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<TITLE>SACEUR General Wesley Clark's Special Address to the 15th NATO
Workshop in Vienna, Austria in June, 1998.</TITLE>
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CONTENT="Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Wesley Clark's address to the 15th NATO Workshop in the Hofburg Palace,
Vienna, Austria in June, 1998. SACEUR General Clark explains the security challenges to the New NATO. The NATO Workshop
Chairmen were SACEUR General Wesley Clark and Roger Weissinger-Baylon.">
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wesley clark, NATO, NATO Workshop, NATO expansion, NATO enlargement, Roger Weissinger-Baylon">
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<P ALIGN="CENTER"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="6" FACE="Arial">Special
Address </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="CENTER"><FONT FACE="Arial"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">Supreme
Allied Commander Europe General Wesley K. Clark</FONT> </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="CENTER"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3" FACE="Arial"><B>OPENING
REMARKS</B> </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">During the last few years,
theNATO Workshop has been held in Dresden, in Warsaw, and in Prague.
Holding these meetings in these cities symbolizes the changes that have
occurred in Europe and in NATO in this decade—the West has opened its
arms in friendship, dialogue, and support. And this year’s Workshop
is held in Vienna, a city that is and always has been at the center of
European security issues. </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">Vienna, with its great
history, is <I>central</I> to Europe in many ways, linking South and
North, mediating between East and West, helping to integrate different
regional traditions, and serving as a forum for dialogue and
understanding. Vienna has close historical ties to Poland, Hungary, and
the Czech Republic—the three countries that will join the Alliance in
1999—and to other countries that are interested in cooperating
closely with our Alliance. In July of 1998, Austria will for the first
time hold the EU presidency, a further sign of the changing role Austria
will play in Europe and in the international community in the upcoming
years. </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">At such a busy time for
them, I want to thank our hosts for providing this magnificent palace for
our workshop so soon after it was rebuilt, and for taking the time to
welcome us. </FONT> </P>
<P ALIGN="CENTER"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3" FACE="Arial"><B>THE
FUTURE OF EUROPE</B> </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">In May 1998, I was in
Prague. There President Havel told me about his vision for the future of
Europe. We spoke about the many wars that started in Europe, and the fact
that Europe often exported war and instability to other parts of the
world. </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">President Havel’s
vision was that Europe would change. In the future, Europe would export
stability and peace to the rest of the world. </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">Just before presenting this
paper, I was in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Srebrenica, where soldiers from NATO
and SFOR are working to import peace and stability. The area, almost three
years after one of the late-20th century’s most gruesome crimes, is
still a forlorn place, ravaged by destruction, peopled by refugees longing
to return home, and a silent witness to the terrible repressed passions
released in the Balkans in this decade. </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">But even there a new spirit
is struggling to emerge, a spirit spurred by the need to face the future
and, for most, the will to put aside the hatreds and fears of the past.
And in the midst of this are our SFOR soldiers, in many different uniforms
and throughout Bosnia, providing the bedrock of security on which peace
and reconciliation can take root and grow. </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">It is upon this scene that I
would like to reflect now—on its origin, its significance, and the
consequences and challenges for the armed forces who participate and for
the Alliance that they serve. </FONT> </P>
<P ALIGN="CENTER"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3" FACE="Arial"><B>CHANGES
IN THE EUROPEAN SECURITY STRUCTURE</B> </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">Some years ago, there was a
sense of relief, triumph, and even wonder that the Cold War struggle was
over. A “new world order” was proclaimed by no less an authority
than the U.S. President. And an American historian announced to much
acclaim that we had witnessed “the end of history.” </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">This was premature euphoria—and
we knew it at the time. The dramatic events of the early ‘90s merely
<I>provided new and different opportunities</I> to achieve a strengthened
framework for peace, security, and prosperity in Europe. Serious work on
the security structures of Europe continue. </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">For example, the CSCE was
transformed from a forum for negotiation and dialogue to an organization,
the OSCE, with an active operational structure. Its field missions now
provide excellent early warning of crisis. It provides outstanding
monitoring of elections and development of electoral and human rights
institutions. We admire and give thanks for its arms control activities in
an era in which arms control continues to expand in scope and
effectiveness to accommodate changes in the European security landscape.
</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">NATO also embarked on a
program of internal and external adaptation. Following the development of
a new Strategic Concept in 1991, this adaptation saw the adoption of
Partnership for Peace, the approval of a new command structure, the
formation of more flexible military structures such as the Combined Joint
Task Force concept, and, of course, the decision to enlarge the Alliance.
NATO has also embarked on new relationships with Russia and Ukraine and,
with the Western European Union, is developing the European Security and
Defense Identity in which “separable but not separate” military
capabilities of the Alliance will become available for use under the
strategic direction and control of the WEU. </FONT> </P>
<P ALIGN="CENTER"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3" FACE="Arial"><B>THE
EMERGENCE OF NEW GLOBAL DANGERS</B> </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">NATO’s adaptation has
been timely indeed, for a new set of dangers has emerged. We have seen a
resurgence of nationalist aspirations. Regional instability has ripped
countries apart as factions—once formed to subordinate their own
goals and interests—compete with no holds barred. Historical
flashpoints reappeared in the Balkans and within the periphery of the
Former Soviet Union. We also have reason to be concerned about potentially
aggressive states in North Africa and about Iraq and Iran. The unremitting
pressure of radical ideologies from the South has fed some of this
instability, and because of disintegrating defense industries, corruption,
or perhaps malign intent, some nations with different values and interests
have acquired key technologies and weapons of mass destruction. Such
capabilities have once again brought the threat of nuclear, chemical, and
biological weapons to our homes, the most recent reminders of which are
the tests of nuclear weapons by India and Pakistan. Some of these weapons
proliferators and recipients are so-called rogue states; they covet the
territories and resources of their neighbors. And they are not above using
conventional or unconventional methods to obtain them, seemingly without
regard for international laws and norms of proper behavior. </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">Now, these are regrettable—but
more or less predictable—problems. However, dealing with them is
complicated by an international environment that is becoming ever more
globally interdependent. Today, trade, finance, investments, human labor,
technologies, even culture flow easily across borders. Minor events in
distant places reverberate across the globe at ever-increasing speeds,
triggering unanticipated reactions and consequences. This interdependency,
frankly, is magnified by efforts at European integration. </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">Europe has few boundaries
now and will have even fewer soon. In the Europe of today, Germany,
Belgium, and, increasingly, the United Kingdom are truly next door to the
troubled region of the Balkans and Northern Africa. This new state of
transnational dangers is the result of both the ease of access and the
expansion of ties so vital to the prosperity we seek—particularly in
nations coping with far-reaching political, social, and economic
transformations. Such dangers include the emergence of more violent
transnational organized crime, drug trafficking, civil insurgency, and
uncontrollable migrant flows. We have now entered an Information Age
complete with the vulnerability of interdependent economies and societies.
</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">I would be remiss not to
point out that we face these new dangers with ever-reduced resources for
defense and security. In a familiar 20th century pattern the disappearance
of the traditional threat posed to Europe swiftly brought a decline in
investment in the means of security. </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">Along with this familiar old
pattern, another, more profoundly disturbing old pattern may have
reemerged—bipolar rigidity. While its disappearance provided welcome
opportunities to engage old adversaries, it offers new temptations now for
competing national interests. Some have even warned about flirtations with
19th-century balance-of-power politics in pursuit of national interests, a
warning that must be treated with utmost gravity. The idea that nations
have no permanent friends, only permanent interests, is an old one—and
one that resulted in much mischief indeed. It is an idea that we are
trying to work against by strengthening the permanent security structures
of NATO. </FONT> </P>
<P ALIGN="CENTER"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3" FACE="Arial"><B>CHALLENGES
AND PROGRESS IN THE BALKANS</B> </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">The focus of the challenges
we face—and indeed the litmus test of our ability to respond to the
new problems facing us—is in the Balkans. And it is by now an old and
familiar story: </FONT></P>
<UL>
<LI><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">A country created in the aftermath of
World War I has been convulsed by a secession, civil war, ethnic
cleansing, and genocide—and it is not yet over. </FONT></LI>
<LI><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">Four nations—Slovenia, Croatia,
the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina—broke
away, with Croatia regaining control over most of its territory in a
final victorious military campaign in 1995. </FONT></LI>
<LI><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">Almost 75% of Bosnia was controlled by
Milosevic and his Serb colleagues, who then turned Clausewitz’s
dictum on its head. They sought to continue and consolidate the gains of
war through other means by manipulating a peace agreement. </FONT></LI>
<LI><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">As part of the peace agreement, NATO
accepted the mission to ensure implementation of the military aspects,
including the transfer of territory, and to support the international
civil agencies and the specially created Office of the High
Representative in implementing the civil aspects of the agreement.
</FONT></LI>
<LI><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">Today, two and a half years into that
mission, implementation progress in Bosnia-Herzegovina is clear: </FONT></LI>
<LI><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">Hostilities have ended there; former
warring factions have been separated and have moved into garrisons under
close inspection; 300,000 men are no longer under arms. </FONT></LI>
<LI><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">Arms control is progressing very well
and structures for military cooperation are in place. </FONT></LI>
<LI><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">Joint governing institutions are
beginning to evolve and take hold. </FONT></LI>
<LI><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">Three sets of elections have been held
and show potential for pluralism and the replacement of wartime parties.
</FONT></LI>
<LI><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">The new government in Srpska appears
fully committed to implementing the Dayton Agreement. </FONT></LI>
<LI><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">Airports, rail lines, and river ports
are open; media restructuring is underway. </FONT></LI>
<LI><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">Police restructuring to build a police
service that supports democratic institutions and serves its citizens
has been agreed to and is underway. </FONT></LI>
<LI><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">Over 222,000 displaced persons and
218,000 refugees have returned. </FONT></LI>
<LI><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">Indicted war criminals are gradually
being brought to justice—almost half of which are in The Hague.
</FONT></LI>
<LI><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">An iimplementing force that began with
nearly 60,000 personnel has been reduced to 35,000. </FONT></LI>
</UL>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">And NATO should be very
proud indeed of the fundamental role it has played there. </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">While there has been great
progress, hard work remains. Old dreams are still in place. Many among the
former warring factions have yet to give up their war aims. We have made
progress enabling refugees to return, but the yearning to return remains
unfulfilled for hundreds of thousands. There are still almost 2 million
refugees and displaced persons in host countries. Additionally, economic
development, although improving, is still a fraction of the pre-war level.
And while SFOR troops have bravely brought in persons indicted for war
crimes that they have encountered—and there is a trickle of
surrenders—considerable work remains in bringing to justice those who
committed the most horrific of crimes. </FONT> </P>
<P ALIGN="CENTER"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3"><B>GROWING PROBLEMS IN
KOSOVO</B> </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">But while the international
community—with NATO at the forefront—patiently and firmly tries
to reestablish stability in Bosnia, the situation in Kosovo is
deteriorating fast, and the familiar Balkan dynamic of ethnic strife and
repression is again in play. Ninety percent of the population of this
beleaguered region has been effectively subjugated—held in check in
almost colonial status—by a Serb minority supported by a strong
military presence and an Interior Ministry police force that remains in
place in defiance of the expressed will of the international community.
<I>Once again, villages are being destroyed by artillery and populations
are in motion, leaving threatened areas and fleeing to safe havens, mainly
in Albania.</I> </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">Those who have studied or
worked the issues in the Balkans have always feared that Kosovo would be
the ultimate firestorm. It was in every discussion during the negotiations
at Dayton three years ago. Albanian populations in adjacent countries ring
the formerly autonomous region. Weapons abound and flow across the rugged,
mountainous borders. Economies in the region still suffer from the effects
of the economic embargo imposed on the rump Yugoslavian state some five
years ago. </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">The repressed majority is
increasingly radicalized and turning toward violence. And need I say it
again: we have seen this before. Are we now in the opening stages of
another Balkan War? </FONT> </P>
<P ALIGN="CENTER"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3" FACE="Arial"><B>MEETING
THE CHALLENGES TO SECURITY</B> </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">If we are to be successful
in the Balkans—which is the crux of our current dangers—and also
be successful in meeting other security problems facing us, we must meet
three challenges. First, of course, our military implementation force must
remain in Bosnia-Herzegovina a while longer. The decision to do this has
been made. This is no easy burden, especially for European allies who are
entering their seventh year of commitment to this troubled region. </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">But this is the rub: the
military tasks in Bosnia are largely done. To be sure, they must be
sustained—but the real challenge now is to move ahead with the civil
implementation promptly, undeterred by the remaining hardheads fighting
agreement. This cannot be done without NATO—but for the most part we,
the military, cannot do it ourselves. </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">Simultaneously, the Alliance
is moving—as it must—to find a way to deal with the Kosovo
issue. We have learned from our experience with Bosnia: as Secretary
General Solana said, “NATO will not stand idly by.” We are
engaged. NATO’s political leaders have made some decisions already—our
recent air exercise demonstrating NATO’s powerful and flexible
capabilities showed the political and military agility of the Alliance—and
we hope that the message has been received: all prefer a purely diplomatic
solution. But in the event that diplomacy is not enough, we must remember
that any prospective military actions must serve a larger political
purpose. They must be placed within a diplomatic framework with clear,
attainable objectives, and with the military consequences—costs,
risks, likely outcomes—thought through. Then, if it becomes necessary
to move ahead, we must do so resolved to see our actions through to the
aim we seek. </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">Our efforts in
Bosnia-Herzegovina and in support of the Kosovo issue, however, cannot be
effective in isolation. And this leads me to our second challenge. Our
efforts must be embedded in and reinforced by the larger search for
security and stability in Europe. In this regard, we must cope with the
continuous evolution of international institutions, forums, and processes
that provide a framework for facing the problems ahead. And we must build
on the strengths and foundations that have served us well in the past. We
must adapt to face complex new problems and, above all, avoid a return to
the failed practices of a century ago. </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">NATO has now become the
fundamental bedrock of our security, not just for the West, but also for
most of the nations in Central and Eastern Europe—nations that know
that the European security horizon is not measured in months or years but
in decades. With nearly 50 years of service, NATO has demonstrated the
endurance, resilience, coherence, and structure needed to provide this
security. </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">To do so, NATO must follow
through with accession, and keep the door open to future enlargement as
its leaders declared at the Madrid Summit in the summer of ‘97. We in
the military are working to support this effort. </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">Moreover, NATO needs to keep
reaching out to nations that want to cooperate with us. To this end, SHAPE
has a Russian deputy and a brigade of Russian paratroopers serving with us
in Bosnia. We also have been able to cooperate more closely with Russia
through the Permanent Joint Council. And the importance of this channel of
dialogue is already clear—deepening understanding, enabling
consultations, and forging Allied consensus in full light of the probable
opinions, policies, and reactions of others. It is clear that we need to
develop a strong network of European and international security
institutions in a way that enhances NATO and its effectiveness while
enhancing these international security institutions—without weakening
NATO’s inherent strength, resolve, and capability. </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">The third challenge—which
I plea for on behalf of all the men and women in uniform today, in NATO
and especially in Bosnia-Herzegovina—is that we retain our
war-fighting skills and capabilities. They are still required to
under-gird our security and peace today and into an uncertain future. As
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan reminded the Security Council on 2 March
1998 concerning the inspections agreement with Iraq, “If diplomacy is
to succeed, it must be backed both by force and fairness.” Even
today, lack of military strength is widely viewed as weakness, and some
find such weakness tempting, and the absence of a credible threat an
invitation to ignore the dictates of international law and good
conscience. We must have the right combination of diplomacy and force, of
military and non-military means, to achieve not only our goals in Bosnia
and Kosovo but our larger security goals as well. We know that force
unguided by law and human decency is illegitimate and will not be
tolerated. But we also know that law and good reason alone will not always
deter the tyrants, the unscrupulous, and the evil. Mediation and
compromise are sometimes not enough to deter conflict, and moral,
diplomatic, and even economic suasion may not always be adequate to stop
the slide into war. While the resort to force must never be our first
choice, it must nevertheless remain a potential and feasible last choice.
</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">There is genuine
professional competence in our armed forces. I see it each time I visit
SFOR—competence that can be destroyed in a year or two of fiscal
starvation, but which would take a decade or more to rebuild. We <I>must</I>
provide adequate incentives, training, structure, and investment for the
armed forces in our nations. And we must attend to the increasingly
sophisticated technology available around NATO’s periphery today and
to its implications for our security. </FONT> </P>
<P ALIGN="CENTER"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3" FACE="Arial"><B>CONCLUDING
REMARKS</B> </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">I am optimistic NATO <I>will</I>
remain the foundation for peace and prosperity for Europe. We <I>will</I>
continue to push for common values, standards, purposes. We <I>will</I>
work to stop the spread of instability or chaos, ensuring that those
forces that threaten stability are dealt with through a variety of
political or other means as necessary. NATO <I>will</I> continue its
efforts in peace enforcement, and retain our core commitment to collective
defense and the attributes that make it stick: shared risks, shared
burdens, shared benefits. We are all partners and equals in this great
Alliance, an Alliance that will continue to play a vital role in security
in Europe and beyond. </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN="LEFT"><FONT COLOR="000000" SIZE="3">In closing, let me, as a
soldier, return to the most vital component in the security debate—to
those tasked with the execution of force—the men and women of our
armed forces. I am reminded of the late British General Sir John Hackett
and his pledge of unlimited commitment or liability that distinguishes our
fighting men and women. He said, “The essential basis of the military
life is the ordered application of force under an unlimited liability.”
Indeed we are keenly aware of the risks inherent in this profession. It is
the unlimited liability that sets the man who embraces this life somewhat
apart. Those of us in uniform still feel this unlimited liability—we
still feel this privilege of service—and we still are ready should
the ordered application of force be required. </FONT></P>
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