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Briefing Paper No.430 November 2009

Six Essays on NATOs Cooperation withthe External World (Illustrations to thefuture NATO Outreach Strategy)

By Dr. Solomon Passy*

NATOs next Strategic Concept seminar will takeplace in Norway in January and will examineNATOs evolving partnerships. In a timely

comment piece, Dr. Solomon Passy, foundingPresident of the Atlantic Club of Bulgaria andformer Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chair of theOSCE and of the UN Security Council, providessome out-of-the-box thinking about NATOspotential to develop a wider and more inclusivenetwork of partners for addressing newasymmetric threats to international peace andsecurity. He provides exclusively to NATO WatchObservatory this excerpt from a comprehensiveNATO Outreach Strategy developed by theAtlantic Club of Bulgaria.

After Bulgaria was invited to join NATO in 2002, Itried to launch in many of my different capacitiessome ideas to reform the Alliance which did notgo through and which I see as being even morevalid today. These six proposals three grandand three less-so, but nonetheless all with thepotential to rejuvenate NATO are summarisedas follows:

1. Creation ofa NATO-EU SynergyCommittee

Close cooperation between NATO and the EU isan important element in the development of an

international Comprehensive Approach to crisismanagement and operations, which requires theeffective application of both military and civilianmeans. A stronger NATO-EU partnership is notonly needed on the ground, for example, inKosovo and Afghanistan, but also in their strategicdialogue at the political headquarters level inBrussels. While NATO and EU officials meet on aregular basis to discuss issues of commoninterest, the creation of a NATO-EU Committeewould help synergize cooperation, avoidunnecessary duplication of effort and facilitate

greater transparency.

On this issue, the ball is firmly inthe EUs court. And the door has just been opened by the Lisbon

Treaty, which envisages the creation of a commonEU defence policy, as a pillar of NATO defencepolicies. But NATO can also do something: toupgrade its logo, bringing it closer to theEuropean minds. Let me suggest that the newlogo of NATO combine the current one and theEUs one.

2. Creation of a NATO-China Council

(NCC)Having written to the former NATO SecretaryGeneral about this in December 2007, today, inthe year in which both the Peoples Republic ofChina and NATO celebrate their 60th anniversary,I see even more arguments supporting the idea.China already participates in NATO seminars andconferences, and dialogue between Chineseofficials and NATO Headquarters is steadilyincreasing especially in areas of mutual interest,such as maritime anti-piracy operations off thecoast of Somalia. In order to build upon andextend this progress a NATO-China Council

(NCC) should be created. It would increaseNATOs role in the rest of the world, in Chinaitself, and would have a positive influence onWest-Russia relations.

The creation and functioning of an NCC wouldalso open a new chapter in NATO-UN relations,which itself is a sufficient motivation andguarantees a globalisation of NATOs role. TheNCC may also counter the illusionary tendenciesto consolidate the Shanghai CooperationOrganisation as an alternative nucleus of non-democratic globalisation. The offer of OSCE and

Partnership for Peace (PfP) membership could begood preparatory steps for a NCC.

To these ends, I tested the waters with theChinese in 2002 (when Bulgaria joined the UNSecurity Council) and continued this outreach untiltoday. While the Chinese require necessary timeto reflect and mature their decision-making, in thepast seven years I noticed a remarkable progressin their thinking. Actually, much bigger progressthan I noticed in many Brussels-based circles.

3. Future NATO Membership for Russia

As regards NATO-Russia relations, and thebroader West-Russia future, having closelyexamined the region for 25 years, I have graduallycome to the firm conclusion that we shall have to

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treat Russia as a potential member of NATO. Boththe West and Russia would benefit if NATO wereto offer Russia a strategic Membership ActionPlan (MAP), say, of a 15-20 years span. It mayalso include a timetable on implementation andimproving of democratic standards and values.As an important side effect, this would encouragethe Russian people to aspire to be a stronger part

of a Europeancivilization,

which in turnwould catalysethe democratic

processesinside Russia.

(Photo credit:icantcu/flickr)

Such an approach to Russia may yield solutions(though perhaps not immediately) to many othercurrent problems, such as the security concerns

of NATO members on the eastern border, otheraspects of NATO enlargement, the territorialintegrity of Georgia, and MAPs for Georgia,Ukraine and others. The Russia-NATO accessiontalks would resemble the Turkey-EU negotiations,which in the last 40 years have helped Turkey toovercome a heavy historic burden. This is whatRussia will desperately need in the decades tocome (and let us not forget the spiral of history:the USSR created the Warsaw Pact in 1955,because it was rejected from NATO membershipin 1954).

4. Future NATO Membership for CapeVerde

Cape Verde is a tiny little pearl of Europeandemocracy, on the busy crossroads betweenEurope, Africa, North America and SouthAmerica. Its strategic importance by far exceedsits size and it holds the key to an effective strategyto prevent illicit trafficking. Influential in both WestAfrica and the Portuguese speaking countries, aswell as among the non-aligned and in the South-Atlantic, Cape Verde could provide a strategicsteppingstone for NATO to make new friends, less

enemies and improve its image. The countryshould be invited to PfP, the OSCE and eventuallyto NATO itself.

5. NATO Partnership with Mongolia

When I chaired the OSCE in 2004, Bulgaria did itsbest to include Mongolia in the OSCE framework,which eventually happened. We then encouragedthe Mongolians to apply for membership in PfP,which they gladly did, but without ever gettingNATOs reply. In the meantime, Russia has beenworking to bring back Mongolia within its ownorbit. However, the Mongolians continuously

assure me that they have not lost hope in bailingout of the embrace of their two larger neighbours,and find their third neighbour in Brussels. After aJune 2009 visit to Mongolia, I renewed efforts to

put Mongolia on NATOs agenda and hope towitness more progress in the future than in thepast.

6. Future NATO Membership for Cuba

While this may seem like an unlikely proposition atpresent, I believe that a future democratic Cuba

if invited to NATO would enable a very usefuldialogue with Latin America, the non-alignedmovement and Africa. (One of the reasons whyCuba is so influential is that the development of itsforeign policy is a national priority.) Easilyabsorbed within NATO, Cuba could smoothlybecome the third North American pillar of thetransatlantic bridge. The wind of change, which Inoticed with the naked eye in Cuba, may beaccelerated to a democratic tornado by such aperspective.

(Photo credit: Stewf/flickr)

In conclusion, NATOs most urgent priority is toimprove - both within and outside of the Euro-Atlantic area its international image andreputation, which sharply contrasts with NATOshistoric achievements in the last 60 years. TheAtlantic Club succeeded to change NATOs imagein Bulgaria from 15% (positive): 85% (negative) in1990, 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 developmentof a wider and more inclusive network ofpartnerships and other measures to trulytransform the Alliance, I believe this to be a justand doable enterprise.

* Special gratitude to Ian Davis for his very fruitfulremarks on the text. The authorSolomonPassy@gmail.com will appreciate anycomments, which may be helpful for drafting theAtlantic Clubs philosophy of NATOs OutreachStrategy, to be submitted as a contribution tobrainstorming NATOs new Strategic Concept.

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