Details

Reinventing NATO?

"Does the Alliance reflect the changing nature of transatlantic security?"

Welcome by Peter Weilemann, Director, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Brussels Office

Opening Address: Vte Etienne Davignon, President, IRRI-KIIB

Opening Keynote Address: Vecdi Gönul, Minister, Ministry of National Defence, Turkey

9:00-11:00 SESSION 1: SHOULD NATO BE REINVENTED, REINVIGORATED OR JUST REVAMPED?

The question marks over NATO’s future date right back to the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, yet the alliance’s credibility with the public has not waned very much, either in its long-time member countries or in the former communist states that have flocked to join. How deep should any future reforms of NATO penetrate? Does NATO suffer from real shortcomings, or are its problems more of image and perception? With a growing role in confronting international terrorism, how far will NATO’s reach stretch? Can it play a significant role in Middle Eastern or Central Asian security?

Moderator:

Jamie Shea, Deputy Assistant Secretary General for External Relations, Public Diplomacy Division, NATO

Introductory Speakers:

-Ron Asmus, Executive Director, The German Marshall Fund of the United States, Transatlantic Center,

Brussels

-John Colston, Assistant Secretary General for Defence Policy and Planning, NATO

-Luc Frieden, Defence Minister, Luxembourg

- Andrzej Karkoszka, Under-Secretary of State for Defence Policy, Ministry of Defence, Poland

Coffee Break 11:00-11:30

11:30-13:00 SESSION 2: NATO’S ROLE IN TRANSATLANTIC DEFENCE INDUSTRY COOPERATION

NATO has been a driver for transformation forces for good number of European armies. What is it contribution to transatlantic defence industries cooperation and to the development of new capabilities? With NATO’s new ‘out of area’ activities, in Afghanistan, and to some extent in Iraq, apparently pointing to a new direction for the alliance, what are the chief characteristics of new generation equipment needed? What implication does this have on the American and European defence transformations, network enabled defence and industrial alliances? Is NATO transforming the European armies rapidly enough?

Chair:

Stefan Zoller, CEO of EADS Defence and Communications Systems (DCS)

Introductory Speakers:

- Marshall Billingslea, Assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment, NATO

- Scott Harris, President, Continental Europe, Lockheed Martin

- Ion Mircea Plangu, Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence, Romania

- Ambassador Benoit d’Aboville, Permanent Representative of France to NATO*

KEYNOTE ADDRESS: GENERAL HARALD KUJAT, CHAIRMAN OF NATO MILITARY COMMITTEE

Lunch 13:00-14:30

14:30-16:00 SESSION 3: WHAT DOES NATO DO FOR EUROPE THAT THE EU STILL CAN’T DO FOR ITSELF?

If NATO didn’t exist, would the alliance’s European members need to invent it? In light of today’s post-Cold War security threats, what are the Command & Control functions that NATO provides, and to what extent are these functions being replicated within the European Union’s newly created ESDP? Will NATO’s chief raison d’être for some years to come be the slowness of EU decision-making, and the political difficulties of creating the EU institutional structures needed to give teeth to the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)? Do NATO governments, including the new Bush Administration, need to place fresh emphasis on the alliance’s value as a forum for re-building consensus on security and defence issues?

Moderator:

Peter Spiegel, Defence Correspondent, Financial Times*

Introductory Speakers:

- Pieter Cornelis Feith, Deputy Director General for CFSP, Council of the European Union

- General Graham Messervy-Whiting, Deputy Director of the Centre for Studies in Security and Diplomacy,

University of Birmingham, UK

- Seppo Kääriäinen, Minister, Ministry of Defence, Finland

- Leo G. Michel, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for National Strategic Studies National Defense University

KEYNOTE ADDRESS: JEAN-PAUL PERRUCHE, DIRECTOR GENERAL, EUROPEAN UNION MILITARY STAFF