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Transcript of Press Congerence Given by General Klaus Naumann,
Retiring Chairman of NATO's Military Committee, (Brussels, Tuesday 4 May 1999) |
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(Brussels, Tuesday 4 May 1999)
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(Naumann is being replaced by Italian Admiral Guido Venturoni.)
GENERAL NAUMANN:
Ladies and Gentlemen, first of all thank you very much for coming. I thought I should not hand over my Chairmanship of the Military Committee after three and a quarter years without having addressed you once again and giving you a little bit of I should say an up-date. Where do we stand at this point in time, after three and a quarter years which presumably will go down in history as the most turbulent years in NATO's 50 years of history, years in which the Alliance changed more profoundly than ever before.
I think it is best expressed by two political data which marked my tour, It started more or less with the Berlin Foreign Ministers meeting in June 1996 when the Alliance set sail to give itself a new set of missions, and it ended more or less with the Washington Summit a couple of days ago, where we published a number of documents in which all this progress which we made I think is really enshrined.
Of course you may be focused, as I am these days, on Kosovo. But I think we should not forget the bigger picture as well and I think I would like to bring to your attention a few points which belong to the bigger picture. When I assumed office as Chairman of the Military Committee, I had 14 nations sitting around the table - 14. Then France joined, then Iceland, after 49 years, joined the Military Committee. And now we have three new members at the table. It is a clear indication that NATO maintains and has strengthened cohesion and achieved improvements.
One of the improvements which I would like to mention is the new command structure which hopefully over time will lead to marked improvements, particularly in the southern region of NATO, and I dare to say no Chairman of the Military Committee before me has invested so much time and devoted so much attention to the problems of the southern region, and in particular of south eastern Europe. And as a matter of fact we have made big progress in this area and we planted seeds which hopefully will produce over time a really big and powerful tree.
We also began to work in these three years in the EAPMC format. We got partners to contribute and to engage in a dialogue. This has been for me the most fascinating experience. We should never forget most of these partners were just 10 years ago in the camp of NATO's enemy, and now we are working together. And we got them in this new format of the EAPMC to contribute, to engage in dialogue, and I believe this instrument of the EAPMC has the biggest gross potential for crisis management and conflict prevention in Europe if we handle it properly. So this is something we should dwell on in the future.
We also entered new ground with the cooperation with Russia and with Ukraine. I think we have made good progress in both areas. But I also do not conceal the fact that we are at the beginning of a long road towards more stability and we still have a lot of extra miles to go, particularly in these days. And I do hope, I sincerely hope, that Russia will reassess what we have achieved so far and then reconsider how they will deal with NATO in the future. And I think they should be aware that they need cooperation and that we see cooperation with them as essential for European stability. But we are embarking on this road of cooperation without having any illusions at all that our main interests may be different for quite a time to come, but knowing what their interests are, and of course being aware what our interests are, I think we can cooperate without compromising our basic values and interests.
We also succeeded in making PFP more operational and I think this is also a big achievement which we the military were given the chance to contribute to.
On enlargement, this is definitely one point which I see with greatest satisfaction since this means for me as a European that the division of Europe came to an end and for that reason I am very pleased that I was given the chance to work towards this political objective and I think the Military Committee contributed to this achievement.
I am also more than happy to inform you that today the Military Committee elected the first Polish Officer to be a Deputy Assistant Director in the International Military Staff, as of October this year, which also is an indication of how fast we proceed in achieving normalcy. A Hungarian general officer is by the way working in AFCENT, the headquarters which is quite actively involved in Operation Allied Force.
And so I would conclude my remarks on enlargement by simply stating the door will remain open and Washington has clearly charted the course for that.
Internally we not only mastered without any scars the flags to jobs" discussion in the new command structure. Many of you called it the Star Wars between the Generals and the Admirals. And we achieved the activation decision of the new command structure. But I think we removed, in working towards this end, a lot of elements which had definitely not strengthened NATO cohesion. I just mention as one example an activity which was not really the Military Committee's responsibility, but we removed a lot of obstacles in the infrastructure business and most of the infrastructure people I think are considering whether they should not offer some halos to the Military Committee, but I think we can survive without that.
CJTF and ESDI is on its way to implementation, but on ESDI I should say it is nice to have words and to have wonderful conceptual papers - what we now need to see are deeds and it is urgent that something is done. We don't need any new papers.
The next step we have to take in order to improve NATO's military capabilities is to look into the force structure, and related to that we have to work on the defence capability initiative and the weapons of mass destruction initiative, as decided in the Washington summit. And this reminds me of one fact which I have reported to Ministers again and again in my time, and that is the growing gap of capabilities which we see inside NATO, and if no remedy is found for that, will lead to an interoperability problem within NATO over time and could mean that the military will be unable to catch the train called Revolution in Military Affairs which is about to leave the station. I think we still have a chance to get it right. But it is high time to act, and this is a matter of urgency, and again I should say there is no need for papers. What we need to see are deeds.
So all in all a positive balance sheet. But then we got the additional challenge of the Kosovo operation. But there as well, as in all other issues, I would like to make four points which mark the cooperation in these headquarters.
I think we have enjoyed a superb civil and military cooperation. I do not belong to those who blame our political bodies like the Council of micro-management. It is definitely not true. I think we have seen splendid cooperation based on mutual confidence and mutual respect and I am proud to say the role and the influence of the Military Committee in NATO's political bodies is stronger than ever before. We have seen a magnificently performing Secretary General who really achieved a masterpiece in maintaining the cohesion of this Alliance in 41 days of a military operation - not an easy task, I can tell you. We have seen a very smooth cooperation between the International Staff and the International Military Staff and I am very proud of the excellent relationship which I enjoyed with the Major NATO Commanders. Of course if I say Major NATO Commanders you all think of SACEUR, but we have another one as well, over there in Norfolk Virginia, who, by the way, in terms of capabilities, is the powerhouse of this Alliance. And we have seen superb cooperation.
But despite this praise, I do not hesitate to say we need to think through the organisation of these Headquarters in days of crisis and war. We are at the moment in a situation of crisis, we are not at war, but we need to think through what we have got to do here.
And that brings me to the issue you all are presumably waiting for - where do we stand, from my perspective, in Kosovo? And there I start following up old military traditions with a glance at the opponent. I think that President Milosevic finds himself in a situation where the KLA have been militarily disrupted and to a large degree defeated, but the KLA are not eliminated and they still offer quite a lot of pockets of resistance. Their numbers are growing and it is true that President Milosevic himself is proving to be the best recruiting sergeant for the KLA. Consequently the fighting will go on and if the trend continues, over time President Milosevic is doomed to fail to achieve his objectives. In this regard it is obvious that he missed, as well as Russia did, the golden opportunity of Rambouillet where the KLA had accepted to disarm in a Kosovo which remained an integral part of the FRY.
Secondly, if President Milosevic's mass deportation campaign appears achievable, there also remains a large number of Kosovo Albanians still in Kosovo. Our military intervention can and has slowed down the efforts of President Milosevic, instruments for his ethnic cleansing, namely the VJ, the MUP and the paramilitaries, but we cannot stop such a thing entirely from the air.
And now let me turn to where we stand on Day 41. Quite frankly and honestly we did not succeed in our initial attempt to coerce Milosevic through airstrikes to accept our demands, nor did we succeed in preventing the FRY pursuing a campaign of ethnic separation and expression. But that said, we certainly succeeded in degrading the FRY's ability to conduct military operations in Kosovo. The Alliance has disrupted the command, control and communication apparatus; second, NATO has achieved air superiority, in mid to higher altitudes above the FRY; next, we have been very successful at restricting the movement of additional VJ/MUP forces and support into Kosovo by means of our attacks on the lines of communications; fourth and fifth, NATO has also inflicted quite severe damage to military industrial targets and maintenance facilities, thus disrupting the FRY's ability to repair and reconstitute forces; and sixth, we have equally had a serious impact on the FRY's ability to sustain their forces through the damage inflicted on the fuel, storage and distribution system; and finally, we see first indications that the morale of the FRY forces is being eroded by the effects of our airstrikes.
From this summary we can draw the following conclusions. One, in the race between destruction and reconstruction, we have achieved a remarkable degradation of the FRY military forces. This has slowed down the operational tempo. Moreover, by isolating the Kosovo battlefield if I may say so in an operational sense, through the destruction of the lines of communications, we are also impeding the FRY's ability to maintain operations in Kosovo, and these efforts are further complemented by inflicting heavy damage on the industrial plants that sustain and support the FRY military machine.
The second point, the air campaign is working but it is taking time. And this is perhaps most evident from the fact that all of President Milosevic's activities on the diplomatic psychological front appear to have but one objective, to win a respite to avoid cracks in the VJ and the MUP which are after all the basis upon which President Milosevic's personal power derives. And I think this highlights the importance of insisting on our side on the five points which NATO has established, which need to be respected before NATO ceases Operation Allied Force.
While on the subject of the air campaign and given the media interest in the topic, allow me also to make a few points regarding the most unfortunate by-product of our military actions, namely unintended civilian casualties. As in all military campaigns our air campaign is not without risk to civilians, despite the enormous efforts and precautions taken to minimise collateral damage. While some try to use the Operation Desert Storm analogy for comparative purposes in this regard, I would suggest such an approach is fatally flawed since Kosovo is not a flat uninhabited desert where the only human presence is military related.
Furthermore, the problem of potential civilian casualties is exacerbated in Kosovo where President Milosevic's instruments of repression deliberately employ civilian human shields to protect key assets from NATO attacks. While I do not wish to downplay the regrettable loss of civilian lives our campaign may have caused, and I add to that that I regard every single one civilian killed as being one too much, I would also highlight that the number of such undesired incidents is astoundingly low given the numbers of sorties flown. You may remember that we have flown more than 15,000 sorties. If you look into those which delivered ordnance, it is more than 5,000 sorties.
If you take into account that on an average sortie you may have at least on average three pieces of ordnance being dropped, so you end up with some 15,000 or more pieces of ordnance being dropped. And 6 went wrong. I think that is all in all a remarkable expression of the precaution we are taking to avoid civilian casualties. And I am sure if later on we will write the history of this campaign, one will give account to that.
The third point, the air campaign is as I said working, so there is no reason to change our strategy, but every reason for President Milosevic to rethink his. After all, he cannot win and he knows it, but he runs the risk to see the destruction of much of his country if he does not accept the five points of the international community. Having raised these five points I think it is critical to underline one in particular, namely the presence of an international military force in Kosovo. The presence of such a force is an absolute prerequisite to win the approval of the Kosovar Albanians to stop fighting and to give the refugees confidence they can return safely. Such an international military force is also essential for significant international reconstruction investments to occur in Kosovo, since the FRY power instruments have absolutely no credibility whatsoever.
As I am leaving I have to say as well that this conflict will give us ample opportunity to evaluate what lessons we have learnt. And although it is rather early to start the lessons learnt business, I would offer a few for your consideration.
One, this is the first coalition campaign in Europe in the information age. The lesson learnt here is that we have to win the information campaign as well. The best weapon we have in our inventory is openness, but this must be tempered with a requirement to avoid jeopardising operational security.
Two, we need to find a way to reconcile the conditions of a coalition war with the principle of military operations such as surprise and the use of overwhelming force. We did not apply either in Operation Allied Force and this cost time, effort and potentially additional casualties, the net result being that the campaign is undoubtedly prolonged.
Three, we need to find a way to seize the initiative in a coalition effort which by its very nature takes time to achieve consensus. That said, President Milosevic should not find any solace in these words, since NATO has nevertheless succeeded to control military escalation dominance and has maintained cohesion throughout. Indeed President Milosevic seriously underestimated Alliance resolve in the past as, by the way, he indicated himself in his Washington Times interview, and you would think he would have learnt his lesson by now.
Four, we need to draw some practical consequences in the force planning domain since the bulk of the Operation Allied Force is undoubtedly carried by the United States of America. The military capabilities of the European nations and Canada must be improved. We require action and not just more paper declarations.
I could not close my remarks without highlighting my admiration for the men and women from NATO's member nations executing Operation Allied Force, whose admirable professionalism and sterling dedication are an inspiration to us all. Militarily they have achieved a truly remarkable success over the past 41 days, all the more so given that there have been no Allied casualties and only 2 aircraft have been shot down. This is not only a testament to the incomparable quality of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines taking part, but it also validates the soundness of our military command structures and exemplifies the incredible character of leadership from SACEUR down. As a result of these factors, combined with the excellent cooperation which I enjoyed with SACEUR, is superb, political military relationship in the Council. NATO is in the process of successfully passing its most difficult test.
I think there can be no doubt that we have got to succeed, since anything short of that would mean risk for stability in Europe and for the security of the transatlantic area. It was this wider dimension, Ladies and Gentlemen, which inter alia and despite the fact that our intervention will result in the long term commitment of NATO in south eastern Europe, led us to the conclusion in March that we had to act, since the consequences of inaction would have been much more severe.
Thanks for your interest, thanks also for your company in these three demanding years of my life's journey. Every good luck to you.
QUESTION:
General, that was the first confirmation we have heard that the two planes lost by NATO were shot down. Can you reconfirm that they were shot down?
GENERAL NAUMANN:
I think that we have said in previous statements that they were shot down.
QUESTION:
And I have a follow-up. You have been a key player in the Kosovo operation since it started. How difficult is it going to be for somebody else to take over your position and how do you feel about it personally? Is it going to be difficult for you to be no longer operationally involved in something that you have been involved in from the beginning, and is there a risk of you turning into one of those people that you have criticised in the past, an armchair General, who will be advocating sending in ground troops the minute you take your uniform off?
GENERAL NAUMANN:
Starting with your last point, I can assure you I will not join the league of armchair Generals and I will refrain from any comment with regard to the activities of any of my successors. That is for me part of fair play. And I am pretty well aware that it is very easy to sit in an armchair and to make wonderful proposals since you do not feel the burden of responsibility on your shoulders. The only responsibility you have is to cater for the cheque you receive in some of the broadcasting stations for giving interviews, and I do not want to join that league.
Secondly, with regard to how I feel personally, well of course you are not entirely happy in such a situation. It is like leaving a group of friends aboard a ship which is in stormy seas and suddenly I am whisked away by a helicopter. I haven't ordered the helicopter and I am not entirely happy that I have to leave and pack, but there is no choice, that is not my choice.
And with regard to how I feel to be replaced, I think no-one is irreplaceable. Had I run my car into a tree yesterday night, they had to face the problem to replace me as well, or had I hit myself with a golf club by trying to have too good a swing, they may have a problem as well.
So that is not a question, everyone is replaceable.
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