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Bush: NATO transitioning from static alliance to expeditionary alliance

~ U.S. President tells Riga Conference that U.S. will not leave Iraq until "mission is complete" ~

28.11.2006

RIGA, Latvia (November 28, 2006) - Capping a full day of high-level discussion at The Riga Conference: Transforming NATO in a New Global Era, U.S. President George W. Bush identified three critical pieces to NATO's expanding role, and consequently three key U.S. priorities for the coinciding NATO Summit.

Bush said that NATO is in transition from a static force to an expeditionary force, and that NATO's Special Operation Forces initiative, the Strategic Airlift initiative, and the Riga global partnership alliance (which includes countries like Japan and Australia), three things on the table at the NATO Summit.

In a wide-ranging tour of global challenges that followed, Bush also addressed the ever-growing concern over Iraq by refusing to capitulate to demands for troop withdrawal. "There's one thing I'm not going to do, I'm not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete," Bush said.

Bush spoke to an audience of internationally recognized policymakers, officials, scholars, and business leaders, organized by the Strategic Analysis Commission under the auspices of the President of Latvia, the Latvian Transatlantic Organization, and the German Marshall Fund of the United States. In addition, participants from the NATO Young Leaders Forum were in attendance.

Earlier in the day, Riga Conference participants contributed to panels on global NATO partners and on Afghanistan, and former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani addressed the delegates.

"NATO has always been, not just about military defense, but about our ideas and our ideals," Giuliani said. "And maybe even more about our ideas and our ideals because that's how I think NATO played such a strong role in helping us prevail in the cold war."

The Afghanistan panel featured James Jones, the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, as well as Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay and Zalmai Rassoul, Afghanistan's National Security Advisor.

"There are some things that we just need to stitch together better," Jones said. "I think that NATO forces for instance cannot operate independently of the reconstruction and development... We need that mechanism whereby NATO not only speaks to the EU for example, but to all aspects of what we're trying to do and we focus on all those things that really have to absolutely be done now."

In the panel on NATO's growing global role, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said NATO's growing mandate was inevitable. "We don't really have a choice," he said. "We are engaged in dealing with the security problems of the Eurasian southern rim. And if we're going to be effective we have to engage those powers that are prepared to help us. Because I, frankly, don't think we can do it on our own."

The Riga Conference: Transforming NATO in a New Global Era, occurring November 27-29, during the NATO Riga Summit, convenes decision-makers who shape, enact, and exercise the policies at the core of NATO's agenda. The Riga Conference focuses on NATO's continuing transformation - on its outreach and new relationships around the world, the question of expanding NATO's role in global crises, energy security, Afghanistan, and the Balkans, its future with Russia, and its own future for enlargement.