NATO chief eyes closer ties with China, India

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-02-08 10:06

MUNICH, Germany: NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said here Sunday that NATO should become "the hub of a network of security partnerships and a center for consultation on international security issues" with closer ties with countries such as China and India.

The NATO chief said at the Munich Security Conference that in an age of global insecurity, the threats to Europe and North America, including terrorism, cyber attacks, energy cut-offs, piracy and climate change, come from far beyond NATO borders.

In order to tackle these threats effectively, NATO should create "a stronger, more inclusive security coalition, with NATO as the hub," he said.

"Against such threats, the approaches of a bygone era simply no longer work. Static, heavy metal armies are not going to impress terrorists, pirates or computer hackers," he said. "Our success in preserving our shared security, including through NATO, increasingly depends on how well we cooperate with others."

"We must take NATO's transformation to a new level -- by connecting the Alliance with the broader international system in entirely new ways," Rassmussen said.

His idea is to create a permanent network of consultation and cooperation, with NATO as the hub, in which other important international players, such as China, India and Russia, could take part and discuss views, concerns and best practices on security or even joint training and planning.

"With a few exceptions, the various parts of the international community who do peace operations still don't train together. We don't really plan together. We aren't joined up in the field. Nor do we analyze together what we might be able to do better," Rassmussen said, adding that ending this fragmentation will require breaking with conventional thinking, and re-organizing.

The NATO chief also noted that a key lesson of the alliance's troubled mission in Afghanistan is that NATO "needs an entirely new compact between all the actors on the security stage."

"India has a stake in Afghan stability. China too. And both could help further develop and rebuild Afghanistan. The same goes for Russia. Basically, Russia shares our security concerns," Rasmussen said.

He also argued that by turning NATO into a forum for consultation on worldwide security issues does not mean that NATO would be a competitor to the United Nations. "That is not possible, nor is it desirable," he said.

"We are talking here about a group of nations consulting, formally or informally, on security. Nothing more," he said.

The background for Rasmussen's idea is that NATO is currently debating a new "strategic concept," which is expected to be adopted at a NATO summit in Portugal in November.

"Successfully completing our mission in Afghanistan; promoting a new compact between international institutions; and making the Alliance a clearing house for global security issues -- all this is a pretty tall order. It will require a strong sense of purpose among the Allies, and a clear view of NATO's future evolution. And this should be reflected in the new Strategic Concept," Rasmussen said.

To ease international concerns about NATO's future evolution, Rasmussen on Sunday also said that NATO's core task is to defend its member states. "It remains the main purpose of NATO today. And it will be our main job tomorrow," he said.

His stance was backed by German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg.

"We don't want to compete with the United Nations," the minister said. "We don't want to turn NATO into a global security agency."

But he said that NATO's network of Global Partners is not enough. "The aim must be that the transatlantic partnership is complemented in a very natural way by the trans-Pacific partnership."

"We need an answer as to how we shape the alliance's relationship with China. And we need an answer as to how we institutionalize the common security dialogue with India," he added.

Mei Zhaorong, former Chinese ambassador to Germany, reacted cautiously to Rasmussen's ideas.

On the one hand, it represents a recognition of China's rising role in dealing with global issues, which is also reflected by the Munich Security Conference for the first time asking a Chinese foreign minister to make an opening speech, Mei told Xinhua in a telephone interview.

"On the other hand, it is still a very sketchy notion, whose details remain to be seen... Western nations tend to be quite self- centric and when it comes to details, there may be conflict of interests," he said.

"What remains to be seen is also whether it would compromise the role of the United Nations," he added.

Konstantin Kosachev, Chairman of the Russian State Duma's International Affairs Committee, reiterated Russia's concern about NATO enlargement.

"The problem is the enlargement, the artificial enlargement, the politicized enlargement," Kosachev said on the final day of the Munich security gathering.