Blog Posts from January, 2012

After a busy week of meetings and presentations in London, Berlin, and Washington DC, I am beginning to see the outline of key NATO conversations at the summit in May.

Every two years, the alliance holds a meeting at the level of heads of state and government. Prime Minister Cameron of England, Chancellor Merkel of Germany, President Obama of the USA, and all of their contemporaries will attend. It is an opportunity to conduct the business of NATO at the very highest level.

 The last summit was held in Lisbon, Portugal, in the fall of 2010. The key "deliverable" at that summit was the new Strategic Concept for NATO, the guiding document we are following as we move forward in this turbulent 21st century. The previous Strategic Concept had been written in 1999 -- before 9/11 -- and was clearly out of date.

Over the intervening two years, the alliance has continued to work hard operationally on three continents. We have made progress in Afghanistan, conducted a UN-sanctioned mission in Libya, reduced our force size in the Balkans while delivering a safe and secure environment, begun to implement missile defense over Europe, and taken on other challenges.

As I look ahead a few months to Chicago, I suspect this will be conversations on a handful of important issues.

Here I am saluting Afghan police students during my visit to NPTC in Wardak, Afghanistan.

The first will certainly be Afghanistan. From my level as essentially the "operations officer" for NATO, I think the nations need to decide what our mission will look like post-2014. There are already important pledges in place indicating the alliance's intent to remain significantly engaged in Afghanistan. What will that mean specifically?

Will there be a troop presence? How will we collectively fund and support the Afghan Security Forces?

A second important conversation will center around missile defense.

Given the increasing threat from the proliferation of ballistic missile technology, NATO has committed to an alliance missile defense capability. This will be an important conversation, and will of course hopefully include the Russian Federation.

In addition to these operational issues, a third topic will probably be Smart Defense. This is a term coined by Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, and implies a wide range of pooling, sharing, and specializing. While not designed to rationalize cuts in defense, the concept will deliver efficiencies and maximize the capabilities delivered by the member nations.

Fourth, given the range of missions and locations in which we are engaged, it seems logical that there might be a conversation about partnering beyond the 28 member states of NATO. Today in Afghanistan, 50 nations are present with "boots on the ground."  In Libya, our Arab partners were particularly effective. The counter-piracy mission off the Horn of Africa has India, Russia, China and many other "non-traditional" NATO partners involved together. How to enhance and develop these kinds of

partnerships will probably be part of the conversation.

There is a lot to discuss, and world events may change the agenda between now and Chicago. But I'd guess those four topics will be part of the conversation, representing as they do some of the key challenges the alliance faces today.

Admiral James Stavridis
Commander
U.S. European Command

“Duqu”, “Stuxnet”, “Zeus”, or some combination of all three - a “Super Trojan”, attacking your critical infrastructure? Who ya gonna call? 

Cyber attacks are not just an odd jumble of names, but a favorite terrorist approach requiring an effective, comprehensive counter-offensive -- the kind of collaboration that EUCOM’s J9 Interagency Partnering Directorate champions. We advocate cross sector cooperation and interagency coordination.

Recently, Germany’s Ministry of Interior’s Federal Office for IT Security invited me and more than 130 other from more than 20 nations, including Israel, Estonia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Norway, to observe its exercise that addressed cyberterrorism and explored collaborative solutions. The broad interest stemmed from the realistic scenario: cyber attacks on critical infrastructure. Each year 20 million new viruses are detected worldwide. Just five years ago that number was only 3 million per year.  Botnets, malware, phishing, hacktivists: this is the language of today’s new security threat.  The response to cyber attacks can consist of an equally obscure new language of honeypots and spam traps meant to frustrate or deceive botmasters. 

Though the terms may be unfamiliar, the havoc they wreak unfortunately is not.  We know that cyber attacks are employed not just for cyber crime (i.e. to access your bank account), but also to discredit national agencies and governments (i.e. the cyber attacks against Estonia and Georgia). It is incumbent on all of us to “know our enemy” to best defend against such attacks. The best means for doing so is for governments to regularly partner with academia and the private sector (i.e. with IT safety enterprises) to form a sort of cyber coalition. 

Clearly, the defense against cyber attacks is much more than just a fight against malware. This is an area that calls for “whole of society” responses, involving national leaders managing situations in a comprehensive approach. Such an approach should involve law enforcement, businesses, international organizations such as the EU and NATO, the military and academia.

J9 is a “whole of society”-focused directorate. Notably, we are home to EUCOM’s critical infrastructure expertise. This team of engineers is conversant, for example, with the Global Information Grid (GIG), the terminus of transatlantic undersea cables, and Department of Defense-operated satellite facilities here in Europe, and we work to ensure the reliability of this infrastructure against cyber attacks so it can assist our own military missions. The Interagency Partnering Directorate is also charged with reaching out to academia and to the private sector. Recently, we have worked with private companies such as Cisco, McAfee and Symantec and with the Business Executives for National Security (BENS) to assist a NATO nation in bolstering its cyber understandings. Finally, the J9 hosts representatives from federal interagency partners including the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. federal lead for cyber response. Those partners also include representatives from Departments of Justice, Energy, and State, among others. 

All of us are interested in cross sector cooperation and comprehensive solutions. I believe, as demonstrated in recent exercises involving cyber crime, that “whole of society” coordination is indispensable. A good German phrase sums up our thinking: Uebung macht den Meister (“Practice makes perfect.”)

Mike Anderson
Acting Director,
J9 Interagency Partnering Directorate

We’ve set a date for this year’s International Legal Conference – Sept. 7-9 – now we just have to find a location.

Last year, the ILC was held in the Czech Republic with substantial support by the Ministry of Defense and the U.S. Ambassador there and was a resounding success.  Focused on the Rule of Law in the Deployed Environment, the event was a unique opportunity for U.S. and European allies to bridge the gap between theory and practice of Rule of Law support in Afghanistan and other coalition operations. 

Many of the speakers noted that this was the first time that they had had a chance to discuss the implementation of Rule of Law efforts outside of their national chain of command.  Because the conference discussions are for non-attribution, there were some very spirited discussions on the training continuum of Rule of Law matters, and the ability of nations to successfully prepare for Rule of Law missions as part of a core competency necessary not only for legal advisors, but senior operators.

We will continue this lively discussion at the 2012 ILC, with a focus on operational law issues from the practitioners and senior operators’ perspectives, as well as at the theoretical level represented by experts from military and public sector think tanks, NGOs and academic institutions.

Kirk H. Samson
EUCOM Attorney Advisor

The New Year is unfolding, and I'm thinking about Afghanistan. The good news is that we are making significant progress, especially in the security sector. The numbers of men and women killed in action among the coalition forces, an important metric, are down 20% from last year. But there are many challenges ahead.

  I think there are three keys to our success in the security sector, where NATO and the International Coalition have the largest share of the work to do.

Gen. John R. Allen, commander, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)/U.S. Forces- Afghanistan (USFOR-A) shakes hands with Maj. Gen. John Toolan, commander of ISAF's Regional Command - Southwest, July 12 in Helmand. Allen flew to RC-SW with the commander of ISAF Joint Command, Lt. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, to get an assessment on recent efforts in the area.

The first is something we all talk about in a military context: unity of effort. Working closely with my good friend and Naval Academy classmate, General John Allen, we have agreed to put plenty of focus on that this year. From a NATO and International perspective, our goal is to achieve a true sense of "in together, out together" among the 50 troop-contributing nations.

When I attended the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan in December, with 100 nations and international organizations represented, the theme of long-term commitment was evident. In the military sphere, that means we have to pull together smoothly on the oars as we all downsize the number of coalition troops over this coming year. For example, the US will withdraw another 23,000 in 2012 and this is on top of the 10,000 who redeployed in 2011.

Which brings us to the second key: transition to Afghan Security lead. The Afghan security forces have assumed the lead responsibility for security in districts and

Afghan Air Force pilot candidates stand at attention during an official ceremony recognizing their efforts in the Afghan Air Force Conference Center, Kabul, Afghanistan, November 17, 2011. The seven students will leave for Shindand Air Base in western Afghanistan in December where they will begin the first undergraduate pilot training program to be held inside Afghan borders in more than 30 years.

 provinces holding nearly 50% of the population of Afghanistan. This is possible due to the capability and professional

development of more than 310,000 Afghan soldiers, airmen, and policemen and women. Today, the Afghan security forces are taking the vast majority of casualties in the fight, as well as training over 70% of the new recruits.

I'm confident we'll continue to support our Afghan brothers and sisters in uniform as they move forward with taking responsibility for their own security, with a plan to conclude the transition by 2014. At the Chicago NATO / ISAF summit, I have confidence the international community will commit to continuing its support to the Afghan security forces, giving lie to the Taliban's oft-repeated, but unfulfilled promise that we are soon "leaving forever."

The third key is simple: pressuring the insurgents. We've made a lot of progress, and it is reflected in the attitudes of the Afghan people. For example, the recent Asia Society annual poll of the people of Afghanistan concluded that over 85% of Afghans approve of their Army and over 75% of their Police forces -- strong improvements over the past five years. Likewise, nearly 3,000 insurgents have recently renounced violence and reintegrated back into Afghan society under the auspices of the Afghan Peace and Reintegration Program.

We are seeing great strides on the battlefield. Those who continue to fight against the Afghan Government and people have a

Afghan National Army 209th Corps artillery soldiers set up the sighting mechanism and targeting rings on a D30 artillery gun before a validation test and fire demonstration Oct. 5 at the Camp Shaheen weapons range near Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan.

choice: end your violent, extremist ways and work alongside all Afghans for a peaceful and more prosperous 2012, or chose to fight and face unrelenting pressure. We are continually capturing or killing many of their battlefield leaders, and it is my belief that their morale is decreasing and their tactics failing.

Are there significant challenges ahead? Of course. Corruption, governance, and cross-border difficulties will persist. The economy, while enjoying significant growth over the past five years, will come under pressure as the international coalition begins to reposture significant forces over the next several years.

Yet if we focus on the keys to security -- unity of effort, transition to Afghan lead, and pressuring the insurgency -- a stable, peaceful and prosperous pathway for the Afghan Government and the people of Afghanistan is possible. I believe we'll continue to see progress in 2012. Ring in the New Year.

Admiral James Stavridis
Commander
U.S. European Command