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Few results as the shortest Summit ends
Few results as the shortest Summit ends
From Acronym Consultant Martin Butcher in Riga, November 29, 2006
See also:
- Riga Summit Declaration, Issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Riga on November 29, 2006.
- Comprehensive Political Guidance Endorsed by NATO Heads of State and Government on November 29, 2006.
- NATO on track for 2010 theatre missile defence, NATO Update, November 28, 2006.
- "Two Sides of the Same Coin: Nuclear Non-proliferation and Nuclear Disarmament" - joint article by Federal Minister Steinmeier and his Norwegian counterpart Støre in the Frankfurter Rundschau, November 11, 2006, German Ministry of Foreign Affairs (thank you to Oliver Meier at the Arms Control Association for bringing this to our attention).
The 2006 Riga Summit drew to a close today with few achievements in the bag. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the Summit had lasted a day and a half, but in fact a dinner, a trip to the opera, and 2 hours around the conference table were the sum total of the time NATO leaders spent together here.
It is really striking that a debate about the nature of the Alliance has been sidestepped. Should NATO be, as the Secretary General has said, a provider of security and stability as it is trying to be in Afghanistan? Or should it concentrate on more traditional defence and security activities in the Euro-Atlantic area? What role do nuclear weapons play in Alliance defence policy?
It is also striking that the one security topic of greatest concern to the United States - that is, Iraq, has been completely absent from discussion here. While the wounds of 2003's battles inside the Alliance have been bandaged, they have not healed and any attempt to build a major Alliance contribution for Iraq would be fruitless.
Even the situation with Iran, which if armed with nuclear weapons would pose a serious threat to NATO member Turkey is not prominent here. Since the EU is leading negotiations with Iran, it has been kept off the NATO agenda - a symptom of the dysfunctional EU-NATO relationship and the ongoing struggle between Atlanticists who are happy in an American-led unipolar world, and those who wish to see the EU take on a global strategic role of its own.
So, what has NATO done in Riga?
Comprehensive Political Guidance (CPG)
NATO Heads of State and Government have approved and published the CPG, already agreed by Defence Ministers last June. This document is short, bland and somewhat self-contradictory.
For example, it reconfirms the 1999 Strategic Concept, which "described the evolving security environment in terms that remain valid", but the two greatest threats to NATO identified in the CPG are terrorism and the spread of WMD. The latter received some mention in the 1999 document, but the threat of terrorism was almost completely absent.
