"NATO and the Mediterranean"
By Javier Solana
During the preliminary negotiations of the Washington
Treaty of 1949, when Italy declared its desire to join the emerging
Alliance, there was considerable debate whether a North Atlantic Alliance
could be extended into the Mediterranean. As Italy had no geographical connection
with the Atlantic, some argued it could not be part of an Atlantic Alliance.
In retrospect, these arguments seem very slight, even pedantic. Luckily,
the diplomats were more interested in defending common values rather than
narrow geographical space. The initial result of this pragmatism was the
accession of Italy to the Atlantic Alliance, and several more Mediterranean
countries were to follow. No one could doubt today the far-sightedness of
such pragmatism and the positive and profoundly stabilising effect that
NATO has had on security in the region over the years.
Introduction: NATO's Potential Mediterranean Dimension
As we approach the next century, NATO's stabilising potential for the
Mediterranean region is, nonetheless, far from exhausted. The Atlantic
Alliance has much to contribute to the building of new, cooperative security
relationships across the Mediterranean region. But realising such potential
first requires a fuller understanding of the Alliance's comprehensive
approach to security today.
From its very beginning, the Atlantic Alliance - despite its name -
had a strong Mediterranean dimension. However, the exigencies of the Cold
War overshadowed regional specificity by focusing almost exclusively on
Central Europe. Security in the Mediterranean was thus largely seen during
this period as a part of the overall East-West confrontation, a fact reflected
by the Mediterranean region being portrayed as NATO's "Southern Flank".
That period of bipolarity is now safely behind us. Yet both the Gulf
War and the conflict in the former Yugoslavia have shown that a stable
and enduring peace in and around Europe is yet to be achieved. They have
added to the incentive for the Alliance to broaden its approach towards
the Mediterranean region by viewing it as a region with its own specific
dynamics and challenges - and with a still largely untapped potential
for dialogue and cooperation on security issues. Indeed, the end of the
East-West conflict allows us to adopt a far more differentiated, more
comprehensive perspective on Mediterranean security.
The Mediterranean: A Region of Risks or Opportunities?
The lifting of the Iron Curtain changed fundamentally the nature of European,
and even world, politics. And NATO has changed with it. The Alliance has
moved from confrontation to cooperation and partnership with the countries
of Central and Eastern Europe, including Russia, Ukraine and other countries
formerly part of the Soviet Union. Despite the difficulties of the transition
process to democracy and market economy of these states, a general mood
of optimism prevails there, particularly in security terms. By building
bridges through programmes of outreach, cooperation and partnership, NATO
has played a role in contributing to an enhanced sense of stability and
security in this region.
When it comes to the Mediterranean, by contrast, many analysts tend
to paint a gloomier picture. While countries along the Northern rim are
increasingly prosperous as they move forward in the process of European
political integration, many countries of the other side of the Mediterranean
are seen to be moving in the opposite direction. This trend is characterised
by ever-increasing birth rates, declining prosperity, and a tendency towards
a less stable political environment.
The negative potential of developments in the Mediterranean should not
be denied or glossed over. But what is arguable is the fatalistic undercurrent
running through many analyses. Perhaps one ought to be thankful to Samuel
Huntington for pointing out the importance of cultural factors in determining
our security. Yet, on balance, his notion of a coming "clash of civilisations"
looks itself very much like Western ethnocentrism. Certainly it may be
tempting from a North American or North European perspective to characterise
the Mediterranean as a kind of horizontal dividing line, separating the
European North from an "arc of crisis" located in the South.
Yet the notion of the Mediterranean as a divide ignores the fact that
the Mediterranean historically has been as much about commonality than
about divisions. For millennia, the Mediterranean has been a fertile ground
of ideas and concepts that guide us to this very day. For example, the
project entitled "united Europe" is based on an idea of humanism
and dignity that took its roots from along the shores of the Mediterranean.
Thus, while there may not be a Mediterranean identity as such, one can
find historic notions of a common space, common concerns and a common
heritage - enough commonality, in any case, to make dialogue and cooperation
with those in the region an effort worth undertaking.
Moreover, its fragility notwithstanding, the Middle East peace process
reminds us that a fatalistic view of the political dynamics in the Mediterranean
region is unjustified, and indeed self-defeating. To simply attempt to
shield ourselves from the complexities of the South would deprive us of
the opportunities to exert a positive influence on them. To see the Mediterranean
as no more than the sum of its problems would ultimately become a self-fulfilling
prophecy. The political evolution in this region can and should be steered
in a positive direction. Instead of clinging to existing patterns, European
institutions should seek proactive, constructive and specially tailored
approaches to the region.
Mediterranean Security: The Need for a Comprehensive Approach
After the unnatural division created by the East-West confrontation, we
are now seeing signs of a more mature relationship emerging between Europe
and its Mediterranean neighbours. The growing importance of the Mediterranean
is increasingly being recognised by many institutions dealing with matters
of security in one way or the other: the European Union is developing a
Mediterranean policy through the Barcelona process which I had the honour
of chairing; the WEU has initiated a dialogue with the Maghreb countries.
There is the Mediterranean Forum and proposals for a Conference for Security
and Cooperation in the Mediterranean and the Middle East (CSCM).
It is possible to steer the political evolution of the entire region,
not just of its Northern shores, in a constructive direction. We could,
for example, make better use of our successful experience gained in Europe
in confidence building and in providing fora for encouraging contact and
dialogue, as well as initiating practical cooperation. Greater transparency
concerning military activities can also help to minimise suspicions and
misunderstanding. I believe that this open and cooperative approach has
a considerable unexplored potential in the Mediterranean region.
For instance, we could draw more on the experience gained in other parts
of Europe where multilateral structures and institutions for dialogue,
arms control and confidence-building were developed in order to help ease
tensions and prevent conflict. These kinds of structures - appropriately
adjusted of course - could become usefully examined as means for providing
a framework for dealing with new security challenges. The Mediterranean
thus far remains poorly equipped in terms of multilateral frameworks to
deal with such challenges. Without an institutional or procedural heritage,
the Mediterranean region must build new security structures from scratch.
Of course, the problems may be too diverse or not sufficiently universal
to be encompassed in a single, common institutional framework. We should
not simply assume the relevancy to the Mediterranean region of the Central
European model of confidence- and security-building. Our European institutions
must consider ways for promoting understanding which suit Mediterranean
conditions. This challenge deserves greater time and effort than we have
hitherto given to it.
NATO's Contributions to Mediterranean Security
The effort to develop a re-invigorated Alliance approach to an enhanced
Mediterranean dialogue and cooperation builds upon existing ways in which
the Alliance plays a stabilising role in the Mediterranean. This contribution
is today occurring on different levels.
Pursuit by the Alliance of a more focussed, outward-looking approach to
enhancing stability in the wider Mediterranean region can only occur by
providing for the collective defence of its members, in particular the Mediterranean
allies, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey.
NATO's collective defence function has a considerable strategic value
in providing a stabilising presence in a region like the Mediterranean
where tensions exist and indeed conflict themselves have broken out. This
stabilising function has been of paramount importance during the Gulf
War and the war in the former Yugoslavia and should not be overlooked.
It has played an important role in preventing the possibility of conflict
spill-over in these crises. This role and the importance of collective
defence is not always understood and needs to be explained. I will come
back to this when I address our Mediterranean dialogue.
Crisis Management and Peacekeeping
Another element of the Alliance's contribution to security and stability
in the Mediterranean region is its increased emphasis on crisis management.
Since the end of the Cold War, the Alliance has given increasing attention
to developing practical, cooperative instruments for crisis management.
Recognising that in today's strategic environment regional crises are more
likely to affect Allied security than direct threats, NATO has undergone
a fundamental reorientation towards dealing with regional crisis and conflicts.
This shift in emphasis became most visible in NATO's contribution to ending
the conflict in the former Yugoslavia.
The crisis in former Yugoslavia acted as a catalyst on the development
of NATO's policy and the means for effective crisis intervention. In 1992,
the Alliance began its support by monitoring and enforcing UN Security
Council Resolutions which imposed embargoes on the ex-Yugoslavia. In December
1995, NATO, under the UN Security
Council mandate, was called upon to replace the UN Protection Force
(UNPROFOR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and to take the lead in implementing
the terms of the military annex
agreed by the Parties to the Dayton Peace Accords. The Alliance then organised,
deployed and commanded a new phenomenon on the international scene - the
multinational Implementation Force (IFOR).
Today, the IFOR has fulfilled its one-year mandate and has itself been
replaced by a smaller follow-on force - the Stabilisation Force (SFOR),
which will continue to ensure that the terms of the Dayton Accords in
the military realm are adhered to by all Parties and that a safe and secure
environment is maintained in Bosnia and Herzegovina while the peace-building
effort is consolidated and takes root.
Despite the fact that both IFOR and SFOR have been developed and deployed
as a response to a unique crisis and a unique mandate, they are nevertheless
models for multilateral cooperation in future crisis management. The truly
international flavour of these forces is shown by their composition: over
30 countries participate, including contingents from the 16 NATO Allies
and more than a dozen non-NATO countries. Significantly, three countries
participating in our Mediterranean dialogue - Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco
- also have troops deployed with IFOR/SFOR.
Partnership for Peace
A complex operation such as IFOR or SFOR could not have been mounted so
rapidly and effectively without the web of cooperative relationships that
NATO has established across Europe, in particular the Partnership for Peace
initiative (PfP), launched in 1994. The Partnership, with its focus on cooperation
on peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, has already become the most
successful military cooperation programme in Europe's history. Twenty-seven
countries participate in it, including two Mediterranean littoral countries
(Slovenia and Albania). Through PfP, NATO and Partners seek to make permanent
the habits of trust and cooperation in defence- and military-related areas
that will help transform Europe's security relationships through a new,
growing sense of partnership and cooperation among countries in the Euro-Atlantic
region. The Partnership also contributes to the building of a new European
cooperative security order which will, we hope, have a positive spill-over
effect in fostering the development of relations with non-NATO and non-Partner
countries in the Mediterranean region.
Besides crisis management, NATO is taking an active role in a second area
important to Mediterranean security: the prevention of proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction. It is certainly no exaggeration to state that
the spread of advanced technology and weaponry, including weapons of mass
destruction, tends to become a major security problem in the years ahead.
Although not specific to the Mediterranean, it is clear that proliferation
also has a Mediterranean dimension, in that many countries of the region,
North and South, will be at risk from the spread of such destabilising weapons,
if we do not give this problem all our attention today.
At the NATO
Summit in Brussels in January 1994, the new task of
addressing the proliferation challenge was added to the
Alliance's agenda. The principal non-proliferation goal
of the Alliance and its members is to prevent proliferation
from occurring or, should it occur, to reverse it through
diplomatic means. In so doing, NATO seeks to support,
and not duplicate, work already underway in other international
fora and institutions. But we are also consulting regularly
on proliferation risks, both among Allies and with our
Cooperation Partners. As far as the defence dimension
is concerned, we are examining how our defence capabilities
can be improved and how NATO's defence posture can support
or influence diplomatic efforts to prevent proliferation.
In short, the issue of proliferation is now firmly on
the NATO agenda. The better we succeed in addressing it,
the more secure the whole of Europe as well as the Mediterranean
region will be.
NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue
The various policy tracks outlined above comprise an array of means by which
the Alliance has been able to extend a stabilising influence on the Mediterranean
region. To this array a further policy initiative was added at the January
1994 Brussels Summit. This was the result of the growing view among Allies
that a more direct NATO approach was needed - one of promoting dialogue,
understanding and confidence-building between the countries in the Mediterranean
region. In launching the Mediterranean initiative, NATO Heads of State and
Government signalled that NATO would play a greater role in strengthening
regional stability and tasked the Permanent NATO Council to develop appropriate
measures to this end.
In December 1994, NATO Foreign Ministers gave this general commitment
to a Mediterranean dialogue concrete shape by agreeing to establish contacts
with several Mediterranean countries. As a result, Egypt, Israel, Morocco,
Mauritania and Tunisia participated in the initial round of the dialogue.
The initial round of the dialogue, conducted during summer and autumn
1995, provided the opportunity for the International Staff of NATO to
brief extensively on NATO's various activities, including its programmes
of external outreach and partnership, of internal adaptation, and its
general approach to building cooperative security structures. Dialogue
partners were invited to share their views on stability and security in
the Mediterranean region.
In November 1995 it was agreed to further enhance the dialogue. Also,
an invitation was extended to Jordan, which had expressed an interest
in participating. Today the dialogue provides a twofold approach: regular
political discussions at least twice a year, and specific activities in
the fields of information and scientific affairs and in more specialised
areas, such as participation in peacekeeping courses at NATO schools.
The more recent meeting of NATO Foreign
Ministers on 10 December 1996 has added civil emergency planning activities
related to disaster management to this list. We will also be looking into
the possibility of opening up more courses at NATO schools, especially
on civil emergency planning and civil-military cooperation, and examining
future possibilities for increasing transparency in the field of military
Assessment of the Mediterranean Dialogue
The Mediterranean dialogue is progressive in nature and, in principle, bilateral
in form, although it allows for multilateral meetings on a case-by-case
basis. The dialogue offers all Mediterranean partners the same basis for
discussion and activities. Moreover, it is meant to reinforce other international
efforts with Mediterranean partners such as those undertaken by the WEU,
OSCE, the Barcelona process and the Middle East Peace process, without either
duplicating such efforts or intending to create a division of labour.
In conducting the Mediterranean dialogue, NATO is building on a significant
amount of expertise, generated both by its member states individually
as well as through various Expert Working Groups which meet regularly
within NATO, such as the Ad Hoc Group on the Mediterranean and the Expert
Working Group on the Middle East and the Maghreb. These meetings bring
together key experts from NATO capitals to exchange information and share
analysis on regional trends. They promote a uniform understanding of the
area among NATO members. In general, bringing so many informed observers
of the Mediterranean region together from so many different perspectives
contributes to a much more balanced view of events and developments among
the Allies. The scope and mandate of these groups, which have existed
since the late 1960s, have been revised over the last couple of years.
The Ad Hoc Group on the Mediterranean now aims at supporting the Mediterranean
dialogue, while the Expert Working Group on the Middle East and the Maghreb
now also meets once a year with Cooperation Partners, including Russia.
In sharing insights and exchanging information with Mediterranean dialogue
partners, we hope to encourage a balanced view about the Alliance's agenda,
its adaptation process, its contribution to peacekeeping and crisis management,
and its approach to building a cooperative security order in Europe. the
Allies are convinced that this approach of dialogue and outreach to Mediterranean
partners will yield significant benefits in the long term. Since one of
the main motivations in launching the initiative was to enhance mutual
understanding, it is necessary to have a forum, like the dialogue, in
which to pursue this objective.
As yet, however, the Mediterranean Dialogue is still at an early stage.
We there foresee an evolutionary development of this initiative. Perhaps
more Mediterranean countries will join over time, perhaps a more specific
agenda will evolve as well. Some may view sceptically the importance of
"soft" diplomacy, particularly if pursued by an Alliance that
is widely associated with providing "hard" security. Yet it would
be short-sighted to underestimate the power of such dialogue and its potential
to grow and stimulate constructive and deepening cooperation. In fact,
all the major developments of the last years, from German unity to NATO's
deepening relationship with Russia, have began with the all-important
first step of dialogue. To understand how powerful dialogue can be as
an instrument of change, one only has to look at the development of the
OSCE, which began tentatively as a forum for discussion across a geographically
and ideologically divided Europe. Now it is a fully fledged organisation,
cementing Europe together.
The tremendous success of NATO's "Partnership for Peace" programme
has led some observers to ask whether there could also be a "Partnership
for Peace" in the Mediterranean. It is a difficult question to answer.
For the foreseeable future, NATO's primary focus will remain on Central
and Eastern Europe. Personally, I would not rule out the eventual extension
of PfP-type approaches in some form in due course to embrace countries
outside the OSCE. Indeed, as we progress in the Partnership for Peace,
we will develop invaluable experience which could certainly be usefully
shared with non-PfP countries.
Nevertheless, some caution should be exercised in trying to apply the
Partnership for Peace wholesale as a model for the Mediterranean region.
In the Mediterranean we can learn from PfP, but in my view the political
diversity of the region will require in time the development of separate
and specific solutions appropriate to the region. Simply extending the
Partnership for Peace and its activities to Mediterranean dialogue partners
would lose the nuances and sensitivities on which the present dialogue
In today's world, where technological progress has shrunk geographical distances,
and where economic interdependence is making the "global village"
a reality, security, too, has become interdependent. To help stabilise the
Mediterranean region and build a peaceful, friendly, economically vibrant
area is thus a major strategic objective for all Euro-Atlantic institutions.
The European Union must take the lead, yet NATO, too, can lend a helping
hand. That is why I believe that the end of the division of Europe has benefitted
the Mediterranean region as well. For it has freed resources - both material
and intellectual - that were previously tied to the purpose of dealing with
the situation of political and military confrontation that existed in Europe.
To use these resources wisely and creatively will be both an opportunity
and a challenge for our Alliance. We have made a very good start in our
relations with countries in the Mediterranean Dialogue. I believe this initiative
will expand and intensify to the benefit of all those who share the same