Gen. Abrial: “A lighter, more efficient alliance”. The “real” debate begins
(In Lisbon) The French general, Stéphane Abrial, is at the forefront of the transformation of the Atlantic Alliance. Commander of theACT (Allied Command Transformation), in Norfolk, he gave – on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Lisbon – his opinion on the future to a few journalists.
The talks begin...
First priority: internal reform, “ the discussions (the real discussions) start now and will last until the summer of 2011 ". Which is pretty short. Indeed, confirms the general, We want to go fast ". The framework being fixed, with in particular 5000 fewer men and a restructuring of the agencies from 14 to 3 (1), it is indeed a question of not hanging around before the political consensus evaporates... objective is to have a Lighter, more efficient alliance », which is the motto of the Secretary General.
Identify threats
But this structural reform does not only serve a financial and budgetary objective, it has a more strategic objective. So far, the general also points out, " the Alliance was too static. The turning point taken today (with the new concept) is to take a very close interest in new threats ". All the difficulty, now, will be, first of all, to identify exactly what level of threats we are focusing on. Especially for cyberattacks, “ of course, we cannot be interested in all of them. We will have to define those which directly and concretely threaten the security of our Member States and of the Alliance”. This implies a strengthening of certain functions.
Helps member states identify their shortcomings
It also remains to transform the forces of the member states of the Alliance " We will work hard to adapt the forces of member countries. Each country remains of course sovereign in its own decision. But our job will be to carry out the necessary revisions together. There are gaps that everyone does not perceive, unwanted duplications. The challenge now for NATO is to enable member states to identify shortcomings and to be able, as far as possible, to share the means ". We know, in fact, all the difficulty of the exercise and the fear, under budgetary pressure, the States do not let their guard down on the same sectors or equipment, the British Minister of Defense had openly expressed this fear during the last Informal Council of EU Defense Ministers in Ghent (2).
The ideal would be the sharing of resources, or even specialization. " The debate is on on this point. It is not up to NATO to tell countries to specialize. But we can imagine having leading countries ". This debate is also under way at European Union level. And the two organizations displayed the spirit of working together (NB: we will see for the practice).
No American disengagement
For the general, however, falling defense budgets “ is not a problem for the Alliance si solidarity is maintained and that the pooling necessary to maintain capacities is carried out. Budgetary difficulties are (rather) an opportunity to do more with less. »
As for the disengagement of Americans from Europe (as some people fear, cf. the words of Alexander Stubb (3), he does not believe in it. " The Americans never confirmed that. The period is rather one of consolidation ».
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