From NATO Watch Observatory
http://www.isis-europe.org
By Dr. Solomon Passy*
(The author is the founder and Honorary President of the Atlantic Club of Bulgaria, former Bulgarian Foreign Minister (2001-2005), and Chairperson-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 2004 – Novinite.com’s note)
NATO’s next Strategic Concept seminar will take place in Norway in January and will examine NATO’s evolving partnerships. In a timely comment piece, Dr. Solomon Passy, founding President of the Atlantic Club of Bulgaria and former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chair of the OSCE and of the UN Security Council, provides some out-of-the-box thinking about NATO’s potential to develop a wider and more inclusive network of partners for addressing new asymmetric threats to international peace and security. He provides exclusively to NATO Watch Observatory this excerpt from a comprehensiveNATO Outreach Strategy developed by the Atlantic Club of Bulgaria.
After Bulgaria was invited to join NATO in 2002, I tried to launch in many of my different capacities some ideas to reform the Alliance which did not go through and which I see as being even more valid today. These six proposals – three grand and three less-so, but nonetheless all with the potential to rejuvenate NATO – are summarised as follows:
1. Creation of a NATO-EU Synergy Committee
Close cooperation between NATO and the EU is an important element in the development of an international “Comprehensive Approach” to crisis management and operations, which requires the effective application of both military and civilian means. A stronger NATO-EU partnership is not only needed on the ground, for example, in Kosovo and Afghanistan, but also in their strategic dialogue at the political headquarters level in Brussels. While NATO and EU officials meet on a regular basis to discuss issues of common interest, the creation of a NATO-EU Committee would help synergize cooperation, avoid unnecessary duplication of effort and facilitate greater transparency. On this issue, the ball is firmly in the EU’s court. And the door has just been opened by the Lisbon Treaty, which envisages the creation of a common EU defence policy, as a pillar of NATO defence policies. But NATO can also do something: to upgrade its logo, bringing it closer to the European minds. Let me suggest that the new logo of NATO combine the current one and the EU’s one.
2. Creation of a NATO-China Council (NCC)
Having written to the former NATO Secretary General about this in December 2007, today, in the year in which both the People’s Republic of China and NATO celebrate their 60th anniversary, I see even more arguments supporting the idea. China already participates in NATO seminars and conferences, and dialogue between Chinese officials and NATO Headquarters is steadily increasing – especially in areas of mutual interest, such as maritime anti-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia. In order to build upon and extend this progress a NATO-China Council (NCC) should be created. It would increase NATO’s role in the rest of the world, in China itself, and would have a positive influence on West-Russia relations. The creation and functioning of an NCC would also open a new chapter in NATO-UN relations,
which itself is a sufficient motivation and guarantees a globalisation of NATO’s role. The NCC may also counter the illusionary tendencies to consolidate the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation as an alternative nucleus of ‘nondemocratic’ globalisation. The offer of OSCE and Partnership for Peace (PfP) membership could be good preparatory steps for a NCC. To these ends, I tested the waters with the Chinese in 2002 (when Bulgaria joined the UN
Security Council) and continued this outreach until today. While the Chinese require necessary time to reflect and mature their decision-making, in the past seven years I noticed a remarkable progress in their thinking. Actually, much bigger progress than I noticed in many Brussels-based circles.
3. Future NATO Membership for Russia
As regards NATO-Russia relations, and the broader West-Russia future, having closely examined the region for 25 years, I have gradually come to the firm conclusion that we shall have to treat Russia as a potential member of NATO. Both the West and Russia would benefit if NATO were to offer Russia a strategic Membership Action Plan (MAP), say, of a 15-20 years span. It may also include a timetable on implementation and improving of democratic standards and values. As an important side effect, this would encourage the Russian people to aspire to be a stronger part of a European civilization, which in turn would catalyse the democratic processes inside Russia.
Such an approach to Russia may yield solutions (though perhaps not immediately) to many other current problems, such as the security concerns of NATO members on the eastern border, other aspects of NATO enlargement, the territorial integrity of Georgia, and MAP’s for Georgia, Ukraine and others. The Russia-NATO accession talks would resemble the Turkey-EU negotiations, which in the last 40 years have helped Turkey to overcome a heavy historic burden. This is what Russia will desperately need in the decades to come (and let us not forget the spiral of history: the USSR created the Warsaw Pact in 1955, because it was rejected from NATO membership in 1954).
4. Future NATO Membership for Cape Verde
Cape Verde is a tiny little pearl of European democracy, on the busy crossroads between Europe, Africa, North America and South America. Its strategic importance by far exceeds its size and it holds the key to an effective strategy to prevent illicit trafficking. Influential in both West Africa and the Portuguese speaking countries, as well as among the non-aligned and in the South-Atlantic, Cape Verde could provide a strategic steppingstone for NATO to make new friends, less enemies and improve its image. The country should be invited to PfP, the OSCE and eventually to NATO itself.
5. NATO Partnership with Mongolia
When I chaired the OSCE in 2004, Bulgaria did its best to include Mongolia in the OSCE framework, which eventually happened. We then encouraged the Mongolians to apply for membership in PfP, which they gladly did, but without ever getting NATO’s reply. In the meantime, Russia has been working to bring back Mongolia within its own orbit. However, the Mongolians continuously assure me that they have not lost hope in ‘bailing out’ of the embrace of their two larger neighbours, and find their ‘third neighbour’ in Brussels. After a June 2009 visit to Mongolia, I renewed efforts to put Mongolia on NATO’s agenda and hope to witness more progress in the future than in the past.
6. Future NATO Membership for Cuba
While this may seem like an unlikely proposition at present, I believe that a future democratic Cuba – if invited to NATO – would enable a very useful dialogue with Latin America, the non-aligned movement and Africa. (One of the reasons why Cuba is so influential is that the development of its foreign policy is a national priority.) Easily absorbed within NATO, Cuba could smoothly become the third North American pillar of the transatlantic bridge. The wind of change, which I noticed with the naked eye in Cuba, may be accelerated to a democratic tornado by such a perspective.
In conclusion, NATO’s most urgent priority is to improve –- both within and outside of the Euro-Atlantic area – it’s international image and reputation, which sharply contrasts with NATO’s historic achievements in the last 60 years. The Atlantic Club succeeded to change NATO’s image in Bulgaria from 15% (positive): 85% (negative) in 1990, to 70% (positive): 20% (negative) in 2004. And this could be done, to a great extent, worldwide. We have suggested that NATO aim for a future Nobel Peace Prize: with the development of a wider and more inclusive network of partnerships and other measures to truly transform the Alliance, I believe this to be a just and doable enterprise.
* Special gratitude to Ian Davis for his very fruitful remarks on the text. The author SolomonPassy@gmail.com will appreciate any comments, which may be helpful for drafting the Atlantic Club’s philosophy of NATO’s Outreach Strategy, to be submitted as a contribution to brainstorming NATO’s new Strategic Concept.