The Foreign Ministers from the Allied countries agreed, on Wednesday, 1 December, at their meeting in Riga, on the lessons to be drawn from the situation in Afghanistan in order to improve the way NATO plans and conducts future crisis management operations at both political and military levels.
While 20 years of operations in Afghanistan have ensured that no terrorist attacks planned on Afghan soil were carried out in any of the Allied countries, the ambition to build a stable country has been much more difficult to achieve, the Alliance agrees.
Thus, according to a NATO fact sheet, “in the future, when planning and conducting operations, Allies should continually assess strategic interests, remain acutely aware of the dangers of mission expansion, and seek to avoid commitments that go far beyond the tasks set”.
The Alliance should define “realistic and achievable” objectives and seek greater involvement of other international actors better able to deliver non-military results on the ground (e.g. girls’ schooling), the document adds.
Speaking to the media after the meeting, the Alliance Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, said it was “clear that crisis management (must) remain a core task of NATO” and that NATO must ensure that its levels of ambition remain realistic.
While without the Allied presence, Afghan forces only lasted a few days against the Taliban, Mr Stoltenberg said the Alliance must ensure that when it trains and builds local capacity, it allows these forces to be more self-sustaining and not totally dependent on NATO. The aim is that when the Alliance leaves, these forces will be able to sustain their own efforts and presence.
The fact sheet also considers it important that future training, advice and assistance missions take into consideration the political and cultural norms of the host country, as well as the capacity of the society in question to absorb capacity building and training.
And while consultations on the future of the mission had been “open and sincere”, Mr Stoltenberg said he felt that the Allies would have benefited from more meaningful discussions on the negotiations of the US-Taliban agreement reached last February.
Moreover, while the Kabul airlift in August demonstrated the Alliance’s ability to support a massive evacuation operation, “for the future, we should explore how to strengthen NATO’s ability to conduct short-notice, large scale non-combatant evacuation efforts, either through the NATO Response Force or as a stand-alone force”, the Secretary General added.
The fact sheet also notes that the missions in Afghanistan have fostered political integration and military interoperability of Allied and partner forces, increasing the Alliance’s overall political strength and combat capacities. “NATO should consider how to maintain the level of military interoperability and political dialogue achieved through cooperation with operational partners in Afghanistan”, the paper said.
Cooperation with the EU in the Western Balkans
In the presence of their Finnish and Swedish counterparts and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the ministers also discussed the situation in the Western Balkans.
“NATO will continue to promote stability, security and cooperation in the region, and we agreed on the importance of our presence, including our KFOR mission in Kosovo and our offices in Sarajevo and Belgrade”, Mr Stoltenberg explained. He said that cooperation with the EU remained essential and both organisations would continue to work to preserve stability and support reforms.
Asked about tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Secretary General warned that the Alliance would do its utmost to prevent the dismantling of the multi-ethnic Bosnian armed forces, while the leader of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, has announced the forthcoming creation of an army for the country’s Serbian entity. “We will do everything we can to prevent this from happening, because we need multi-ethnic institutions, state institutions, including the armed forces. So we will focus and continue to work with Bosnia and Herzegovina”, he promised.
Finally, the Allied Ministers discussed the security situation in the region with their Georgian and Ukrainian counterparts. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)