NATO must regret fixing a summit date for the end of November this year in Riga. The angry words about who is to blame for deepening problems in Afghanistan have set the scene. As with all such high profile meetings of national leaders, the preparatory work needs to be done over many months. Yet NATO difficulties over the Afghanistan mission have dominated recent discussions, and as a result there seems to have been little time to focus on the Riga agenda. Most member governments will be content if they can limit formal discussions to areas of consolidation rather than bold new initiatives.
There is no lack of important issues which the Alliance needs urgently to address. Foremost is the recurring question of what NATO is for. A Strategic Concept was last agreed in Washington in 1999. At the time, the Alliance was engaged in its first self authorised intervention in Kosovo. Since then the international security picture has been changed beyond recognition by the attacks of 9/11, and by the subsequent international operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. When Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defense Secretary, claimed that the mission would henceforth define the coalition, he appeared to be casting NATO into a much less important role for the future.
The 2003 intervention in Iraq triggered a particularly difficult period for the organisation. Members were divided about the legitimacy and wisdom of the operation. As action depends on consensus, NATO stood aside. Slowly, the diplomatic damage has been repaired, but the Alliance contribution to the desperate problem of Iraq remains small and limited to a training mission. Despite the strains felt by the US and UK forces, there is little prospect of discussion in Riga of extending that mission.
Nevertheless, NATO has in this period established a major and expanding mission well outside of its traditional area of responsibility. After the short operation led by the US against Afghanistan in late 2001, an international reconstruction effort was mounted supported by an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). By 2003, it was becoming increasingly difficult to find nations to volunteer to lead the ISAF mission. As a result, NATO agreed to take the stabilisation mission on from August that year, and to provide the necessary leadership. Its area of operations was extended successively from Kabul to the north of the country and then to the west. Using provincial reconstruction teams, it slowly enlarged the development aid from town to town. Meanwhile in the bandit territory of the south and east, special forces, helicopter gunships and fighters under US control continued to seek the fleeting targets that were claimed to be al-Qaeda.
In the long term, the reconstruction effort needs to be extended over the whole country. For many months, NATO members argued over the mission and force composition that it would provide to replace the US operation. At the beginning of August 2006, NATO took over in the south, where more than five years of US power had failed to bring order. The task has proved much more challenging than expected. At the end of September, NATO agreed to move into the east and bring all operations under ISAF control .
Some members argue that NATO has become de facto a global security organisation with this large scale and prolonged operation to secure and rebuild Afghanistan. Others would prefer to categorise the ISAF mission as essentially extended defence of NATO territory from the threat of international terrorism and drugs. In 1999, NATO was worrying about its mission in the Balkans. Today the debate is about roles in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Riga will provide no new strategic concept. A weaker document, grandly called the Comprehensive Political Guidance, may emerge to paper over the cracks until the 60th anniversary summit in 2009.
If NATO leaders are unlikely to firm up proposals defining its area of operational interest, there will also be reluctance on the parallel question of the geographical limits on its membership. The enlargement process has been an outstanding success, and has also paved the way for the growth of the European Union. But for both organisations, the next stage is more difficult. NATO through a host of relationships, can now claim to bring together nearly 60 different countries, including its 26 full members.
Summits are a time for promoting those who have made good progress on the road to full membership. However there is little enthusiasm for rushing ahead. Ukraine and Georgia had been toted as the prospective candidates to receive an invitation to the Membership Action Plan. Yet recent political changes in the Ukraine have cooled enthusiasm for early membership. Georgia carries considerable risks for the NATO relationship with Russia. At the foreign ministers pre-summit meeting on 21 September, it was announced that Georgia would join Ukraine by being offered Intensified Dialogue. As NATO says: "These dialogues cover the full range of political, military, financial and security issues relating to possible NATO membership, without prejudice to any eventual Alliance decision.”
At some stage, the strategy for the Balkans in terms of NATO membership will need to be agreed. Central to this will be the question of how Serbia is to be accommodated. While the status of Kosovo remains to be settled this will be problematic. There have also been murmurings that NATO should look for ways to link more closely with like-minded countries in distant parts. Japan, South Korea and Australia have been suggested. Although such partnership arrangements have attraction for the US, there will be less enthusiasm in Europe.
While NATO remains keen about widening its links to provide a growing area of stability, there are unresolved problems for all the prospective enlargement initiatives It seems unlikely that there will be anything substantial to announce about further enlargement at the summit.
Transformation
If Riga is not to be full of grand new initiatives, how will the leaders fill their time? The British Government has said that its priority will be to discuss "transformation". This is a topic which allows for warm words about the organisational and capability changes that are underway, and a gentle review of progress so far. The new NATO Response Force (NRF) will be the centrepiece. First agreed at the 2002 Prague summit, the force of 25,000 troops will be declared to have reached full operational capability in just four years. It is required to be able to deploy with only five days' warning, and then sustain itself for at least 30 days on operations. At the cutting edge of military warfighting technology, the NRF will have nations giving their forces for 6 months at a time. Transformation has also been about restructuring of the NATO headquarters, and encouraging member states to modernise their forces.
The hard questions are unlikely to surface. There is an uncomfortable paradox over capabilities. In the same month that NATO declares that the NRF is ready to deploy as a major fighting force at a moment's notice, the Secretary General is touring capitals with a begging bowl looking for 2500 soldiers to reinforce Afghanistan. The important military capabilities like strategic airlift which were also pledged in the Prague Capabilities Commitment have yet to arrive. But NATO leaders are unlikely to want to draw attention to their failings in this respect.
Just as the preparatory meeting for the summit have been dominated by discussions over current operational matters, we must expect Afghanistan to be the focus of interest both in the formal sessions and in the margins. For Afghanistan, there will be the opportunity to review the strategy for the new countrywide theatre of operations. There will be over 30,000 troops from 38 countries under NATO command fielding some 25 provincial reconstruction teams. Problems over differing rules of engagement and national caveats continue. Shortages of supporting equipment such as transport helicopters reduce effectiveness. Tensions between the Afghan government's priorities, local politics and the ISAF strategy make for further difficulties. Tactical intelligence in the new operational zones appears to have been less than adequate.
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, is proving to be a strong and competent Secretary General. But, like all his predecessors, he has to depend on voluntary contributions from NATO members. There will doubtless be plenty of warm words from the leaders gathered in Riga, but there are no signs that they will volunteer significantly more troops and equipment for the Afghanistan mission. Nor will there be much enthusiasm for increasing the current level of support for Darfur despite international pressure.
Current problems inevitably dominate the minds of leaders when they meet for summits. Yet they should also be a time to look at longer term issues. While there is no time for the Riga agenda to take a hard look at where the Alliance is going, it could give a firm steer on the agenda for the 2009 summit. It will be NATO's 60th anniversary, and a suitable occasion to renew itself. A new strategic concept document could define its operational area and its membership limits. It should change the funding arrangements for operations, so that costs are fairly shared amongst members. It would need also to analyse whether the Alliance is appropriately prepared for military tasks in the 21st Century rather than past battles. It must also find a better way to co-operate with the European Union, which can offer complementary capabilities in the field of stabilisation and reconstruction.
NATO is coming out of the dark days which followed the transatlantic divisions over Iraq. It is engaged on its most challenging military operation in Afghanistan. Failure there would have unpredictable, but perhaps terminal, consequences for its future. With the stakes so high, the leaders need to talk seriously in Riga.
Lord Garden is the Liberal Democrat Defence spokesman in the House of Lords and a former Director of Chatham House.