The survival of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the future depends upon its transformation. From a military perspective, this transformation is not a unique challenge to NATO. States must also redefine the current and long-range threats they face and determine how to decisively and effectively deal with them.
After the tragic events of Sept. 11, the United States has many new questions about the nature of its defense that policy makers, military strategists, and security analysts must answer. What must a state do to defend itself and what is the threat? NATO has to ask itself the same questions; NATO is not alone in its attempts to find viable solutions to address its security concerns. At a four-day summit in Prague, Czechoslovakia, which began on Nov. 21, terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) dominated the discussions.
U.S. military strategy, doctrine, and tactics are also challenged by the new nature of terrorist threats. Combating them requires rapid changes in traditional military operational procedures encompassing high-tech networking and including intelligence, targeting, and decision-making. Can NATO meet these challenges? I believe the alliance can.
This conference was a historic event in NATO's 53-year-history, in that several central and eastern European countries were extended an invitation to join the alliance: Estonia, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovak Republic and Slovenia. They are welcome members for the long battle ahead.
I attended the NATO Prague Atlantic Student Summit, which took place alongside the annual NATO meeting. Nine U.S. students were chosen from several hundred applicants to form the U.S. student delegation. Over 35 national student delegations with representatives from all NATO member countries participated in the conference. There were also delegations from the Ukraine, Macedonia, Albania, among others.
The summit had two phases. During the first two days, students heard leaders from various countries espouse their vision of NATO and its role in the 21st century. Some of these prominent leaders included, U.S. President George W. Bush, Czech President Vaclav Havel, Lord Robertson (Secretary General NATO), Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso of Portugal, President Eduard Shevardnadze of Georgia, Gen. Joseph Ralston (Supreme Allied Commander Europe, SACEUR), Jamie Shea, Director of Information and Press, NATO, and many other world leaders. As student delegates, we had the opportunity to discuss with leaders their views on enlargement and also to ask clarifying questions on how they perceived their roles in the alliance.
President Havel said smaller nations could provide specialty capabilities to military operations. After the Gulf War, the Czech government provided highly capable military personnel who were trained in handling nuclear/biological/chemical and radiological hazards to coalition forces in the region. He also said Romania was currently providing troops who have specialized training in mountain warfare to operate against Al-Qaida in Afghanistan.
Though it will take time for all nations to be able to provide the much higher level of military and technological support required to execute military operations as member states such as the United States, Great Britain, and France, this is a great initial step to integrate new countries into the alliance. Lord Robertson echoed the same theme in his address.
The U.S. role in assisting member states in Force Modernization through sharing technology and intelligence is critical, and NATO will need to address this if it is to remain effective. New member states' access to critical intelligence and technology can greatly enhance interoperability, which is a critical aspect in war fighting. Gen. Ralston (SACEUR) agreed that the willingness of the United States to share intelligence and technology with our allies in assisting them in overcoming these technological and military gaps is necessary.
In the second half of the summit, students created a communiqué on NATO's roles in the 21st century i.e. combating terrorism, stopping the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, and crisis management. I was selected to serve on NATO's International Staff as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe.
The most rewarding aspect of this experience was meeting students from throughout Europe with such positive attitudes on consensus building and working to solve the issues that NATO and the world faces. Every student delegation was responsible for producing a position paper, which outlined their nation's views on NATO challenges. These papers were very close to their nation's official position. Ultimately, we had to create consensus through debate. In addition, we created a policy response on a simulated crisis involving a terrorist attack on an aspiring NATO country (Stanistan - I still haven't located this one yet). As SACUER, I was responsible for advising and briefing my fellow delegates on NATO's military options in dealing with the crisis. Afterwards, the North Atlantic Council had to make a political decision on these options to access if the use of the military was viable.
The conference was a success for many reasons. The threat of terrorism or use of WMDs is not isolated to any one nation. To effectively combat this problem, we must work together in a multi-national effort to eliminate these threats. The NATO summit laid down a foundation on which future scholars, policy-makers, and military personnel can build upon to make the world a safer place. I felt privileged to have represented SAIS and my country in this forum.