By Sarah Carrillo
Assistant News Editor
For Andrew Roberts, it’s all about perception.
In a presentation at the Raitt Recital Hall Tuesday, the squadron leader of the British Royal Air Force and senior military officer for NATO spoke about the many changes NATO has undergone in recent years.
Roberts said many countries, particularly in Eastern Europe, see NATO as an aggressive organization and it is difficult to convince them otherwise. This perception dates back to NATO’s founding in 1949.
“We had to get away from this Cold War image,” Roberts said. CHRISTINE MORRISON/ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR
With the end of the Cold War in 1989, NATO began a restructuring process in order to shift away from an organization focused on the Cold War threat to an organization devoted to peace-keeping missions and maintaining security against potential new threats.
In addition to inviting seven new countries to join NATO last year, several changes for NATO were outlined at the Prague Summit in 2002, which were then implemented in the following months. Plans for NATO’s enlargement – a more global rather than North Atlantic role — and the creation of a NATO Response Force were some of the new changes decided on.
The NATO Response Force represents a major shift in the structure of NATO. The force is made up of 21,000 people from member countries that work for NATO in six-month rotations.
The force is designed to have the capability to be deployed anywhere in the world in five days and be fully operational. NATO does not own any of its own forces or weapons and so it relies on member countries for troops and supplies.
NATO has also developed several new areas of operation, including new headquarters in Norfolk, Va. Other centers include a Joint Force Training Center in Poland, a Joint Warfare Center in Norway and a Joint Analysis and Lessons Learned Center in Portugal.
One analysis that took place recently was of the war in Iraq and its effects on the United States and the United Kingdom. An Iraq Observations Seminar was held in July to discern what was done well and what went wrong during the war.
“We’ve looked at problems the U.S. and U.K. faced in Iraq,” Roberts said. “We’ve seen where it’s gone wrong.”
In addition to the war in Iraq, NATO is also learning lessons from the war in Afghanistan and the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
After the United States left Afghanistan, NATO took control of maintaining peace in the country. NATO plans to continue conducting peace-keeping missions if the need arises.
“NATO has proved remarkably successful at maintaining peace with power,” Roberts said.
After Sept. 11, NATO provided air surveillance for the United States. Sept. 11 was the first time NATO had to help protect American soil.
“Nine-eleven clearly showed us … that you can be affected by the new threat,” Roberts said.
Roberts defined the new threat NATO faces as coming from the Mediterranean and Middle East and from economically and politically unstable countries in Eastern Europe. Roberts said it is only natural that these situations may become threatening because not every country can be a part of NATO and benefit from the security it offers. Countries that cannot join NATO may turn to terrorist groups or other threatening organizations for help.
“If you exclude those countries that want to be a part of NATO, where else are they going to go?” Roberts said.
Roberts said when countries request to join the alliance, the organization will ask them what expertise they have to offer. NATO also tries to only allow countries that are relatively stable to join but will offer an “umbrella of security” to other nations that may not have the stability to join.
NATO does not provide economic support for member countries, and so potential members must already be economically stable in order to help with NATO’s mission of security.
Another change Roberts discussed was America’s increasing realization that it needs help from alliances such as NATO.
“The U.S. cannot police the world alone,” Roberts said.
Although it is the largest contributor to NATO, the United States has relied on the support of allies such as the United Kingdom in instances such as the war in Iraq.
Roberts said some countries, including the United States, have questioned whether it is beneficial to spend so much on NATO instead of other organizations. Roberts said NATO is important because it provides member countries with security and stability that each may not have on its own and the organization needs continued support in order to do this.
“Sometimes you can only maintain stability from a position of strength,” Roberts said.
October 23, 2003