failure in Afghanistan. Instability in an already highly unstable region, a safe haven for international terrorism… [are] simply too much to accept.” He said that the coming elections are “a strategic priority of the Afghan people, but also of the international community, which means that they are also a strategic priority for NATO.” He stressed the need to enhance support of the civil sector, specifically by improving governance and construction of institutions in Afghanistan.

To date, the US is the only country to have decided to send another 17,000 troops to Afghanistan. Germany and Italy agreed last week to send 600 and 500 men, respectively, to the northern and eastern regions of Afghanistan. British Defense Secretary John Hutton proposed a 3,000-strong standing NATO force tasked with protecting the territory of the North Atlantic Alliance.

Georgia also responded to the call for sending troops to Afghanistan. Georgian Defense Minister David Sikharulidze declared in Krakow that a company of Georgian peacekeepers will be dispatched to Afghanistan. US Rear Admiral Mark Harnitchek spoke on state Tajik television in Dushanbe, February 21, saying that Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have agreed to allow transit of non-lethal US supplies through their territory. “Washington plans to send 50 to 200 containers weekly from Uzbekistan into Tajikistan and then by land into neighboring Afghanistan,” Harnitchek said on the sidelines of meeting with Tajik Foreign Minister Hamrokhon Zarifi.

NATO also expects to strengthen partnership with Pakistan in the joint struggle against the guerillas in Afghanistan. “We should in­cre­a­se military-to-military engagement in Pakistan and deepen the political dialogue… I can say again that I believe the Pakistani government is serious about fighting extremism,” Scheffer said in Krakow.

The defense ministers also agreed to deploy a new naval flotilla of six warships in the coming months to combat piracy off Somalia.