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October 13, 2009

Scottish Review

Why we must stay in Afghanistan

Weak, unstable and failed states now outnumber stable countries by two to one. And as Somalia and Taliban-controlled Afghanistan have vividly demonstrated, it is in these states that the germs of trouble incubate and spread to the rest of us. But there is more. Climate change poses huge problems – from desertification, water shortages and conflict about it, migration flows and wars about other scarce resources. Then there are the population shifts and the radicalisation which arise from gross inequalities, from poverty, from ethnic and religious tensions.

Proliferation of nuclear technology and techniques allied to a terrorism which knows no boundaries or moral scruples is an ever-present preoccupation of horizon scanners. The starburst of information and connectivity has made trouble, like vacationers, easy to travel. And this interconnected, mobile world has made rapidly developing biotechnologies a potent new worry. Organised crime – through trafficking in people, drugs, guns and illicit goods now dwarfs petroleum as a world business – and its ramifications are deep and reach right into our own local communities.

At the same time, our societies, businesses and critical national infrastructure like power stations and water supplies become ever more complex and live on a knife edge. If it only required a crisis in the American housing market to cascade the collapse of Wall Street and plunge the world into recession, then other vital parts of our societies are just as vulnerable. Our world has become more complicated, less predictable, more difficult to manage and greatly more interdependent. The idea of nations confronting all this on their own is now pure fiction.

So what do we do? Where do we turn to if we are to ensure that our people are safe? I suggest that we start by being straight with them. Tell them the truth of our vulnerability and tell them what cannot be done on our own and what has to be done collectively.

Then take them through the alternatives.

We could go it alone. We could make out that we have no need for permanent alliances and that we will build our own walls to protect us. We could be an Ireland or a Switzerland – who at least have a long, honourable tradition of neutrality – and pretend that the worst will not happen to us. If we ever thought that this made sense, the way in which the financial dominoes fell last year should tell us that this is not a sensible or safe option. Or we could delude ourselves into thinking that if the time came we could cobble together a coalition of the willing which would tackle the threat at the time. But who can tell where the next 9/11 will be, or the next tsunami, or the next spill-over conflict. 'It will be all right on the night' may be good enough for the theatre, but not for a household insurance policy never mind national survival.

Then there are some who think that 'on the night' the US will come to the rescue. Even under the near-magical President Obama, the line will be busy when they call because the American people, except for their commitments under Article 5, have had enough of helping out other people who won't help themselves. So it is a delusion to think that there is another alternative to collective security under NATO in this complex, unpredictable world which we inhabit today.

Of course NATO cannot deal with all of the threats and increasing vulnernabilities I have set out, but is the most successful permanent coalition of the willing yet invented and it can, and does, underpin all approaches to security for its members. But NATO cannot be stationary. Its survival and continuing relevance has depended on it constantly evolving and adapting to changing circumstances and to the different needs of its members. From Cold War bulwark, through post-Cold War facilitator, to Balkan peacemaker then peace-keeper. From heavy metal armies to light modern forces and from a purely military alliance to a diplomatic and political organisation with the back-up of relevant last-resort armed forces. It has to adapt and modernise again. To leave things as they are is not an option. The NATO of 11 is not capable of being run in the same way as with 19, still less at 28. Its decision making and financing and internal organising has to change. If it is not as nimble and as flexible as its enemies then it will not fulfil its members' requirements or international need.

NATO has to finish the job in Afghanistan and it has to constantly explain and spell out why we are there. This is not some great social engineering project to change Afghan society, nor is it some modern-day colonisation of a distant country. We are there to make sure that the Taliban do not return and provide the help and support to global terrorist organisations like al Queda to enable them to prepare more 9/11s for the world. As I often had to say, 'Either we go to Afghanistan or Afghanistan will come to us'. That is the simple choice, and I cannot praise too much the brave troops from Scotland and the other NATO countries who face the dangers and pay a heavy price to make us here at home as safe as we are.

NATO has to be seen as just one component of the safety of our people. The European Union is doing more all the time in security – as indeed it should. It has weapons NATO has not got – in diplomacy, development, in aid, and in civilian re-constructors. But European countries waste millions of their defence budgets on the enemies of yesterday, not the threats of tomorrow – and that has to change. NATO and the EU are two parts of the same walnut of security, and money wasted on Cold War capabilities is money lost to urgent collective protection.

NATO has changed as the world has changed – as it had to, and as it must. It is still our best hope for the future, binding the US and Canada to the security of the Euro Atlantic space in an alliance of free nations believing in common values and willing to defend and protect them.

At my last defence ministers' meeting, held in Colorado Springs in the US, I received a t-shirt in exchange for a bottle of finest 17-year-old Bowmore malt whisky – thereby destroying at least one false stereotype of the Scots. But it was worth it, because the t-shirt has the slogan, 'This aint your daddy's NATO'.

And no, it's not.

It has to be my sons' NATO and more importantly my grandsons' NATO because they live in a very different world. They deserve no less than a modernised, fit for purpose, collective security organisation to give them the same chances and choices and freedoms we have all had the good fortune to experience. That is the challenge. Have we the wit, the wisdom or the will to rise to it?

I, for one, hope so.

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