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Disarmament DocumentationMunich Security Conference, February 1-338th Annual Munich Conference on Security Policy, Munich, Germany, February 1-3. Note: for texts of all speeches and related material, see the official Conference website, http://www.securityconference.de.
Speech by Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov'Countering International Terrorism by Military Force', speech by Sergei B. Ivanov, Minister of Defence of the Russian Federation, February 3. The tragic events of the past year in the US serve [as] horrible evidence to the fact of how vulnerable the civilized world is in the face of globalizing challenges and threats. These acts of terror have graphically revealed the imperfection of today's world order... In their style and impact on public consciousness, the terrorist attacks in the US are close to the blow[ing] up of the apartment houses in Russia in 1999. The similarity in [the] terrorists' "signature" is obvious, despite the fact that different technical means were used... The analysis of terrorists' actions shows that, as a rule, they do not burden themselves with inventing any special delivery systems to bring weapons of terror to the spot. Rather, they employ the means that can easily be accessed and used in everyday life. Those are cars or suicide terrorists in Russia and Israel, planes in the United States. Any delay on the part of the world community in taking preventive measures against terror may result in even more horrible consequences. Special danger can be posed by threats to attack nuclear installations, nuclear power plants and attempts to seize various WMD munitions, detonation of high yield bombs at public places, demolition of dams and other actions which can lead to environmental disasters. ... Russia's position on the issue of necessity to combat international terrorism with all its variations was clearly defined by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the summit meeting in the US last November - terrorism must be eliminated everywhere and in all its manifestations. As of today, adequate use of military force is the main method of countering manifestations of international terrorism. ... However, any actions taken by the states and international organizations against terrorists, including the use of force, should [be] based on norms and principles of the international law, be adequate to the existing threats. After all, combating international terrorism by military force alone cannot be totally effective. ... It is common knowledge that it is easier to prevent a disease than to cure it. And only promoting and building up international cooperation on the basis of principles and norms of the international law, the UN Charter included, can effectively deal with such a phenomenon as international terrorism. Proceeding from this premise, it is extremely important to ensure the participation of all states in universal anti-terrorist conventions. And here, defense establishments of the world community countries can be assigned a mission of accomplishing a broad range of strategic tasks in countering international terrorism. One can identify the following main tasks: Assessing information in terms of status, dynamics and trends in spreading international terrorism; Making recommendations to heads of states of the world community on areas of cooperation to be further promoted in this domain; Participating in shaping and developing an effective system to expose, warn of and prevent terrorist attacks which would be abreast of existing situation and trends of terrorism evolution; Coordinating joint efforts to prevent terrorist attacks at nuclear installations and attacks using WMD; Pooling resources to carry out operations aimed at eliminating existing terrorist organizations and outlawed armed groups, intercepting and cutting off illegal arms, munitions, fissile and highly toxic materials trade channels. ... Back to the Top of the PageSpeech by Pakistan Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar'International Terrorism', Speech by Abdul Sattar, Foreign Minister of Pakistan, February 2. Our Government's decision to join the Coalition was prompt but it was not easy. A section of opinion, misconstruing the war on terrorism as war against Afghanistan, argued that participation in the Coalition was inconsistent with Pakistan's obligations to a friendly and fraternal neighbour. Extremists threatened demonstrations. Bringing courage to convictions, President Musharraf took the case directly to the people. Most opinion leaders agreed with the logic of the policy of joining the Coalition. The broad masses gave silent support by refusing to join the opposition. ... The scenes of happiness of the Afghan people at their liberation from oppressive restrictions further undercut the extremists. Their claim to strength on the streets was exposed as overblown. The collapse of the extremist bubble gave encouragement and strength to our government. We decided to move faster and more vigorously to implement the policy of curbing extremism and militancy. That policy was actually conceived before September 11. Its implementation had started in June, when the government prohibited public display of firearms and called for surrender of unlicensed weapons. On August 14 the government banned two militant groups and warned two others to mend their ways. Three weeks ago, on 12 January, President Pervez Musharraf banned five more militant groups, froze their bank accounts, seized assets, locked their offices, prohibited misuse of mosques for inflammatory propaganda and announced reforms of madrassas (religious schools) so that they impart wholesome education. ... In the wake of September 11, statesmen have emphasized that terrorism should not be equated with Islam. President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair have taken pains to quote from the Quran to remind audiences that the killing of innocent persons is abhorrent to Muslims as well. Islam emphasizes the sanctity of human life. It is a religion of peace, of tolerance, of diversity and respect for other faiths. Secretary Powell said to me after President Musharraf's speech of January 12: "We in America are learning about Islam." I said, so also are we Muslims. ... The doctrine of Jihad has been mistranslated and misunderstood. Actually, as explained by respected Quranic scholars, Jihad means struggle or striving for noble ends. The term "holy war" is alien to Islam, which forbids aggression. Even a war of self-defence was termed by the Prophet as "Lesser Jihad". The "Greater Jihad" is the struggle of the soul or the collective struggle for the benefit of the community. Thus, one can speak of Jihad against ignorance, poverty or other social problems. ... On the international plane, Pakistan has always taken a clear and consistent stand against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. ... Of course no one condones terrorism. The problem of definition arises when some countries with skeletons in their closets exploit the label of terrorism to discredit legitimate movements for self-determination. Today, it is clear: Freedom fighters must not commit acts of terrorism. But the label of terrorism must not be exploited to justify state terrorism. Nations are torn by the controversy encapsulated in the phrase 'one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter'. Bhagat Singh was convicted and hanged in 1931 after he had shot and killed a Police Inspector of the colonial power and thrown a bomb in the Legislative Assembly in Delhi. He was immediately proclaimed as "The Great Martyr". What would Bhagat Singh be called today? ... The right of "self-determination of peoples" is affirmed in the UN Charter. It was reiterated in the UN Millennium Summit Declaration of September 2000. ... According to Amnesty International "The population of Jammu and Kashmir has been subjected to high level of violence over a decade. Since 1989 approximately 34,000 people, including thousands of civilians, have reportedly died." The Human Rights Watch has reported arbitrary arrests, torture, staged 'encounter killings' disappearances, unprovoked and indiscriminate firing by Indian security forces killing participants in peaceful demonstrations. The festering issue of Kashmir has blighted the life of the Kashmiri people. It has also been the root cause of tension in Pakistan-India relations. The issue can and should be settled by peaceful means. Last July President Musharraf and the Prime Minister of India met at Agra. Pakistan was ready to sign a Declaration providing for a comprehensive dialogue process for settlement of Kashmir and all other issues. Pakistan remains ready to pick up the threads and move forward to a purposeful dialogue. The terrorist attack at the Indian Parliament on December 13 was condemned by Pakistan. We also offered to cooperate in an objective inquiry and to take action if any group in Pakistan was implicated. The two countries could discuss an agreement to criminalize the use of their respective territories for terrorist attacks against the other. Allegations of infiltration across the line of control in Kashmir should be impartially verified by the UN Observers Group which could be strengthened. Instead, India has massed a million troops on our borders. Tension is dangerously high. Efforts of common friends to defuse the crisis have led to a certain political de-escalation. But the deployment of such large forces in close proximity has inherent dangers. At a time when a spark can ignite a conflagration, the situation calls for exercise of restraint and responsibility. India's decision to test-fire two ballistic missiles was both unwise and unwarranted. It deserved international criticism and censure. ... Back to the Top of the PageSpeech by NATO Secretary General George RobertsonSpeech by NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson, February 3. Today, the most serious security issue facing us all is the campaign against terrorism. At ground zero and elsewhere in New York earlier this week I was told repeatedly that NATO's response to September 11 had reaffirmed the importance of the transatlantic partnership. But we have all seen in the past month that a succession of commentators have started to argue that NATO has been marginalised and that its future is in doubt. This is not the first time that predictions of this kind have been made. When the Berlin Wall fell, some critics suggested that NATO had completed its mission, and could pack it in. Then, after the success of the Gulf War coalition, they suggested that all future operations would be exactly like Desert Storm - and that, as a result, NATO wasn't needed to meet modern challenges. The critics were wrong. During the 1990s, NATO's members transformed the Alliance to deal with instability in Southeast Europe, to provide security across the European continent and to spearhead the modernisation of their armed forces. NATO prospered, expanded and even won its first military campaign, in Kosovo. Kosovo was, by any standards, a huge success. We won in 78 days, with minimum casualties and none on the Allies side, without a legacy of bitterness or terror, and with all our objectives met. Every time I visit Kosovo, I meet people who would not be alive today but for NATO's planes and soldiers. You don't hear them bleating about "war by committee." ... But September 11 changed the world. As a result, some critics now argue that NATO has no role in dealing with the new threats that confront us all. Or that it could have a role but lacks the political will to seize it. I totally disagree. ... NATO is not only a part of the campaign against terrorism - it is an essential part. Start with the declaration of Article 5. We must not let revisionists cast doubt on the fundamental importance of that decision. By declaring that this attack was an attack against them all, NATO's 19 members triggered the same collective defence arrangements for the United States which Europeans had counted on during the Cold War. ... But Article 5 is not just a statement of solidarity. It is also a commitment by Allies to offer practical support and it was a unique signal to the world of terrorism that they had crossed a serious threshold with their attack. ... [T]he Alliance is becoming the primary means for developing the role of armed forces to defeat the terrorist threat. NATO forces have already destroyed dangerous Al-Qaida cells in the Balkans. Now our nations are examining ways to improve our forces' abilities to protect themselves against the use of weapons of mass destruction. And we are looking at using the military's unique skills and capabilities more effectively to protect our populations, and to assist in civil emergencies. We are engaging non-NATO countries, including Russia, in the process. Tomorrow, I will host, along with Russian Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov, a major meeting to jointly look at how our militaries can do more, and do more together. This is an important symbol of NATO's deepening relationship with Russia, built on more issues than terrorism. We intend to work together as equal partners, in new ways which benefit both sides but still safeguard NATO's cohesion and the autonomy of action of both sides. If we succeed, and I am confident that we will, the strategic picture will be transformed as fundamentally for the good as it was for evil on September 11. We are also redoubling our efforts to complete the modernisation of European and Canadian forces. They must be able to take on a greater share of the burden of maintaining our common security - including dealing quickly with terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. The United States must have partners who can contribute their fair share to operations which benefit the entire Euro-Atlantic community. This is the best possible way to build on the emotional and practical strengthening of transatlantic bonds caused by the terrible attacks last year. But the picture on burden sharing, is frankly a very mixed one. In practical terms, America's Allies are pulling their weight. In the Balkans, for example, more than 85% of the peacekeeping troops are European. The European Union is paying the lion's share in reconstruction and development. Javier Solana and I have a polished political EU-NATO double-act to keep the peace in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia . And in the coming months, we will see increasing efforts by the Europeans to reduce the burden on American shoulders in some of these Balkan operations. Unfortunately, the longer term picture is less optimistic. For all the political energy expended in NATO and in the EU, the truth is that Europe remains militarily undersized. Orders of battle and headquarters wiring diagrams read impressively. Overall numbers of soldiers, tanks and aircraft give a similar impression of military power. But the reality is that we are hard pressed to maintain those 50,000 European troops in the Balkans. And hardly any European country can deploy useable and effecitive forces in significant numbers outside their borders, and sustain them for months or even years as we all need to do today. For all Europe's rhetoric, and an annual investment of over $140 billion by NATO's European members, we still need US help to move, command and provision a major operation. American critics of Europe's military incapability are right. So, if we are to ensure that the United States moves neither towards unilateralism nor isolationism, all European countries must show a new willingness to develop effective crisis management capabilities. I am therefore redoubling my clarion call of "capabilities, capabilities, capabilities". This will not make me popular in some capitals. I hope it will, nonetheless, be listened to, especially by Finance Ministers. ... Back to the Top of the PageSpeech by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul WolfowitzSpeech by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, February 2. For too many years, the international community treated terrorism as an ugly fact of international life, one with tragic and occasionally terrible consequences, but something we had to live with - and something we could manage to live with. Often terrorism was treated simply as a problem of law enforcement. The goal was to catch terrorists, try them, and punish them, hoping that doing so would deter others - although it didn't. People spoke frequently of retaliation - but rarely acted. And when they did act, it was more often against the lower-level perpetrators of terrorist acts than against those who were ultimately responsible. It would be an overstatement to say that terrorism came to be regarded as nasty but "acceptable," but we were far from a policy of zero tolerance for terrorism. September 11 changed all of that. On that day we learned, at enormous cost, that the problem goes beyond crime and punishment. The attacks of that day not only demonstrate the failure of previous approaches, they also underscore the dangers we will face if we continue living with terrorism. What happened on September 11, terrible though it was, is but a pale shadow of what will happen if terrorists use weapons of massive destruction. ... Our approach has to aim at prevention and not merely punishment. We are at war. As Secretary Rumsfeld said recently, self-defense "requires prevention and sometimes preemption." It is not possible to defend against "every threat, in every place, at every conceivable time." The only defense against terrorism is to "take the war to the enemy"; the best defense is a good offense. The terrorists' great advantage is their ability to hide, not merely in the mountains of Afghanistan, but in the towns and cities of Europe and the United States. We need to hunt them down relentlessly, but we also need to deny them the sanctuaries in which they can safely plan and organize and to deprive them of the financial and material resources they need to operate... To meet this goal, President Bush has mounted a far-reaching campaign, a campaign that is not just military, but one that integrates all the elements of national power. ... No one who has seen the images of September 11 can doubt that our response must be wide-ranging; nor should anyone doubt the far greater destruction terrorists could wreak with weapons of greater power. As President Bush has noted, what has been found in the caves of Afghanistan indicates the scope of what we could face: diagrams of American nuclear power plants and water facilities, maps of our cities and descriptions of landmarks, not just in America but around the world, along with detailed instructions for making chemical weapons. Those who plotted in the caves share a kinship with states who seek to export terror. They pose a clear and direct threat to international security that could prove far more cataclysmic than what we have experienced already. After September 11, we have a visceral understanding of what terrorists can do with commercial aircraft, in a way that seemed remote and hypothetical before. We cannot afford to wait until we have a visceral understanding of what terrorists can do with weapons of mass destruction, before we act to prevent it. Facing that danger, countries must make a choice. Those that stand for peace, security and the rule of law - the great majority of countries in the world - stand united with us in this struggle between good and evil. Those countries that choose to tolerate terrorism and refuse to take action - or worse, those that continue to support it - will face consequences. ... President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld have repeatedly emphasized that the war on terrorism will be a long struggle. ... From the beginning of the campaign against terrorism, Secretary Rumsfeld has emphasized the importance of setting the key goals and the key concepts of the operation correctly. ... One of the most important concepts concerns the nature of coalitions in this campaign and the idea that "the mission must determine the coalition, the coalition must not determine the mission." Otherwise, as the Secretary says, the mission will be reduced to "the lowest common denominator." As a corollary, there will not be a single coalition, but rather different coalitions for different missions, "flexible" coalitions, as the Secretary calls them, This means that the coalition will not "unravel" if some country stops doing something or fails to join in some missions. As Rumsfeld expressed it, "Since no single coalition has 'raveled,' it is unlikely to unravel." ... Today we have an historic opportunity to build a new relationship with Russia. Recently, the United States and Russia have engaged in a new dialogue that we hope will fashion a new strategic relationship... We have made a conscious decision to move beyond a relationship with Russia centered on preserving the mutual threat of massive nuclear destruction to a relationship that is based instead on common security interests: a relationship that is normal among states that no longer regard themselves as deadly rivals. One expression of that is our common interest in fighting global terrorism. In moving toward a normal, healthy relationship, we have been able to set aside the fears of the past and plan for radical reductions in the legacy nuclear forces of the Cold War. ... To ensure NATO can deal with surprise and uncertainty in the decades ahead, NATO must improve its structures and capabilities. A key objective for the Prague summit should be to launch a military transformation agenda. A key component of that agenda should be to develop NATO's capacities in counter-terrorism. Fighting terrorism, which has been so clearly linked to weapons of mass destruction, is part of NATO's basic job description: Collective Defense. ... These initiatives should be buttressed by an even more fundamental reform, one that would have profound implications for how the Alliance has done business over the last fifty years. During the Cold War, NATO sized and shaped its forces against specific geographic threats. The only Article V attack in NATO's history came from an unexpected source, in an unexpected form. What this tells us is that our old assumptions, our old plans, and our old capabilities are out-of-date. Article V threats can come from anywhere, in many forms. ... Speech by Senator Joseph Lieberman'Winning the Wider War Against Terrorism', speech by Democratic Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, February 3. The Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The Post-Cold War world ended on September 11, 2001. On that date we began a world war against terrorism which directly responds to the newest global challenge to the swift spread of freedom- extremist Islamic terrorism. In 1946, Churchill described the Communist domination of Eastern Europe as an Iron Curtain that had descended across Europe, from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic. Today, from the terrorist camps in the hills and valleys of Central Asia, to the sands of Somalia, Sudan and Saudi Arabia to cells in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, and many other places including Europe and America, the fanatical forces of Jihad are trying to build a Theological Iron Curtain to divide the Muslim world from the rest of the globe. But this is not, in my view, a war of Islam against the rest of the world. It is first a civil war within the Islamic world, between the militant and violent minority and the moderate and peaceful majority. We are all now caught in the crossfire of that bloody confrontation, and must therefore strengthen the moderate majority as we wage war against the fanatical minority. If the wrong side should win this civil war, the new Iron Curtain that would fall would imprison behind it hundreds of millions of people just as the old Iron Curtain did. Al Qaeda is our immediate enemy, but it is surely not our only target in the war against terrorism. The United States and our coalition partners must be firm and unequivocal in pursuing and preempting other terrorist groups that threaten to turn regional conflicts into global security crises. And we cannot claim victory in our war against terrorism until we decisively address the profound threat posed by Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction. As President Bush declared on Tuesday in his State of the Union address, "America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons." ... Fifty-three years ago, our nations answered a grave threat to our security by forming NATO. Today, I believe we can meet the new global threat of terrorism if we reform NATO, and its sense of itself, in four ways. First, the attacks of September 11 and the response thus far in Afghanistan should settle the question, with which America once again recently flirted, of whether unilateralism can be an adequate answer to the array of threats we all face in the world today. The answer is "no." The United States has carried the bulk of the military load in Afghanistan to date, but the ongoing cooperation of coalition partners has been critical and will continue to be so. One good way for our Administration in Washington to express its gratitude for the multilateral support we are receiving from our NATO and non-NATO allies would be for it to act more multilaterally in other important areas such as global climate change. Second is NATO's proper role and reach. For years, physical defense of member nations' home soil, as defined under Article V, has been the core of our alliance. That changed with Bosnia and then Kosovo, as NATO applied necessary force just outside its immediate borders for the common good of stability in Europe. The awful events of September 11 prompted another evolution, as NATO invoked Article V, responding to the attacks on American soil by supporting a war against an enemy half a world away from America. Technology has collapsed geographical distinctions to the point that today, a plot conceived in North Africa, South America or Southeast Asia can pose just as serious a threat to NATO members' security as an aggressive military movement by a nearby nation. NATO must accept this new reality and embrace a more expansive geographical understanding of its mission. Third, we must close the growing gap in armed forces capabilities between the United States and our European NATO partners. The gap isn't just lingering. It is widening. Allowing it to persist threatens your security, puts a disproportionate burden on us, and creates an awkward imbalance in our alliance. America's military is the best in the world for a simple reason: we spend a lot to train our forces and to buy the sophisticated weapons systems they employ in combat. It's time for all NATO nations to overcome internal political resistance and place an immediate priority on upgrading their capabilities. And together we should develop new mechanisms within NATO to assure more effective war fighting together. Fourth, NATO membership should be opened to a large number of nations. If it is, NATO can become an even more potent protector of trans-Atlantic and global security from threats including terrorism, a better facilitator of regional conflict resolution, and a more influential incubator of democracy. Any democratic European nation that meets NATO's criteria and is able to be a net contributor to the security of the whole should be admitted to the Alliance. I support welcoming into NATO at the Prague summit as many candidate nations as meet these criteria. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and Romania have made impressive progress in that direction. Since September 11, NATO's members and Russia have grown closer than ever. We must now create new institutions that will engage us more consistently and beneficially with our great neighbor to the East. ... Speech by Senator John McCain'From Crisis to Opportunity: American Internationalism and the New Atlantic Order', speech by Republican Senator John McCain, February 2. American delegates to this conference have stood at this podium in the past and fiercely debated the nature and extent of America's obligations in Europe and the world. Lively exchanges about America's role in the new Europe, the continuing relevance of NATO, the establishment of an exclusively European security identity, the division of labor over Balkan peacekeeping, and the ups-and-downs of a tumultuous relationship with Russia have obscured the strategic clarity America and our European allies enjoyed during the Cold War. No longer. We live in a new era. We share a common purpose, and enjoy a unique opportunity: to forge a world order maintained not by force of arms or foreign occupation but by a shared commitment to the values that unite us, backed by our collective military might, and driven by our determination that never again shall innocents on the soil of our nations be slaughtered. Central to this task is a new American internationalism motivated by these goals: to end safe harbor for terrorists anywhere, to aggressively target rogue regimes that threaten us with weapons of mass destruction, and to consolidate freedom's gains through institutions that reflect our values. The horror of September 11, and the existence of al Qaeda cells in this and over 60 nations around the world, dispel any notion that America's commitment to the defeat of our enemies is mere rhetoric. Just ask the Taliban. The successful military campaign we and our allies waged against the government that harbored our enemies sends what I hope is a clear signal to leaders in Tehran, Damascus, Khartoum, and elsewhere that sponsoring terrorism places national survival at risk. Let me be clear to our European friends: Americans believe we have a mandate to defeat and dismantle the global terrorist network that threatens both Europe and America. As our President has said, this network includes not just the terrorists but the states that make possible their continued operation. Many of these are rogue regimes that possess or are developing weapons of mass destruction which threaten Europeans and Americans alike. We in America learned the hard way that we can never again wait for our enemies to choose their moment. The initiative is now ours, and we are seizing it. We now know that despite the prosperity and peace we enjoyed since the end of the Cold War, there existed a time bomb waiting to go off. The next explosion may occur in Europe or America; it could even involve the use of weapons of mass destruction developed under state sponsorship. Several years ago, I and many others argued that the United States, in concert with willing allies, should work to undermine from within and without outlaw regimes that disdain the rules of international conduct and whose internal dysfunction threatened other nations. Since then, two rogue regimes have fallen after military intervention by American-led allied coalitions: Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia and the Taliban's Afghanistan. In both countries, liberal reformers are now in power, and the threat each nation posed to its neighbors ended with the downfall of the tyrants who ruled them. Just this week, the American people heard our President articulate a policy to defeat the "axis of evil" that threatens us with its support for terror and development of weapons of mass destruction. Dictators that harbor terrorists and build these weapons are now on notice that such behavior is, in itself, a casus belli. Nowhere is such an ultimatum more applicable than in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Almost everyone familiar with Saddam's record of biological weapons development over the past two decades agrees that he surely possesses such weapons. He also possesses vast stocks of chemical weapons and is known to have aggressively pursued, with some success, the development of nuclear weapons. He is the only dictator on Earth who has actually used weapons of mass destruction against his own people and his neighbors. His regime has been implicated in the 1993 attacks on the World Trade Center. Terrorist training camps exist on Iraqi soil, and Iraqi officials are known to have had a number of contacts with Al Qaeda. These were probably not courtesy calls. Americans have internalized the mantra that Afghanistan represents only the first front in our global war on terror. The next front is apparent, and we should not shirk from acknowledging it. A terrorist resides in Baghdad, with the resources of an entire state at his disposal, flush with cash from illicit oil revenues and proud of a decade-long record of defying the international community's demands that he come clean on his programs to develop weapons of mass destruction. A day of reckoning is approaching. Not simply for Saddam Hussein, but for all members of the Atlantic community, whose governments face the choice of ending the threat we face every day from this rogue regime or carrying on as if such behavior, in the wake of September 11, were somehow still tolerable. The Afghan campaign set a precedent, and provided a model: the success of air power, combined with Special Operations forces working together with indigenous opposition forces, in waging modern war. The next phase of the war on terror can build on this model, but we also must learn from its limitations. More American boots on the ground may be required to prevent the escape of terrorists we target in the future, and we should all be mindful that such a commitment might entail higher casualties than we have suffered in Afghanistan. The Bush Administration understands that history will judge this campaign favorably not only for our commendable success in Afghanistan, but also for our firm purpose in fulfilling our larger mission of eliminating terror at its source. Our success in Afghanistan has put Al Qaeda on the run, and diminished their ability in the near term to organize and execute mass atrocities as they did in New York and at the Pentagon. But the campaign's organizing purpose is to put terrorists permanently out of business, and defeating or otherwise transforming the regimes that harbor them. The combined examples of regime change in Afghanistan and Iraq would likely compel several other state sponsors of terror to change their ways or go out of business, accomplishing by example what we would otherwise have to pursue through force of arms. These nations - Syria and Sudan, for instance - have a choice, and it is in their interest to make the right one. As President Bush has said, Iran and North Korea remain question marks - rogue regimes where a few leaders hold their people hostage, and where aggressive development of weapons of mass destruction has gone unchecked. It can go unchecked no more. The consequences of inaction, of allowing our enemies to choose their moment, are far greater than the costs we will incur in taking action against this clear and present danger. ... The events of September 11 have already served to clarify NATO's role and mission. American leadership within NATO has been enhanced by our leading role in the ongoing war. The terrorist assaults have bound the Alliance more closely together, with NATO assets helping to defend the American homeland and forces of member and aspirant nations working together in Central Asia. I hope it has helped us put aside our previous differences over an emerging, if unrealized, European security identity in favor of NATO's existing security architecture. It has laid a strong foundation for NATO's future relations with Russia. The terrorist attacks, and the West's common response, have also highlighted the critical contributions of Turkey. Turkey is a front-line state in the war on terrorism, as was Germany a front-line state during the Cold War. Turkey has made important contributions to securing the peace in Afghanistan and will be integral to any campaign against Iraq. It is also central to our objectives of ending terrorism and promoting democratic stability in Central Asia. A tolerant Muslim nation with a secular government, Turkey's strong support and active cooperation demonstrate the fallacy our enemies would have the world believe: that our campaign against terrorism is a war against Islam. The support of Turkey, a loyal friend and ally, lays this myth to rest and stands in stark contrast to the disappointing cooperation we have received in this campaign from another erstwhile Muslim "ally," Saudi Arabia. ... These are two pillars of ordered freedom in this new age: the overthrow or forced conversion of rogue regimes that harbor terrorists and develop weapons of mass destruction, and the consolidation of a continent of secure peace unified in freedom's defense... America has been attacked, in a way we have never been attacked before; the American people's support for defeating terror by force of arms has not flagged since we went to war in Afghanistan in October; and our President properly uses every opportunity to remind us that Afghanistan represented only the first front in a global campaign that will not end until we have defeated global terrorism and the states that support it. Rarely have Americans been tested in this way. Never have we been better prepared to help forge a new world, in which we all live in safety and freedom. We stand now before history with this mission. We ask you to stand with us. A better world is already emerging from the rubble of September 11. A world free from terrorism's scourge, a world in which peace-loving nations no longer face blackmail or attack by rogue regimes, a Europe whole and free - these are the objectives of our age. We are worthy of them. © 2002 The Acronym Institute. |