Afghanistan at centre of NATO summit
Updated
The largest summit in NATO's history begins this week in Bucharest. Heads of government from 26 NATO countries will begin meeting on Wednesday to discuss what to do do about the war in Afghanistan.
Presenter: Linda LoPresti
Speaker: Dr Rod Lyon, international security expert with the Australian Strategic Policy Instutute.
LYON: I think the question for NATO is not what it comes out with, it's what it translates into practice. NATO for sometime in Afghanistan has faced a very challenging problem as we do, as our troops are there too. I think you have to see Afghanistan as a three level issue. Like the problems endemic to the country. There are problems from having a non supportive environment, in particular Pakistan and there are the problems that are our problems mainly that we don't have the right security instruments to really help Afghanistan and we haven't been putting enough effort into it.
LOPRESTI: So, what sort of benchmarks do you think need to be set into Bucharest this week to ensure the success of the Afghan mission?
LYON: There are at least two things happening here and one is that if you look at the quantities of forces that have to go in, in order to do successful peacekeeping and national reconstruction tasks, you probably looking at the fact that the forces in Afghanistan in total are probably to light by may be a factor of two and that might even be more than that. If you look at the money going in, at the moment, we're trying to reconstruct Afghanistan on a funding per year of about 60 US dollars per capita and in Bosnia and Kosovo, that figure was closer to 600. So we're a long way short on money.
LOPRESTI: In terms though of troop deployment and troop commitment, there is division between the NATO countries. On the one side, you have countries like Britain, Canada and the United States, which have taken casualties in Afghanistan, who say they want more troops. On the other side, you have Germany and Italy who want greater emphasis on reconstruction. Do you think that kind of division will somehow be sorted in Bucharest?
LYON: I think it's going to remain a live division after Bucharest. I think what you see in Bucharest is the sort of alliance that NATO is now and always has been, namely it's an alliance that groups together a mixture of both carnivores and herbavors . So there have always been some countries who have brought a greater willingness to use force to the party as it were and that's going to remain after the Bucharest summit.
This means that a lot of NATO forces are going to continue to be deployed bearing national caveats and those national caveats say how those forces can be used.
What we're looking for is NATO to become more engaging across the board, but also I think with some of those caveats that they be just lifted a little bit. How many of them will be, I don't know, but I take Rudd and Fitzgibbons visit to Bucharest to be a way of the new government to say that Australia takes the problem seriously and it hopes other NATO capitals do to.
LOPRESTI: And what about the visit of the US President, George Bush? This will be his final NATO meeting. He'll be as we've said pushing for more troops in Afghanistan, but will his call be heeded do you think, given that he is a lame duck president and I guess also all eyes will be how he reacts or how he interacts rather with Russia's Vladamir Putin?
LYON: As you rightly say, it's both his last summit, but its also his chance to engage bilaterally with a number of important countries on separate matters, some of which will include the deployment ballistic missile sensors in Europe, some of which will go to build, there's a great power relation between the United States and the other great powers. Does he genuinely expect Afghanistan to be solved at Bucharest? I suspect not, but again it's a sign the Americans want to send to NATO that they're encouraging NATO down a particular path.
LOPRESTI: Alright, just finally what is your view as to how this NATO summit will end? Do you see it as just a water treading exercise?
LYON: Well, I hope it's more than a water treading exercise but I don't think it's going to give you a solution to Afghanistan, as it were.
What's interesting I think is Australia's presence at the meeting, because that is a sign that NATO is starting to take its partnerships a little more seriously. And it's interesting for us, because we are invited to the top table in large part because we are a global player and because we are in Afghanistan.
