At NATO Annual Conference Brussels 14 April 2005

How can we generate parliamentary support for NATO's transformation? Remarks by Hans-Ulrich Klose, Deputy Chairman Foreign Policy Committee of the German Bundestag Transforming NATO – A Political and Military Challenge Well, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for the invitation. I apologize, I couldn't attend this morning because we are right in the middle of a difficult plenary session in Berlin. This morning we voted on a new parliamentary representative for the Bundeswehr, the Wehrbeauftragte(?). We made it- we made it. And we had a difficult debate starting at 8 o'clock in the morning in the Social Democratic group on the question of lifting the arms embargo against China, which was kind of a difficult debate because, as you probably have heard, the Chancellor has a position, the Prime Minister has a position a little bit different, and a majority in parliament is not really in favour of lifting the embargo. So it was kind of troublesome. I don't know how the plenary debate went on, but I think I'll get some interesting reports this evening when I go back to Berlin. As you can see, I could not attend this morning in at the beginning. I would like to respond at least shortly to your question, sceptical or not. Well, I always keep saying that as a politician, especially as a parliamentarian, you need to stick to a minimum of optimism because if you don't have that minimum of optimism anymore, you'd better quit politics because you cannot achieve anything. So I can see that we have some difficulties, but in the long-term or mid-term, I'm pretty sure we will overcome. Preparing this meeting, I have looked over the protocols of our plenary sessions of the last two years, and I was kind of surprised to see that we had more than a dozen debates in parliament on NATO- NATO questions. And I have been re-reading all of this, and here's my impression. The impression is that all the major parties--Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, and the smaller parties, who are major parties of course too, Greens and Liberals--agree that NATO is important, that we should continue in NATO and do everything to revitalize NATO. The only negative votes come from the former members- two members of parliament who, the former members of the former Communist party. But all the others agree that we should continue with NATO for several reasons. One of the most impressive reasons is that NATO, as a matter of fact, is the only framework, legal framework, that connects the United States to Europe. And if we would not have NATO, we would get into difficulties, and we have difficulties enough across the Atlantic. If you go into details, however, and look at what we have been discussing, the topics and the results, we get to- you get the impression that behind this optimism, as far as the future of NATO is concerned, there is something like a- oh, how should I call it? A fearful uneasiness concerning the present status of NATO and as a matter of fact there's a lot of good reasons why there should be something like a fearful uneasiness because NATO has some problems. However, it seems to me, and I think I have to introduce this into the debate, we have problems not only within NATO; it might even be that we are heading for even bigger difficulties within the European Union. And this of course has, as I see it, an immediate impact on the situation and the debates that we have within NATO. As you know, we are right in the process of the enlarging the European Union by ten new members. We are in the process of deepening the European process, and we are heading for an extremely important event, that is the referendum that will take place end of May in France, and we look at the polls we get, at least today, the impression that the referendum might fail. This will lead us into enormous difficulties because some of the other member states of the European Union have announced already that they might stop the ratification process if France fails. That's true as I have heard for the Netherlands; it might be true for Poland; it might be true for Great Britain. I would regret if we stop because I think it would make a lot of sense to continue to see where we have willing European countries and unwilling European countries, and the question how to continue within the European Union is first a question that those have to answer that show up to be unwilling. I can't foresee the consequences of such a voting, but one consequence could be that we are heading, in Europe, into a new situation that I could call a transformation- a transitional phase of new coalitions within the European Union, kind of a new policy of balancing within the European Union, which might probably have a lot of consequences for NATO also. As far as NATO is concerned, I believe that the difficulties that we have had lately and during the last three years are not the beginning of (break in transmission). The difficulties in the trans-Atlantic relations started, as far as I see it, immediately after the end of the Cold War, when the United States global interests shifted to some extent away from Europe to Eastern Europe, to the Middle East, to Central Asia, and to East Asia. If you look at Germany, Germany was important during the time of the Cold War because it was a state immediately at the front line, and right now Germany is surrounded by partners only, and the necessity to cooperate with the United States as intensively as we were used to before does not exist anymore. And from the point of view of the United States as we see it, a country like Turkey might even have a higher importance than Germany. And it's easy to explain this. Take a look at the map, and you know exactly why that's the case. Turkey is much closer to the points of American interest than Germany is right now. A second reason why we were heading into difficulties, you see, immediately after the end of the Cold War, we were witnesses of a restructuring of the American military forces. There were a lot of efforts in the United States to modernize the army and the military capabilities, and all over Europe we have been collecting what we call the peace dividend. Especially the Germans, had to do it, because we had to pay all the additional expenditure that we had after reunification. The consequence of all of this, of course, was that the capabilities on one side of the Atlantic, in the United States, and the capabilities on the European side went apart. And this- and the latest, the experience that we made during the Kosovo War, led to a discussion whether NATO really has a future and is, to put it bluntly, of continuing interest, especially to the United States. There was a reaction on this on the European side, and this reaction again led to some suspicion on the American side whether or not the Europeans were ready to go into what the Americans called a friendly divorce. All of this is much more important for the future of NATO than the discussions around the Iraq War. The Iraq War was a high point of disagreement, but the long-term difference, the change of the political landscape, has led to the situation that we are in right now. My impression today is going to the United States, talking to colleagues in Congress or people in the Administration, that there is a slight change in the United States. During my latest visits, I met a lot of people who were talking about the necessity of revitalizing NATO. This was a melody that I love to listen to, and I have, since I am optimistic, I tend to believe that that's a true wish from the other side of the Atlantic. If this is a real analysis, it's fine for all of us. However, there is still a lot of difference. The biggest difference became very clear during the last Munich Security Conference. It was not only this speech of the Chancellor, with his one sentence that all of you know, that caused some concern in the meeting. He said that NATO is not anymore the place where we really discuss problems, and we have to do something to change that. Unfortunately, the Chancellor was not present. His speech was read by the Defence Minister and when he was asked what this one sentence could mean, he was not really in the mood, or I don't know why, at least, his answer was not really satisfying everybody. Is that a correct interpretation? Okay. (LAUGHTER) This is one point that caused some additional concern. The other one was of course Rumsfeld's speech, which was amusing, as always. But asked about coalitions, he stressed once again that, from his point of view, the United States would continue with the concept of a coalition of the willing. This is a major point of disagreement, as far as I see it, across the Atlantic. And I personally would wish very much that we could talk about this question. For me, it seems necessary that NATO gains additional strategic strength, hard(?) strength, and lots of political strength. I believe that the NATO Council in former times--I would almost- I'm almost inclined to say in good old times of the Cold War--when it was the real place where we were discussing strategic problems in detail, we agreed on them and even if we had differences of opinion in details, we stick to a common strategy, which was a military strategy, and later, after the so-called Harmel Report, was also a political strategy. We don't have that kind of discussions is my impression, right now in NATO Council. This I don't want to blame on one side. It's not only the American tendency to treat the NATO Council as kind of a, I don't know, a briefing institution. Is that too hard? I don't know. Okay. But I mean the Europeans would be free to take the initiative and put points on the schedule, on the agenda, and make it to a point of discussion. This is one thing that we should do. And second, I would like very much to see if we could agree in NATO on something that I would call a hierarchy of decision making in case military operation is necessary. Hierarchy could mean that, if there's such a necessity of doing something, of what form so ever, a military operation, it should first be NATO that is asked to make a decision. If it shows up that there is no agreement in NATO, the second step could be an ad hoc but NATO-led coalition of the willing, including most of NATO members, additional some others from outside. And the third step could be a coalition of the willing if the first two steps fail. As I see it, this is a reasonable proposal, because I believe that it would fit to American ideas. They would have the last decision if they don't agree to what is being discussed in NATO, so they could agree. The Europeans could agree because they would be part of the decision making process that they are not today. The only question that we would have to answer is whether the Americans accept this, that decision making is a common process, and that the Europeans accept United States leadership. These are the points but I think we should go into with this kind of discussions and besides that, my last remark, maybe it makes a lot of sense not to go too much into nostalgia, and don't go too much into discussions about values--there are common values; that's okay--but let's try to find a common position in clear-cut operational questions. So let's discuss the situation in East Asia, which shows up with increasing tensions. Let's talk about the situation in Afghanistan. Who can do the job best? Let's talk about the common strategy towards Iran. Let's talk about the common strategy about the Middle East, and especially Iraq right now. And let's talk about a common strategy, complementary strategy, as far as the conflict of Israel and Palestinians is concerned. And I believe that we have a better chance to come to common decisions if we're doing this in such a concrete and more professional way, instead of discussing on a general level if we have- whether we are friends, yes or no. That doesn't make too much sense, so let's be operational.