NATO UNCLASSIFIED
NATO IN THE AGE OF GLOBAL CHALLENGES
Ambassador Martin Erdmann
Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Security Policy – NATOTokyo -- 8 March 2007

Excellencies,Ladies and Gentlemen,
Let me start by saying how much I appreciate the opportunity to appear before
such a distinguished audience, and to discuss with you the evolution of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization, and what it means for the relationship between NATO andJapan.

Let me also say that my delegation had excellent and result-oriented
consultations over more than eight hours yesterday on practical steps of NATO-Japan
cooperation after the groundbreaking visit of Prime Minister Abe to NATO in January.

It is now more than 17 years ago since NATO and Japan first started to develop
more structured contacts. As a result of a joint initiative, we organised a NATO-Japan
conference on the Belgian coast in 1990. At that time, no one knew exactly what toexpect. As our then Secretary General, my fellow countryman Manfred Wörner, put it,it was an experiment – an exploration of possibilities between friendly but distantrelatives.

Manfred Wörner had great hopes that the relationship would grow. He believed
strongly that Japan, like NATO, was a part of the larger Western security system. He
pointed out that we have a commonality of democratic values and political interests,
and that we share a very important security partnership with the United States. He saw
clearly that Japan and NATO would benefit greatly from a regular exchange of views.

In the event, the “experiment” we conducted on that rainy day at the Belgian
coast turned out to be a real success. Japan-NATO conferences became a regularpart of the NATO calendar, and diplomatic contacts steadily increased. As relatives go,-1NATO UNCLASSIFIED

NATO UNCLASSIFIED
we became less and less distant. And the late Manfred Wörner would certainly beproud to see what we have achieved together.

But have we achieved enough? When we started to develop more structured
NATO-Japan contacts back in 1990, we lived in quite a different world. The Cold War
had just come to an end, and we compared notes on what we considered to be thedominant issues of our time, notably the implications of a possible collapse of theSoviet Union. New, asymmetric threats, such as the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction or international terrorism, seemed of secondary importance at the time.
9/11 was not even conceivable.

Today we live in an entirely new era. Never have we been confronted with more
rapid and more fundamental international change.

And never before has theinternational environment confronted us with so many contradictions. Globalisation
continues to open up economies, create new wealth, and connect many regions to theglobal economy. Yet we also increasingly see globalisation’s darker side – as a vehicle
for importing radicalism, fanaticism and terrorism into our own societies.

The rapid progress in information technology offers a similarly ambivalentbalance sheet.

Modern means of communication can be tools for spreading

information, and making it possible for many more people to participate in the global
exchange of ideas. But we also witness how these same means of communication canbe misused to spread intolerance and outright hatred.

The same networks that allow money and information to be transferred instantly
across borders can also be used by criminal networks to traffic virtually any commodity,
whether it is laundered money, people, missile components, or fissile materials. Andas a result, countries that seek nuclear status, from North Korea to Iran, are given
unprecedented opportunities to realise their nuclear ambitions, even in the face of sterninternational opposition.

-2NATO UNCLASSIFIED

NATO UNCLASSIFIED
The contradictions do not end here.

In some parts of the world, countries

decide to associate, and even integrate, to better cope with the challenges posed byglobalisation. And the European Union is the best example of that tendency and evena model second to none in the world.

Elsewhere, however, states disintegrate into anarchy – into ungoverned spacesthat provide a safe haven for terrorist training camps or the international narcotics trade.
Afghanistan is perhaps the best example of that worrying trend, but there are more.
Look at Somalia, Sudan and several other countries in Africa that are close todisintegration.

In the past, we could afford to be complacent about developments that
happened far away. Geography was our shield. Oceans, deserts and mountains
offered us protection. In Europe, for decades, the Cold War had frozen the geo-politicalrealities into a big ice block. But today? Today, globalisation has once and for all
eliminated the notion of achieving safety by geographical distance. Geography nolonger serves as a buffer to chaos and instability farther afield. In other words, thesecurity of all our nations is more and more affected by what is happening elsewhereon the globe.

So the challenge for us today is clear. We need to use the driving forces ofglobalisation to our own advantage. We need to tackle the darker side of globalisationwithout compromising globalisation’s benefits.

How? By thinking and organising ourselves differently than we did in the past.
By saying goodbye to the outdated security paradigms of yesterday. And, above all, byexploring new approaches of security cooperation – reaching out beyond geographical,
cultural or religious boundaries.

NATO has taken this logic to heart. This Alliance came about almost 58 years
ago, in very different circumstances from today’s. NATO was brought into existence by-3NATO UNCLASSIFIED

NATO UNCLASSIFIED
the Cold War. It was a transatlantic Alliance created to address the specific security
challenges of a divided Europe.

That past is long gone. And just as the Cold War has long disappeared, so has
the old Cold War NATO Alliance. Today, security cooperation in NATO – between
North America and a Europe that is increasingly whole and free – has acquired afundamentally different character. We are no longer concerned with the defence ofEurope against the threat of an invasion by thousands of tanks. NATO is no longer
oriented towards static territorial defence with large armies. Instead, cooperation inNATO today is all about finding new answers to new challenges – the very challenges
that I described just a minute ago.

What, in concrete terms, distinguishes this new NATO from the old? Threepoints stand out.

The first and perhaps most visible aspect of today’s NATO is the way we look atsecurity. In a nutshell, we have realised that a territorial understanding of security issimply too narrow in an age of global threats. Rather than wait for the challenges tocome to us, we must be prepared to meet the challenges where they emerge – even ifthat may mean deploying far away from our traditional European perimeter.

Today, more than 50,000 troops are deployed under NATO command, inmissions and operations on three continents – from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Hindu
Kush. In Europe, NATO is keeping the peace in the Balkans, notably in Kosovo where
we are facing a challenging period in the context of the status settlement. In theMediterranean, we are conducting naval anti-terrorist patrols. In Afghanistan, our mostimportant and difficult mission, NATO is leading the International Security Assistance
Force, a mission that ranges from peacekeeping to reconstruction tasks and to combat
operations.

In Iraq, NATO is training Iraqi security forces.

earthquake in 2005, NATO provided humanitarian relief.

In Pakistan, after theAnd in Africa, NATO isairlifting African Union peacekeeping troops to the crisis region of Darfur.

-4NATO UNCLASSIFIED

NATO UNCLASSIFIEDThis is a broad spectrum of activities indeed – and some have raised thequestion whether NATO is trying to take on every problem thrown up by globalisation. I
can reassure you that this is not the case. If we would try to do that, we would fail. Ourstrength lies clearly in stabilisation operations. We have a range of invaluable assets.
Integrated military forces; a well-established and tried and tested political-militarydecision making structure; and a network of partner countries and troop contributing
nations from across the globe. And these capabilities and assets combined haveenabled us to prevail even in the most trying circumstances in Afghanistan.

In an age where threats to our security can emerge from anywhere in the world,
where distance has lost all meaning, and barriers to the movement of people,
technology and ideas – both good and bad – have collapsed, we know that we have totake a pro-active stance to promote stability and security. But we also know that this is
not possible by winning military victories in the classic sense – that we need to help
build efficient institutions, and to work closely together with local and other internationalactors.

Whether in Bosnia, Kosovo or Afghanistan, NATO’s aim is not to stay forever,
but to help achieve self-sustaining peace. In other words, the capacity of the countries
themselves to stand on their own feet, and no longer to rely on us for their stability andsecurity.

Which brings me to the second characteristic of today’s NATO, which are its
developing relations with other institutions. In the Balkans and in Afghanistan, we knowthat we cannot succeed with military forces alone, but that we have to work closely withothers. Security and development are two sides of the same coin. That is why rather
than try to deal with Afghanistan alone, we are constantly calling on the United Nations,
the European Union, the World Bank and other institutions to contribute their expertiseand resources to this common effort. Only such a comprehensive approach will allow
us to achieve lasting benefit from our considerable military investment, and thesacrifices made by soldiers from NATO and partner countries.

-5NATO UNCLASSIFIED

NATO UNCLASSIFIED
Indeed, at NATO Headquarters today, we are studying hard on how we canmake our interaction with other organisations, and even NGOs, more regular and more
substantive, so that we can pool our resources and work according to an integrated
political-military strategy.

And this brings me to the third characteristic of NATO today: its partnerships
with other nations. During the Cold War, NATO did not really need other countries tofulfil its essential security mission of self defence. Allied solidarity was enough. But
today, as we send our forces on complex missions well away from our traditional areaof operations, we realize full well just how much the success of these missions
depends on the contribution by other nations, and notably our partners. Some partners
help us with military bases, air fields and transit rights. Some provide forces to ourmissions, and some provide us with intelligence and expertise.

But our partners benefit, too. NATO is a framework that they can use to maketheir own contributions more effective. And our many NATO partnership programmes
provide these countries with material help and expertise in reforming their militaryforces and taking care of their own security problems. In sum, when NATO enters intoa partnership with another country, it is a relationship that benefits both.

So what does all this mean for the future of Japan-NATO relations? Well,
simply put, that our relationship is bound to gain in importance – and in substance.

Like the NATO Allies, Japan has demonstrated an increasing readiness andability to assume security responsibilities well beyond its own borders. For example,
since the mid-1990s, Japan has played a most welcome role in the Balkans region. It
was NATO that helped to end the war in this volatile part of Southeast Europe, but it
was with the help of Japan that we were able to win the peace as well. Japan’scontribution as a major donor nation has played an important part in the successful
recovery of the Balkans region, as well as its reintegration into the Europeanmainstream.

-6NATO UNCLASSIFIED

NATO UNCLASSIFIEDIn Afghanistan, Japan’s generosity and pragmatism are even more visible today.
Japans’ strong support for the Afghanistan compact and its commitment to thereconstruction of this country are valued by the entire international community. Japan’sefforts in the disbandment of illegal armed groups and in disarmament, demobilisation
and reintegration of former military combatants are among the most successful projects
in Afghanistan. And we also welcome Japan’s willingness to support a Law and Order
Trust Fund in order to strengthen police activities, and to support capacity development
at both the central and the community level.

What all this demonstrates is that, more and more, Japan and NATO have
converging security interests, and are working together effectively to meet common
objectives. And that makes Japan, the country in Asia with which NATO has thelongest-standing relationship, a truly unique partner for the Alliance.

Excellencies,Ladies and Gentlemen,
Given the changes of the global environment and the evolution of NATO, given
the unique nature of 21st century stabilisation operations, and Japan’s increasing roleas an international provider of security, the time has clearly come to open a newchapter in our relationship.

In NATO, we see Japan as a natural partner in our efforts to achieve a morestable international system. We have many common interests. Our challenge is tocontinue to turn these common interests into common action. And I am confident that,together, we will meet that challenge.

Thank you.

-7NATO UNCLASSIFIED