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<TITLE>Latvian Prime Minister Dr. Valdis Birkavs...Partnership for Peace in
the Baltic Region</TITLE>
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<CENTER><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+4">Partnership for Peace in
the Baltic Region</FONT></FONT></CENTER>
<CENTER><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+3">Latvian Prime Minister Dr.
Valdis Birkavs</FONT></FONT></CENTER>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+1">INTRODUCTION</FONT></FONT></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">Will the Partnership for Peace
(PFP) produce the kind of Baltic security we want to see by the end of
this decade? At the outset, I would like to say that security is Latvia's
number one foreign policy priority, along with promoting the security and
stability of the international system to which our country belongs. While
history and specific interests have shaped different zones of security in
Europe, there are in reality four broad security issues: collective
defense, collective security, conflict prevention, and domestic political
and economic reform. All contribute to stability and support the
continuity of foreign policy objectives.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">This framework should constitute
a firm foundation for developing a defense planning system. According to
the new Partnership for Peace requirements, defense planning should focus
on both national and collective military tasks, and each type of task
should have a common policy rationale from which forces and capabilities
are derived.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">Latvia needs a policy rationale
that will ensure that its real and continually changing security
requirements determine the supply of military and non-military equipment
capable of meeting those requirements. Thus, the search for such a
rationale should start with adjusting the process of developing the
foreign, defense, and other policies that bear on Latvia's security. In
this context, I will first describe NATO's new roles and missions as they
relate to the Latvian defense establishment. Next, I will review the
evolution of NATO as a systemic entity. Finally, I will try to evaluate
the opportunities that new circumstances and the Partnership for Peace
offer as a way to yield the kind of regional Baltic security that we would
like to see by the year 2000.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+1">NATO'S NEW ROLES AND
MISSIONS</FONT></FONT></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">As announced at the January 1994
Summit, NATO will move away from fixed force and command structures toward
effective, mobile, combined joint task forces. Therefore, some of the
missions that are currently being carried out through the Partnership for
Peace program will absorb non-NATO units and may involve peace-support
operations. NATO will become increasingly active in crisis management and
peace-support operations.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">This change will affect how
forces are trained. Peacekeeping training is very different from training
for warfare. Thus, Latvia will require forces simultaneously trained for
both types of missions, and their number will be more dependent on
capabilities. The difficulty will be reconciling the need for maintaining
traditional capabilities with the need for non-traditional capabilities,
which include the whole range of peacemaking, peace-enforcing,
peacekeeping, disaster relief, and humanitarian operations.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+1">THE EVOLUTION OF NATO</FONT></FONT></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">The founders of NATO, I submit,
did not think of their creation merely as a classic defense arrangement.
The North Atlantic Alliance originated as an open, not a closed,
system--as an allied order governed by the voluntary adherence to
principles and norms. The organization that built on the North Atlantic
Treaty of 4 April 1949 has evolved into an even more inclusive
organization and become a component of international order itself,
supplementing the collective security system of the United Nations.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">At the London Summit in 1990,
NATO heads of state set in motion a series of reviews intended to adjust
the Alliance to the world that was changing around it. The Summit also
outlined for the first time that NATO's security interests were not tied
solely to the defense of its own territory. The first step toward NATO's
out of area engagement came with the Alliance's Strategic Concept in the
Fall of 1991.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">In 1992, at the Copenhagen North
Atlantic Council meeting--which was a follow-up to the Oslo CSCE
meeting--NATO agreed to provide peacekeeping under the CSCE. For the first
time, NATO assumed peace support as a new mission and, in this respect,
linked to the CSCE. On 10 January 1994, NATO began the process of
extending a security influence outside its own existing alliance. NATO has
always been, I believe, both an alliance and a system, intra-regional as
well as extra-regional. If NATO is to remain an alliance and also a system
that contributes to the international security order, however, it may need
to expand to the East.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+1">PARTNERSHIP FOR PEACE</FONT></FONT></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">In a presentation to the
Atlantic Council on 3 December 1993, then U.S. Defense Secretary Les Aspin
explained that Partnership for Peace would provide a "framework for
detailed, operational military cooperation for multinational security
efforts that has NATO at its core." For the moment at least, no other
organization is capable of functioning as an effective agent for
coordinating multinational security concerns. The NATO Partnership for
Peace program is designed to prevent disequilibrium from arising, and we
must build upon that mandate. It also aims to develop closer long-range
political and military ties, but we do not consider PFP to be a substitute
for full membership in NATO.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">We believe that NATO members
will realize that Latvia has much to offer the Alliance. Our Presentation
Document is being drafted and will be submitted in July 1994. We also plan
to establish liaison offices at NATO Headquarters in Brussels and at the
Partnership Coordination Cell at Mons. The Baltic Council of Ministers,
which was established on 13 June 1994, will accelerate the creation of the
common Baltic peacekeeping battalion for the three states. This battalion
will be made available to the Combined Joint Task Force for employment in
all peace-support operations. In addition, we expect that our aims for the
PFP will be met as efficiently as possible and that, via "sixteen
plus one," we will become active, reliable, and stable partners.</FONT></FONT>
</P>
<CENTER></CENTER>
<CENTER><B><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+1">CONCLUSIONS</FONT></FONT></B></CENTER>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">The expansion of NATO is
inevitable. Yet we do not expect rapid entry into NATO since shifting the
Alliance's defense lines may raise concerns for those countries that would
be near its new borders.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">Today, the new military
establishments of the three Baltic States are being organized from the
ground up. Only limited financial resources can be allocated to them,
however, without weakening our national security by compromising political
and social stability. Consequently, it will be financially impossible to
deploy well-equipped military forces for a decade or more. Until then, our
challenge will be to maintain a credible military force posture in order
to support our regional security objectives.</FONT></FONT> </P>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000"><FONT SIZE="+0">Security relationships in the
year 2000 are likely to have very different features from those of 1994.
We are facing a complex agenda as we think about and plan for the future.
To cite President Woodrow Wilson's remarks in January 1917, "There
must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized
rivalries, but an organized common peace."</FONT></FONT> </P>
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