NATO after Prague
Only hours remain until the start of the NATO summit here in Prague. Preparations are in their final stages as the Czech capital awaits dozens of world leaders, thousands of official delegates and journalists but also thousands of protesters. The importance of the summit for Prague and the Czech Republic has been pointed out many times. But what do we know about the significance of the summit for NATO itself? And what will actually be on its agenda, apart from expansion and the question of Iraq? NATO spokesman Yves Brodeur explains.
"The Prague summit is going to be critical because it is what we call a transformation summit, a modernisation summit. We very much have a structure now that reflects the Cold War. Both from a military point of view as well as from - to some extent - a political point of view. Since 1989 we've been progressively moving towards a situation whereby the enemy of yesterday is no longer an enemy. Or at least he does not represent the same level of threat that he did before. At the same time we also recognise that the nature of threats that we are faced with is quite different than it was before."
NATO was originally created to fight a classic war and the way NATO nations' armed forces were structured was in response to that scenario. That concept is no longer viable for NATO and new threats such as terrorism have had to be included. The point was very much driven home last year on September 11. The organisation realised it was not equipped to deal with that sort of threat and according to Mr Brodeur it did not quite know how to deal with the new, global, challenges.
"What Prague is going to bring about, we hope, is a new NATO. A NATO which will be more flexible. By that I mean which will have a much lighter command structure, capable of taking decisions more rapidly and also able to deploy a significant number of troops in a very short time. In terms of flexibility, we are also looking at the issue of the out-of-area question. Is NATO actually going to limit itself to terrestrial security within what has always been known as the traditional NATO area, or are we actually going global? Can we, do we, must we consider the possibility of having to respond globally to a global threat?"
"These invitations will be extended and it will take anywhere between 18 to 24 months before we see the first new members sitting at the Council table. And finally you will have a more capable NATO, more capable in the sense that it will have at Prague a full programme, a calendar of implementation of what we will call then "the Prague Capabilities Initiative" meaning that countries, NATO nations, will make firm commitments to acquire by certain timelines equipments that we actually need to fulfil our mandate."
