Center for Strategic Decision Research

Welcome to the
24th International Workshop on Global Security and
Overview of the Workshop Presentations

Welcome to the web site of the Center for Strategic Decision Research, which has presented the "International Workshops on Global Security" for the last 24 years.  We are delighted that this year's workshop was held in Paris, France, for the second time, at the invitation of the French Defense Minister.  In 2005, French Minister of Defense Michele Alliot-Marie welcomed the Workshop to France for the first time as our keynote speaker and Patron.  In 2007, France's newly appointed Defense Minister Herve Morin offered the workshop his Patronage and the very gracious and effective support of this ministry.  General Henri Bentegeat, the President of the EU Military Committee and former Chief of General Staff of the French Armed Forces, gave the Workshop's opening address and Mr. Jean de Ponton d'Amecourt welcomed the workshop participants to a dinner at the prestigious Hotel des Invalides, which was built by Louis XIV and now houses Napoleon's tomb.

We invite you to consult the more than 50 Workshop speeches, which address many of the most important security issues of our time including the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as new threats to global security, such as global warming, competition for energy resources, cyber-security, and other challenges.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the principal sponsors of the Workshop--the French Defense Ministry, the US Department of Defense, EADS, Microsoft, and Northrop Grumman.  Their support, as well as that of Lockheed Martin, Alenia Aeronautica, MITRE, Thales, and MBDA MIssile Systems, was vital and the Workshop could not have beeen presented without their efforts.

Overview

Setting the Ship in the Right Direction

Since dangers to global security are spreading, the need is urgent for countries and international organizations to find more effective political and military strategies and better ways of working together. Former Supreme Allied Commander, Europe General George Joulwan calls for a new direction in order to achieve the better world we all seek:

“I am not very optimistic and that concerns me. I do not want to be negative, but I have to be realistic as a soldier who has spent most of his life trying to deter or prevent war…Where are we now? What can we do to set the ship in the right direction? And what can we do to create the conditions that we need to bring about a better world for our children and grandchildren?”

The Growing Dangers in a Multipolar World

Some of the great challenges underlying these concerns are outlined by Italy’s Chief of Defense Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola (who has since been elected as the next Chairman of the NATO Military Committee) and by the NATO Military Committee’s past Chairman, General Harald Kujat. According to Admiral Di Paola, the list of security challenges now also includes “…energy, terrorism, globalization, the revolution in information technology, scarcity of resources, the relationship between western heritage and culture and the emerging Muslim world, and relationships with emerging powers such as China, India, east Asia, Mexico, and Brazil.”

General Kujat offers a broad description of these grave dangers and of their complexities, including hot conflicts, frozen conflicts, traditional security risks that have already been present for a long time, and new, emerging risks that may not even be fully understood, such as cyber-attacks, energy, and climate change:

“The world is more complex than ever before: there are areas of hot conflicts, including Iraq and Afghanistan; there are frozen conflicts in Moldova, Transnistria, and the Caucasus; there are old security risks, including the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction, unsuccessful arms control, drug trafficking, illegal immigration, poverty, hunger, ethnic and religious conflicts, and international terrorism; and there are new security risks, including cyber-attacks, the use of energy as a strategic asset, and the unknown consequences of climate change.”

Not only are challenges to global security increasing, but the structure of international political, military, economic, and other influences is shifting as well. Remarkably, the world is no longer unipolar, but multipolar. In the unipolar world, the U.S. was the dominant player—and not only in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts but even in NATO, the U.N., and other international organizations. Largely due to difficulties in Iraq, however, U.S. international influence is less dominant. At the same time, the influence of China, India, and Russia (which has benefited immensely from the surge in oil prices) is growing.

According to General Kujat’s analysis, it seems that:

“…the multipolar world is becoming more diverse. New world powers are becoming more and more influential. China, India, and Russia’s economic and military power is growing, which means more self-confidence and perhaps more nationalism. At the same time U.S. influence in world affairs is declining, a consequence of the prolonged Iraq conflict. In addition, and above all, globalization is producing advantages and risks and winners and losers, and creating new antagonisms.”

In his opening workshop address, General Henri Bentegeat, Chairman of the EU Military Committee and former Chief of the French General Staff, offers a similar observation concerning the extraordinary shifts in power and influence within just a few years:

“Five years ago, it was believed and acknowledged that the great strategic balances of the past had become permanently obsolete. There was only one very large political, economic, and military power—the United States of America…Since that time, however…Russia and China have reaffirmed in various ways their intent to be involved in the most sensitive issues. Militarily, Japan’s rising importance and India’s emergence have confirmed that these two countries have gradually evolved and now hold a leading international role.”

Until a year ago, General James Jones was NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe.  He too believes that it is vital to study and understand the implications of the multipolar era: “The evolution of the world from the bipolar 20th century to the very brief unipolar period to…a long-term multipolar world is a fact of life we have to deal with and whose implications we have to analyze very carefully.” In his view, “Multipolarity is having a profound impact on the very institutions, both national and international, that are charged with maintaining and preserving our concept of what we think of as security—that impact might make some of us wish for the good old days of the 20th century, when life seemed to be a little simpler, a little more ordered, a little bit more predictable, and a little clearer.” General Jones also remarks that “the new characteristics are also more asymmetric, and they include, in my view, a broader range of issues.”

According to Russia’s Ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizov, it is a fact of the new multipolar world that countries and international organizations can succeed only by working together, since “no single existing organization, neither the United Nations nor NATO nor the European Union nor the OSCE, is now capable of dealing with the new security agenda alone.”

While the factors underlying this shift of influence are complex, General Bentegeat suggests that there are at least two important consequences:

1. Military action has reached its limits. It now seems that “military action has reached its limits and new approaches are required.” From a political perspective, the limits on military action are clearly shown by the reluctance of governments and parliaments to provide the budgets that military leaders are seeking. From a military viewpoint, the limits of military action are demonstrated, according to General Bentegeat, by the “dramatic shortage today in the number of deployable ground forces, in particular, with helicopters and strategic and tactical air transport.”

2. Crisis stabilization is impossible without reconstruction. The limits of military efforts can also be seen in the difficulties encountered in mounting reconstruction efforts, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. As General Bentegeat also remarked, “We have all become aware of the fact that it is impossible to stabilize a crisis area without a reconstruction effort. Attempting to eradicate violence without a global approach to the crisis as well as a clear understanding of its origins and roots would be illusory.”

As General Jean-Louis Georgelin, the present Chief of the French General Staff, points out,

“The best thought-out strategies are sometimes unable to resolve local crises—crises which in turn may have a large impact on an entire region of the world.” For this reason, he suggests that “we must reflect on the profound significance of military action and, consequently, on the role of our armies. First, we must examine the threats we are facing, then the way we deal with them, and finally infer practical consequences for the tools at our disposal.”

Why New Strategies Are Necessary

Consequently, the present global security challenge is a dual one—responding to a broad range of threats while dealing with a rapidly evolving structure of political, military, and economic influence in an increasingly multipolar world. In this context, it is not surprising if international organizations such as NATO have difficulty responding effectively to the challenges. While many are happy with the progress made at the Riga Summit, Admiral Di Paola is not encouraged by recent progress. He notes that:

“…nothing remarkable has come from the Riga Summit, just as nothing remarkable has come from the Prague and Istanbul summits. Somehow we are floating over the water but with no clear sense of direction.”

Admiral Di Paola believes that the U.S. and Europe need a “shared vision” in order to deal with such a broad scope of dangers. Consequently, he calls for “a new covenant, a new strategic concept between Europe and the United States,” and a new mission for NATO: “If we do not have a new mission and if we do not have a new covenant between Europe and the United States, we will not have a shared future.”

The Challenges

The re-examination of threats and strategies, which Admiral Di Paola, General Georgelin, General Jones, and others are seeking, must deal with difficult challenges. The threats arise, for example, within areas such as the Middle East or Afghanistan that are geographically remote from the traditional areas of operation of many countries. Alternatively, such challenges as energy, global warming, and cyber-attacks are fundamentally different in nature from the dangers that NATO and other international security organizations are accustomed to dealing with.

WMD proliferation. WMD proliferation probably remains the gravest challenge, since WMDs might be acquired by a rogue state or else fall into the hands of extremists. If so, these dangerous weapons could be used against military or civilian populations with horrible consequences. The recent instabilities in Pakistan are extremely dangerous: the country already possesses nuclear weapons. Moreover, some government officials or their allies are unfriendly to the U.S. and other western countries—or sympathetic to extremists.

As the Special Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Dr. Arthur T. Hopkins is responsible for preventing such WMD proliferation. He believes that the most effective means of doing so is to act “upfront, early in the process, when nonproliferation measures such as treaties, agreements, and other cooperative measures can actually unite nations in dialogue about their common goals for global threat reduction.” Yet, as Dr. Hopkins points out, such “nonproliferation measures have limits” and their effectiveness is uncertain. Fortunately, there are success stories that fall exactly in line with the “upfront, early on” nonproliferation measures he advocates: One of them is Ambassador Rogelio Pfirter’s Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). As the OPCW Director-General, Ambassador Pfirter believes that “. . . a world that is completely free from chemical weapons appears today not as an improbability but as an achievable goal.” He notes that the OPCW, by seeking to eliminate weapons in possessor states, has succeeded over the last decade in destroying over “71,000 metric tons of chemical warfare agents and 9,000,000 munitions.”

Cyber-security. With broadened access to computer systems and huge increases in their capabilities, the risks arising from the information environment are growing rapidly. U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense John Grimes notes that the “threats we face can come from anyone,from harmless teenagers to criminal organizations, non-state actors, and nation-states that are intentionally infiltrating and corrupting our systems.” Perhaps the most dramatic illustration of the dangers is the cyber-attack against Estonian institutions early in 2007. Estonian Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo describes the situation:

“Estonia recently was hit by a politically motivated cyber-campaign that targeted government, industry, and private sites using a wide array of offensive techniques. Though it is difficult to identify the persons, groups, or organizations behind the attacks, we do know that most of the attacks were carried out not only by amateurs with primitive methods, but also by highly skilled cyber-attack specialists with significant resources. The attacks were not only protests against the Estonian government, but also large-scale, well-coordinated, and targeted actions that took place at the same time as political, economic, and media events. In our minds, what took place was cyber-warfare and cyber-terrorism.”

NATO’s Lieutenant General Ulrich Wolf points out that the potential dangers are even greater: “The threat of cyber-war is real and it…could be waged against all of us.” In a possible robot attack “. . . thousands of computers are connected to overload a targeted storage device with messages and with the aim to shut down its services. The systems used are hijacked by the attacker. . . An estimated 50 million machines around the world have been compromised in this way.” Microsoft’s Tim Bloechl observes that “. . . we do not have adequate laws, regulations, and policies in place to deal with cyber-attacks. Clearly, this needs to be improved both nationally and internationally so that cyber-criminals cannot take free advantage of the vulnerabilities of the Internet.”

Energy and security. Of the issues facing policy makers, energy security is among the most important. In a recent round table at Stanford University, the former Commander of the U.S. Central Command, General John Abizaid, described the Iraq War as being “about oil and we cannot really deny that,” and argued for the necessity of reducing instabilities in the region (including Israeli-Palestinian tensions) and cutting back our dependency on Middle East oil.

General James Jones describes energy security as “a global, national, and local issue” that he sees as “critical to the economic stability of our markets” with “impact on security but also on our environment.” According to General Jones:

“Energy and the energy infrastructure will be true challenges as the global appetite for energy dramatically increases and our infrastructures do not keep pace, which is predicted…The next 20 years will see a dramatic rise in demand for electricity, natural gas, and transportation fuels in a world that we can only begin to understand, and they will also see a corresponding impact on the environment and the global climate.”

General Jones also warns that nearly 80% of the world’s oil reserves are already nationally owned. In this context, he suggested that it would be unwise for “international organizations to stand idly by as the Gulf region slides towards chaos.” He asks, “Isn’t it time to take proactive action to mitigate the effects of a potential crisis in that region?”
Global warming. Climate change, other environmental issues, and energy are closely linked. According to General Jones, in fact, “You cannot have a serious discussion on energy-related issues without having an environmentalist at the table.” The U.K. Foreign Office’s Special Representative for Climate Change, John Ashton, describes climate change as “a threat multiplier” that can “destabilize and amplify” other factors. Darfur is an example: Over recent decades, a 50% rainfall reduction (which is consistent with climate change models) seems to have made the crisis more severe. For such reasons, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni says that climate change is a form of aggression by developed countries against poor nations. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s recent promise to join the Kyoto accords offers some hope, however, since all the developed countries (except the United States) have now committed to join the treaty.

The relationship with Russia. While serving as SACEUR, General Joulwan found that the relationship with Russia was genuinely promising, but he currently sees “a lessening of that relationship.” He now asks, “How can we revive it?…Will it always be adversarial? I don’t think it needs to be.” France’s Deputy Director for Strategic Affairs, General Robert Ranquet, thinks that the key to understanding the Russians is to put oneself in their shoes. In the case of the proposed missile defense “third site” in Poland and the Czech Republic, he suggests, “Just think how the French people would react if Russia were going to have a missile base in, let’s say, Luxembourg. How would we feel?” In the purely personal view of Jaromir Novotny, the Czech Ambassador to Japan, Russia feels stronger because of its growing oil wealth. The country consequently feels able to reaffirm its “near abroad” by putting pressure on the Baltic States (with Estonia as the most dramatic recent example). At the same time, Russia is pressuring “Ukraine, where the Orange Revolution was lost” as well as Georgia and Kosovo, where it seeks to veto the area’s long-sought independence from Serbia. According to General Kujat, the Russians know that the small number of missiles in Poland will not threaten them, so he considers that the real issue is the following:

“The U.S. ignored the status of the other nuclear strategic superpower. Russia is no longer a world power. It does not have worldwide power projection capability but it is a nuclear strategic superpower. When you deploy missiles at the front door of the other nuclear strategic superpower, you ignore the status of that power.”

General Joulwan believes that, on the basis of shared interests in Afghanistan and Iraq, we should try to “reach out to the Russians and work together.”

Security in the Black Sea and the Balkans. According to Georgia’s Vice Prime Minister Gela Bezhuashvili, the unresolved territorial conflicts are among the gravest security problems in the Black Sea region:

“They undermine economic cooperation. They breed suspicion and tensions. . . And they considerably undermine the statehood of most of the conflict-afflicted countries. . .[which] renders secessionist entities in these states virtual black holes, plagued by lawlessness and smuggling.” Ukraine’s recent Foreign Minister, Borys Tarasyuk, offers a broader view of the region’s challenges. In addition to the frozen conflicts mentioned by Minister Bezhuashvili (Transdnistra, Abkazia, South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh), Minister Tarasyuk lists the following other dangers:

“The foreign military presence in the countries of the region; energy security, which is a challenge not only to the region but to the entire Euro-Atlantic community; regional borders that are being challenged or are in the process of settlement; and of course the various ethnic factors.”

While recognizing the need to resolve such conflicts, Bulgarian Defense Minister Dr. Vesselin Bliznakov cautions that,

“The military alone cannot be successful. We must build confidence in the local populations. Without their help, our missions will not be fully accomplished. Moreover, we need to persuade neighboring countries to work for regional security. It is rather difficult to create an island of security in a single state, be it Iraq or Afghanistan.” For the case of Kosovo, Albanian Defense Minister Fatmir Mediu calls particular attention to the striving by many Kosovars for independence from Serbia.  He says that Albania supports “… an independent Kosovo that respects and guarantees the rights of all its citizens and its ethnic and cultural groups provides the most suitable and sustainable solution to this challenge.”

Lieutenant General Evgeniy Buzhinsky of the Russian Defense Ministry points out that security in the Black Sea and Middle East are linked, since vital energy supplies transit through the Black Sea:

"Should there be a worst-case scenario in the Middle East, the Black Sea region could make an essential contribution to European energy security. At the same time, its energy potential is a challenge...its infrastructure is highly attractive to terrorists of various kinds and cannot absolutely be protected against current threats."

Afghanistan and Iraq. At the present time, Afghanistan is NATO’s most important mission; General Egon Ramms is NATO’s operational-level commander for the region. Despite much progress in recent months, he reports that insurgents there have employed increased violence, terrorism against civilians, suicide attacks, and IEDs. This has created a dilemma for ISAF:

“Every time we use kinetic military means, we run the risk of civilian casualties and collateral damage and we make the task of winning over the support of the local population more and more difficult. Deciding when and how to respond to asymmetric attacks is one of the most challenging elements of this campaign and one that we are learning about while we are conducting the mission.”

One of the serious challenges in Afghanistan is drug trafficking. As General Jones points out, illegal drugs tend to be one of “the economic underpinnings of extremist movements in the world.” For this reason, some current and past military leaders, including the recent defense minister of France, have sometimes suggested actually purchasing the poppy crop from Afghan farmers. Such proposals, however, tend to be rejected out of hand by political leaders in most countries, on the basis that illegal conduct should not be rewarded.

In order to prevail in Afghanistan, General Ramms emphasizes the importance of “sustaining the political consensus behind NATO’s ISAF mission,” because the mission is too large to be handled by just a few NATO member-countries. In any case, SHAPE Chief of Staff General Schuwirth argues that investments are necessary to develop Afghanistan’s own capabilities, including police forces. This “must be part of our success and exit strategy if we do not want to stay there forever and if we do not want to develop a culture of dependency or even perceived continuous occupation.” In any case, Italy’s NATO Ambassador Stefano Stefanini says that the conflict in Afghanistan should be considered “a work in progress.” While it will be difficult, success is possible provided that “the achievements we strive for are realistic.”

Italy’s Military Representative to NATO, Vice Admiral Ferdinando Sanfelice di Monteforte, sees additional problems, however:

“NATO, a survivor of the Cold War success, is in fact bogged down in a war of attrition in Afghanistan. Reconstruction efforts are only now being coordinated, after too many years, while stabilization and counter-insurgency operations are being carried out in the same battle space. Thus, the two efforts are hindering each other.”

In any consideration of strategies for dealing with Afghanistan, it is important to consider that they are all intimately related. As Ambassador Munir Akram, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the U.N., points out, “The final challenge is that all seven major flashpoints in the Middle East—Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan—are linked. They are linked first by the involvement in and the interest of the principal powers, the United States and the other major powers. Second, they are linked by the fact that each contains a very large element of asymmetric warfare and terrorism. Third, they are linked because the strategic fight, not only the balance of power, is over the oil resources in the region.”

As to Iraq, the immediate future is not promising. Of special concern is a proposed agreement with the Iraqi government that calls for the presence of U.S. troops in the country for decades to come. In return for this supposed security assistance, U.S. oil and other firms will be encouraged to invest in the country. While there will be efforts to put the agreement in a positive light, most Iraqis will see the agreement as nothing less than a plan for permanent occupation of the country in order to take out the country’s oil and other sources of wealth.

Israel and Palestine. The conflict between Israel and Palestine is a festering wound, and there cannot be stable peace in the region until it heals. For this reason, the Annapolis conference is vitally important, even though President Bush is unwilling to put necessary pressure on either Israel or Palestine to achieve an agreement.  The president’s call for a two-state solution is certainly a most positive step, as is Israeli Prime Minister Olmert’s declaration of willingness to make sacrifices in order to obtain peace. Above all, the opposition of Hamas and Iranian President Ahmadinejad could be a sign that a true chance for peace does exist—otherwise, why would they protest so fiercely against the Annapolis conference? 

The Annapolis meeting may be almost the last chance for peace over the next few years, because the Israel-Palestine conflict casts such a dark shadow over the entire region. According to Ambassador Youcef Yousfi, Algeria’s Ambassador to the U.N. and a former foreign minister, “The daily acts of violence in the Middle East and the inability of the international community to settle the Israel-Palestine conflict also adversely affects the security and stability of the Mediterranean and undermine…our dream to make the Mediterranean an area of peace and prosperity.”

According to Ambassador Mahmoud Karem, “Prolonging the conflict, avoiding the capture of historic moments or windows of opportunities to grab peace is a matter of serious concern for students of history as well as for leaders assiduously working for the cause of nation building. The argument from Arab citizens occasionally. . .[is] that Israel is working to prolong the conflict in order to keep Israel undivided domestically, to weaken the Arab world, and to push for an unavoidable clash between peoples and leaders, leading possibly to the. . .decay of Arab unity and cohesion. Proponentsof this view also argue that such delaying tactics may be used to usurp more land and create a new fait accompli.” Instead, Morocco’s Ambassador to the EU, Menouar Alem, says that “the international community as a whole must engage in a frank, honest, and sincere dialogue on security issues.” Speaking along the same lines, Major General Zhan Maohai, Vice Chair of China’s IISS, sees the need for Israel-Palestine talks based on the principle of “land for peace” as established by U.N. resolutions.

How can industry best contribute?  The U.S. Director for International Cooperation in the defense industry is Alfred Volkman. Since globalization is a key influence on the international defense industry, he argues that, “We need to find ways to take maximum advantage of its good qualities and to minimize the bad and eliminate the ugly.” Unfortunately, governments often react to the bad aspects of globalization by resorting to protectionism”—which means that “...offsets are unlikely to go away in the near future, but...nations need to find ways to limit the adverse effects of offsets.” France’s Deputy Director for Armaments, Patrick Auroy, who also views these issues from a government perspective, sees the need for more effective cooperation between government and industry:

“All stakeholders must develop federated approaches—security can no longer rely upon the aggregation of fragmented, dispersed, non-coherent local and specific solutions nor rely upon solutions devised in a reactive manner and inherited from yesterday’s practices.”

According to Marwan Lahoud, Chief Operating Officer of EADS, an appropriate response to such challenges is to recognize that,

“...a large part of our security is embedded in the security of our partners. This situation requires strong cooperation among the industries involved in the defense and security domains and will see significant improvements in costs as well as schedule through global leveraging of shared information, R&D, and investment.”

Alenia Aeronautica’s CEO, Ing. Giovanni Bertolone, suggests that such changes mean it is time to view government-industry cooperation in an entirely new way: the extremely complex rules that defense ministries have developed to deal with industry are now outdated by the rapid pace of technological progress and changes in the nature of the threats that must be addressed.  He believes that “these procedures must be changed, because…it is no longer possible to separate the world between customers and industries. “Industry and government must begin working together from the earliest stages in the planning and conception of new systems.  He also suggests that “...we need to speak more about flexibility and globalization than about consolidation in certain areas—for example, we have to look at what is happening in Russia, what is happening in Asia, and our collaboration with India.”

According to Dr. Edgar Buckley of Thales, “If Europe intends to play a strong security role, it needs a strong European defense industry supported by a strong defense technology base. And since the U.S. needs Europe to contribute strongly to defense and security operations in order to share the burden of maintaining global security and stability, I believe that the U.S. also needs and should support a strong European DTIB.” Lockheed Martin’s Senior VP Dr. Robert Trice says that one of the greatest of the changes in the defense industry is that “…we are more and more a software- and IT-driven industry” which is especially significant since “IT is inherently already globalized.”

The Way Ahead

According to U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense John Grimes, security is a matter of perception—which depends on where you sit. Consequently, global security “can mean different things to different people.” Drawing on Secretary Grimes’ observation, Hungary’s Ambassador to NATO Zoltan Martinusz asks in his wrap-up remarks, “Without a shared vision of security, how can we approach it?” Let us therefore heed Admiral Di Paola’s call for a broad re-examination of the nature of security, which will hopefully lead to a re-examination of the present challenges, a new strategic concept, and a new transatlantic vision."

As France’s Director for Strategic Affairs, Jean de Ponton d’Amécourt, reminds us, “History is not always a product of what we rationally seek, but also tends to exaggerate, to the nth degree, the effects of unexpected events and unsought developments.” This certainly suggests that the search for new security strategies—no matter how well directed or motivated it may be—is no guarantee of finding the right way forward. Yet, we can be reasonably certain that, without such an effort, we are likely to remain mired in our current difficulties.