Ivo Daalder, US Ambassador to NATO

Ambassador Daalder,

how important do you think

looking at the wording of article 5

will be in the drawing up

of the new Concept?

It’s very important to understand

what article 5 says.

We’re not here to change

any of the wording of the Treaty.

The Treaty,

all 14 articles, 23 sentences,

is a remarkable document

of remarkable clarity.

The question we all face is:

What do these words

that were written 60 years ago

mean in the very

different world of today?

And one of the questions is:

What does it mean

to defend against an armed attack?

To regard an armed attack

against one as an attack against all?

One of the things it still means:

If one is attacked, we all come

to the aid of that member,

as indeed happened for the first and

only time on September 12th 2001,

when the US

was attacked by terrorists.

A very different environment,

a very different scenario

than we had envisaged

when the Treaty was signed in 1949.

That’s the question, not how

we should change the wording,

but what does it mean

in the 21st century?

How difficult will it be to balance

the current threats, like Afghanistan,

with the potential longer term threats,

like climate change

and energy shortages?

We have to be clear about

what NATO is for and what it’s not for.

What it is for, in terms of article 5,

is to defend against

and prevent an armed attack

against our member states.

NATO also has, under article 4,

a very important provision

which says that members

who feel threatened

for their security, territory, population,

can come to NATO for consultations.

One of the things

we would like to see within NATO

is that this becomes a body

that once again becomes the place

in which the members take their

concerns for international security.

Start discussing possible actions

and perhaps forge joint actions.

But not everything falls

under article 5.

The things that article 5 are for,

are those unique threats

related to military force.

Armed attack, it says.

All other threats

which may be large, in fact growing,

even big and larger still

than the threat of armed attack,

are issues that we can deal with

and discuss around the table at 28,

as a way to figure out

how to deal with them collectively?

Is there a way in which we can work

together to deal with those threats?

At the end of the Concept,

will Russia be portrayed

more as a partner or as a threat?

We have of long agreed

that Russia is not a threat.

We signed a 1997 Founding Act

which says that we do not regard

each other as adversaries.

So the Concept is not going to look at

who threatens us

in terms of countries.

The Concept is going to look at

what’s the environment

in which the alliance operates today?

What are the challenges

that confront the member states?

And how are the member states

best positioned

to deal with those challenges

in a broad and forward-looking way

to once again give

not only the member states,

but particularly the parliaments

and the people of the member states

a clear idea of

what this alliance is for.

Back when I grew up and I woke up

and someone said NATO

I knew what was meant: the defence

against an identifiable threat.

We need once again to have

a sense of what this NATO is for,

in a very different, complicated

and more complex environment,

but nevertheless

it is an organisation that is vital

to have the 28 nations work together

to deal with those challenges.

This better understanding

of what NATO is,

could that have

an impact on its popularity

and public opinion in terms

of the conflict in Afghanistan?

I think it would.

If people understand the importance

of what this alliance is about

and of what we’re trying

to do in Afghanistan,

there is more likely to be a degree

of public support for that effort.

The uncertainty is

one reason we're having

a close deliberative attempt to look

at what our strategy should be

for Afghanistan

and how to move forward.

In part so we can better explain to

our publics why we need to continue,

why success is important

for the security of NATO countries.

The same is true with NATO.

The exercise

of drafting a new Concept,

ten years after the last time,

a visionary statement,

to legitimise NATO in the eyes of

the publics, is an important exercise.

The Concept requires

an outline of requirements

and commitments from the allies,

this obviously also needs

commitments from the budgets.

Defence budgets are in the firing line,

are being cut.

Is this a difficult time

to have a new Strategic Concept?

It shouldn’t,

because what an alliance is about,

is having the collective effort

of 28 members

to deal with the challenges of all.

It is to do more with less.

One of the reasons why we need

to do more within this alliance

is that everyone can invest a little

so that the collective is more.

At a time of financial stringency,

when defence budgets go down,

we should do more in NATO, not less.

That is the fundamental purpose

of an alliance.

Will this lead

to a reduction in duplication?

It should lead to less duplication.

People should invest multi-nationally,

they should buy capabilities together

that alone they can no longer afford,

just as we did with the C17 planes

and the Awacs planes.

We have a variety of capabilities that

individual nations could never buy.

Now they are part of it.

That’s what the alliance is about.

Doing more with less.

That’s what value for money really is.

That’s why defence ministries,

rather than trying to cut their funding

and their spending within NATO

should try to maximise

their expenditures through NATO.

Do you think

this will lead to better co-operation

with other international organisations

such as the UN and the EU?

It’s absolutely vital for the United...

for NATO to understand

and to, in this Concept,

to clearly lay out

that in this world it's no longer

possible for one organisation

or for one country to deal

with the challenges that we face.

And that one of the ways to maximise

our impact on international affairs

is through cooperation

with organisations.

Be they regional,

like the EU or the African Union,

or global, like the UN.

That’s the future of this alliance.

In partnerships with other

organisations, other countries

and other parts of the world.

What do you think of the public way

the Concept is being debated?

The end point will be

greater unity between the allies

but the debating will highlight

more the divisions, won’t it?

There are differences in the alliance,

within countries.

That’s what democracy is all about.

We talk about them,

we debate them

and we try to arrive in a new way

in which more of us can agree.

That’s what democracy is about.

We can’t hide our differences.

By exposing them

we may be able to find new ways

to work together and move forward,

and we can find

the value of what unites us

which is stronger

than the issues that divide us.

Our common values,

our common interest in security,

our need to work together,

because alone we will fail.

Will the Strategic Concept

include something

that looks

at NATO's internal processes,

for example

at how it makes decisions?

I sure hope so.

This organisation is

in dire need of reform.

It has adapted to the changing world

through ad hoc change.

When 400 committees run

one council, you’ve got a problem.

So, fundamental reform,

re-looking at how this organisation

does business in a different world

in which agile and quick decisions,

based on quality analysis,

are high on the agenda,

ought to be part of what we to do.

We can’t continue like before, we

have to start doing business in a way

that promotes the aims

and function of this alliance.

And in terms of those threats, a lot

of them come from non-state actors

and NATO is

an alliance of nation states.

Is this the point at which

the alliance can say we adapt

to this new situation

with more asymmetrical threats?

The threats are much more diverse

than when we wrote this treaty in '49.

They come from

a wide variety of different places

and we need to have institutions

and processes to deal with those.

I think we have evolved

pretty well in that regard.

We identify the threats well.

We know how to deal with them

effectively in more,

and most importantly,

by deciding to do it together

rather than apart from each other.

That’s how we maximise our impact

on dealing with these threats.

But we need a clear look

at how does what is happening today

affect the security of the members.

How do the members together deal

with those threats most efficiently?

Is it as important to clarify

what NATO doesn’t do

as what it does do

in the next Strategic Concept?

I don’t believe

in saying what we don’t do,

but in making clear what we do do.

It is up to the members

in each instance to decide

whether an action needs to be taken.

This is a consensus organisation.

The 28 members will have to agree

and they can do anything

that the 28 members agree to do.

Final question

which I’m asking everybody:

If you had to identify

a single issue that's fundamental

to address in the new Concept,

what would it be?

How does NATO be an effective actor

in a globalised world?

We live in a world of globalised

threats, challenges and opportunities,

and we are a regional alliance

within the North Atlantic area.

How does that regional actor

act effectively in a globalised world?

That is our challenge.

It’s a challenge we face as

individual countries and in alliance.

Ambassador Daalder, thank you.

- My pleasure.