By CHRIS GRAEME chris.graeme@theresidentgroup.com
NATO Secretary-General Anders Rasmussen warned that European members needed to invest in modernising their armed forces.
Speaking in Lisbon during a one-day trip to the Portuguese capital on Friday, July 2, to discuss preparations for the forthcoming NATO summit, which will take place here in November, he said: “If European partners don’t do so, we run the risk of weakening our transatlantic links and our influence in the world.”
Anders Rasmussen said that there was “an enormous gulf” between the two sides of the Atlantic (United States and European NATO member states) stressing that the United States spent “three times more” per soldier than the average European budget on defence spending.
“Europe has benefitted from enormous American investment but European leaders need to understand that if Europe wants to be seen as a promoter of security while guaranteeing that the Alliance continues, investment is essential,” he added.
Collective defence
In his first visit to Portugal as NATO Secretary-General, in which he held talks with Portugal’s Foreign Minister Luís Amado and Defence Minister Augusto Santos Silva, it was stressed that the summit in Lisbon would come at a “particularly important time in transatlantic relationships” with profound political and geopolitical changes.
Luís Amado said that NATO partners needed to reinforce its credibility over its operational capacity in Afghanistan.
Anders Rasmussen also addressed Kosovo and anti-piracy measures in and around the Horn of Africa.
“Obviously Afghanistan will remain our most important operation for quite some time.
“In Afghanistan there has been a change of command but there will not be change of strategy,” he said referring to Barack Obama’s recent decision to remove the Commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, replacing him with General David Petraeus.
“The strategy is to gradually hand over control to the Afghans as their capacity to take responsibility for security develops. This is why our training programme in Afghanistan is so important. We have to train and educate Afghan soldiers and police with the aim to hand over responsibility province by province where conditions permit,” he said.
“We hope that we will be able to make an announcement at the summit that that transition can start in some provinces, but the conditions must be fulfilled and, therefore, I urge all allies and partners to contribute to our training mission and it is very important that the Portuguese Government has given particular priority to our training mission.”
The NATO Secretary-General said it was important to stay “committed” in Afghanistan and stay “as long as it took” to secure the country. “If we were to prematurely leave Afghanistan, terrorists could again have a safe haven there to launch terrorist attacks,” he warned.
Finally, he said the summit in Lisbon would prove to be one of the most important NATO summits ever because it would “shape the future of NATO” since a new strategic concept was to be approved.
The new strategic concept will set out the core tasks for NATO which is the “collective defence of our territories and populations” based on solidarity and the principle that an attack on one is considered to be an attack on all.
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