North Atlantic Treaty Organization
September 2, 2014
NATO and Russia: a new strategic reality
Remarks by NATO Deputy Secretary General Ambassador Alexander Vershbow at the conference on “NATO after the Wales Summit”, Cardiff University
[Edited by RR]
Thank you, Sir Emyr Jones Parry, for that kind introduction. I’m grateful for the invitation to be here on the eve of the NATO Summit. We’ve been preparing for it for a long time, so it’s great to finally be here in Wales.
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Yes, we will still be discussing Afghanistan, defense capabilities, partnerships, and the Transatlantic bond, as originally planned. But our Heads of State and Government will gather on Thursday and Friday at a time of unprecedented turmoil on the European continent and beyond. Compared to a year ago, no one is asking whether this 65-year-old Alliance is still needed to ensure our security. But people are asking whether NATO is up to today’s challenges and whether it has the means – and the political will – to meet them.
The main reason, of course, is Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine, which has called into question many of our assumptions about the post-Cold War order. Russia’s actions…pose a real threat to an open, rules-based international system…Russia’s actions leave us no alternative but to make some fundamental choices of our own.
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Geopolitics and domestic politics came together in Ukraine. Putin’s pressure on Viktor Yanukovych to reject Ukraine’s Association Agreement with the EU backfired, provoking the Euro-Maidan rebellion, the flight of Yanukovych to Russia, and Moscow’s aggressive response, which has now caused the worst security crisis in Europe since the end of the Cold War.
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What Russia has been doing is sometimes called hybrid warfare, or non-linear warfare, or ambiguous warfare. But whatever you call it, it is warfare, plain and simple. …
And in waging an undeclared war in Ukraine, President Putin has torn up the international rule book and undone the good work both Russia and the NATO Allies have achieved since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Russia has returned to the politics of a previous time – not to Soviet-era, Cold War politics so much as to the politics of spheres of influence and to ethnic-nationalist doctrines of centuries past…
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One must wonder how long Putin can ride the populist wave as his cronies, and Russian society, begin to experience the very real consequences of his adventurism and as Russia’s international political and economic stock continues to decline.
For NATO’s part, we will do whatever is needed to defend our Allies. At this week’s Summit, we will adopt a Readiness Action Plan to reinforce our ability to deal with any threat. As part of the RAP, we will launch plans to increase the readiness of the NATO Response Force, so it has the capacity to respond in days rather than weeks to a threat of aggression.
We will lay out a plan for the forward presence of command and control and key enablers so that we have the capability to rapidly reinforce our eastern flank, together with plans to regularly exercise that capability.
We will work with Allies, as well as other like-minded organizations, to develop a range of measures, political as well as military, to deal with hybrid attacks.
We are also reviewing our defense plans, threat assessments, intelligence-sharing arrangements and early-warning procedures.
All these measures will not only reassure NATO members, but bolster deterrence in the face of the new strategic challenge posed by Russia.
We must also reverse the decline in defense spending that began after the fall of the Berlin Wall and accelerated during the financial crisis. Over the past five years, total defense spending by NATO nations has fallen by 20%, while Russia’s defense spending has increased by 50%. To the Kremlin, which measures its global standing in military might, NATO appears weak. And it sees an opportunity to act.
Our job now is to correct that perception – to be united in word and deed, and to increase spending on defense.
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When it comes to deterrence, it’s not enough for us just to say it. We have to mean it. And President Putin – and potential adversaries elsewhere – have to believe it.
…Clearly, collective defense in the face of a resurgent and revanchist Russia is paramount. But in today’s world, NATO needs to be a strong multi-tasker and a consummate networker…By making sure that our militaries are compatible, we can be far more effective when we need to deploy together…
Ladies and Gentlemen,
There is no doubt that the security landscape here in Europe changed this year, and not for the better. How it will look in a year or two is impossible to predict. But I can confidently predict that whatever the future does hold, NATO will be prepared. From its early days, NATO has had to bend and flex to meet any challenge, from any foe: from the military might of the Soviet Union to the Taliban in the deserts of Afghanistan, from bringing stability to the Balkans to preventing piracy off the Horn of Africa, the strength of NATO has always been its endless ability to adapt, and to rise to each new challenge that comes along. I am confident that this week’s Summit, here in Wales, will be no exception.
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