Thank you very much. I too am very grateful for this opportunity to outline what I perceive to be the main issues around NATO's nuclear posture arising from the strategic concept and, more recently in May, the adoption of the deterrence and defence posture review.
There are three angles I would like to cover, the first being internal alliance-wide consultations and the need for cohesion going forward, not just in agreeing to a consensus document in the last two summits, but also in looking forward and the challenges that the alliance faces.
The second is the primary potential nuclear threat facing the alliance, namely Russia.
The third is the emergence of potential new threats coming from southeast of Europe.
Turning to the first, NATO cohesion, I think it would be a significant error to look at the last two summits and conclude that there is a clear cohesion amongst allies on the future of nuclear deterrence within Europe. Yes, there is support for nuclear deterrence as a concept, going forward, at least into the indefinite future, but one also has to remember that there is significant support across the membership of the alliance for the vision outlined by President Obama in 2009 for taking serious steps towards a world free of nuclear weapons. One of the most obvious and clear symbols of the obstacles to that is the continued deployment of what many perceive to be outdated, free-fall nuclear weapons within Europe. There is continuing disagreement over the longer-term future of these weapons, which will inevitably arise as investment decisions come forward over the next few years in some of the host states, particularly Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
What we have at the moment is a false consensus that has papered over the cracks of the disagreement. The problem here is that the public opinion in these countries certainly seems to be that we have long since moved away from the Cold War and that the range of these weapons is not relevant.
Indeed, they fulfill no military purpose. They are only there because to withdraw them would send unintentional signals to the Russians. This is really the essence behind the obstacles to change, particularly in central and eastern Europe, where there is little faith in the deployment of these weapons, even for deterrence purposes, because they would require the agreement of allies that they don't trust to come through in a crisis. Nevertheless, they don't want these weapons withdrawn so that those allies are even less committed to their ultimate protection against Russian influence. As a result, I think we have guns that are being held to the heads of allies, which is not a very conducive strategy for long-term alliance cohesion.
The second issue I wanted to deal with was Russia. The false consensus I was referring to earlier has come around to focusing on reciprocity and on these weapons for which we perceive no particular utility, other than to negotiate with the Russians to ensure that their far larger stocks of tactical nuclear weapons are reduced and that they are more transparent over them. This is a very laudable objective, but unfortunately the Russians are not yet ready to play ball, and even if there were an election next month of a president who was ready to deal with the Russians, it's not at all clear that the Russians are easy negotiating partners here. The reason for this is that the Russians perceive the ever-increasing capabilities of the alliance with significant alarm.
It may look very different from the perspective of Ottawa, but in Moscow there is certainly concern around those capabilities. Mixed with the willingness of the alliance, not only in action but also in the agreements of the alliance, to use its force to intervene around the world, they perceive this as an ever-decreasing capability of Russia to contain what they perceive to be an alliance with many ambitions. Therefore, whatever we think about our intentions, the Russians certainly are painting them as something that is very hostile to their interests.
On the positive side, the Russians don't have particular ongoing financial capabilities to expand their nuclear forces. Indeed, I think there is some suggestion that they will be willing to negotiate in future rounds of strategic negotiations, but they're not quite ready yet to deal on the issue we really want to deal with, which is tactical nuclear weapons. There's a lack of trust that is deepened by the votes in the U.S. Congress over the last few years and by the debates that took place even on the very simple ratification of the new START treaty.
With regard to the Middle East, I would expect you to be particularly interested in the emergence of threats coming from there. Of course, many people are talking about Iran and its nuclear program, and the possibility of an Israeli strike. Where does NATO fit into this? Well, NATO doesn't have a particularly direct role, but of course there is always the possibility that the Americans will be asking NATO to play some sort of role if the Americans were drawn into a conflict, if only for legitimacy purposes.
NATO has a policy of trying to prevent proliferation into the region, and that's a very laudable objective. I personally think that the best promise here is to be dealing with the region in a more balanced way, to be looking at it region-wide, and to be placing greater emphasis on the proposed conference at the end of this year on a WMD-free zone across the Middle East, a vision that is a long way away from being realized but that is nevertheless a process that could pull together very difficult partners in negotiations and build confidence over a longer period.
The NATO ally most involved—other than, of course, the United States—is Turkey, and I'm not entirely sure we can get away with the deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons in Turkey into the indefinite future and negotiate on a WMD-free zone in the Middle East. It will be very soon that the Iranians and others that are not necessarily allies of NATO will be referring to those deployments as influencing their decisions as to whether to go forward in building confidence toward a zone free of nuclear weapons.
I think I'm out of my 10 minutes now. I'm very willing to take questions.