NATO-RUSSIA: NATO ALLIES AGREE NRC MUST FOCUS ON

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 USNATO 000523 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/16/2019 TAGS: PGOV PREL PARM PTER SENV NATO RS SUBJECT: NATO-RUSSIA: NATO ALLIES AGREE NRC MUST FOCUS ON MORE THAN JUST THE JOINT THREAT REVIEW REF: A. USNATO 506 ¶B. USNATO 518 Classified By: Ambassador Ivo Daalder for reasons 1.4 (b/d). ¶1. (C) Summary: In a November 11 informal NATO-Russia Council (NRC) meeting on a Ministerial tasking to launch a Joint Review of 21st Century Security Challenges, NATO Allies argued that this initiative should proceed only if agreement was also reached on the "Taking the NRC Forward" paper and the NRC 2010 Work Plan. The Secretary General agreed with this approach, while Russia chose to ignore other NRC work and focus exclusively on the Joint Review. NRC members also discussed how to best implement the Joint Review and possibly to change its scope. France expressed concern with including threats to critical infrastructure in the review, and Canada stated emphatically that it would not agree to any discussion of Arctic issues in this NRC project or in NATO. Russia looked to significantly expand the Joint Review to include European security and conventional arms control, prompting NATO PermReps to respond that the Joint Review should not duplicate the work of other international fora, and the NRC should continue to discuss issues such as arms control and missile defense independent of the Review. Russia's failure to even acknowledge other NRC efforts to prepare for the December Ministerial heightens our concern that Moscow is not serious about improving the NRC or using it for substantive NATO-Russia cooperation. End summary. NATO PermReps Agree to Three Deliverables -------------- ¶2. (C) On November 11, an informal Ambassadorial meeting of the NRC discussed a draft Ministerial tasking to launch a Joint Review of 21st Century Security Challenges. The draft tasking had been changed substantially from an earlier draft distributed to NATO PermReps (ref A). The SecGen had also discussed the earlier draft with Russian Ambassador Rogozin, even before sharing the document with Allies, which had left some PermReps very unhappy. The new draft incorporated many of the changes supported by NATO countries, however. Most importantly, it limited the areas to be subject of an initial review to five only: Afghanistan, terrorism, piracy, the proliferation of WMD and their means of delivery, and the vulnerability of critical infrastructure (full text in para 11). In introducing the draft tasking, the SecGen reiterated that he intended the Joint Review as an opportunity for NATO and Russia to identify security challenges they had in common in order to then devise new strategies for cooperation and common action. ¶3. (C) NATO PermReps welcomed the Joint Review tasking, but stressed that this was only one of three potential deliverables for the December NRC Ministerial, and that it was extremely important that the NRC make equal progress on the reform paper "Taking the NRC Forward" and the 2010 Work Plan. The Czech Republic said that the three documents were a "logical package" to prepare for the NRC Ministerial, and warned that if the package "collapsed" it would say a great deal about how serious NRC members were about cooperation. The SecGen supported the PermReps, while only Russia avoided any mention of the other two documents currently being drafted by the NRC. Allies also agreed that NRC discussions on essential issues such as disarmament, arms control, and missile defense, should not be dependent upon the Joint Review and continue in a different NRC framework. How to Implement Joint Review? -------------- ¶4. (C) Canada noted the need to determine the process for carrying out the Joint Review, asking whether the NRC would rely upon papers generated by the NATO International Staff to frame each of the topics covered. Canada advised starting with topics upon which the NRC had already worked, such as terrorism, rather than starting from scratch. The UK suggested aiming for "low hanging fruit" in order to get some results from the Joint Review, and cautioned against expanding it to include too many topics. Bulgaria agreed, calling for some "quick wins" to demonstrate NRC effectiveness. Lithuania said that the Joint Review should USNATO 00000523 002 OF 003 not require creating new bureaucratic structures within the NRC. Vulnerability of Critical Infrastructure -------------- ¶5. (C) France expressed concern with the NRC examining the vulnerability of critical infrastructure, and proposed that this be covered under terrorism. Belgium and Estonia supported this suggestion, while other countries, including Germany, Turkey, Romania, and the UK, thought it a legitimate area for discussion, arguing that critical infrastructure was threatened by state and non-state-actors, as well as natural disasters, not just terrorists. Russia wanted this topic to include energy infrastructure, and thought information technology infrastructure significant enough to warrant its own heading in the document. Climate Change -------------- ¶6. (C) Several countries, including the UK, Slovenia, and Russia, suggested adding climate change as an area for study, prompting Canada to state that it would not agree to "any" discussion of the Arctic in the NRC or NATO. Norway said that discussing the security implications of climate change without an understanding that this included the "High North" would be meaningless, to which Canada replied that these instructions came directly from the Prime Minister. The UK said it would be difficult to ignore climate change in the current political climate, and thought it possible to discuss the issue without including the Arctic. Ambassador Daalder stressed the appropriateness of the NRC and NATO examining the security implications of climate change. Luxembourg thought it would be difficult for the NRC to devise solutions to this problem. France raised its concern with NATO assuming a role in this policy area. Russia Wants More -------------- ¶7. (C) Russia said the draft tasking was a "good beginning" but asked why it limited the topics to only five, arguing that the initiative be expanded so as to have a "more profound and wide-ranging significance." Russia made a pitch for including the "changing role of European security" and conventional arms control, and expand terrorism to include extremism. Norway warned that the NRC should not duplicate what was being done in other fora on European security and the CFE. The U.S., Romania and Italy agreed. Ambassador Daalder noted that the draft tasking stated that we would continue to discuss arms control, nonproliferation and missile defense within the NRC but outside of the Joint Review. Russia responded that other organizations were not equipped to deal with security issues in the way that NATO was uniquely able to do. ¶8. (C) Russia proposed adding man-made and natural disasters. Norway said that it could consider this topic, while Romania thought it could be difficult to define the types of disasters to be included and suggested focusing on potential disaster responses by NRC members. Spain argued that this be dealt with in NATO's Senior Civil Emergency Planning Committee (SCEPC). The SecGen said that natural disasters were not uniquely 21st century challenges, prompting Russia to respond that the modern world was increasingly reliant upon complex infrastructure that was at risk from all manner of disruption. ¶9. (C) The SecGen observed that some of the issues Russia raised could be accommodated in the current draft, but said that it was not for the Joint Review to address the "whole range of world issues." He stressed the need to keep the project focused upon areas where NATO and Russia could carry out practical cooperation in order to move the organization beyond "serving as a talking shop." The SecGen planned to incorporate NRC members' comments into a new draft for discussion at the November 25 NRC Ambassadorial meeting. Comment -------------- USNATO 00000523 003 OF 003 ¶10. (C) The fact that Russia did not mention "Taking the NRC Forward" or the 2010 Work Plan during the Ambassadorial discussion heightens our concern that Moscow is not serious about reforming the NRC or using the organization for substantive cooperation between NATO and Russia (ref B). We agree with our Allies that these two documents and the Joint Review tasking should form a package of deliverables for the December NRC Ministerial, a target universally understood to have been set at the Corfu NRC Ministerial in July. There, the Ministers directed that the NRC develop proposals for reform that would make it a more effective instrument, and also work to define specific areas of cooperation for the 2010 Work Plan. Substituting these two key areas of substance with a process-focused evaluation of joint threats would set an unacceptably low level of ambition for the level of cooperation possible in the NRC. We predict that Allies will be deeply unhappy with any Russian attempt to put forward the Joint Review as the sole deliverable for the December Ministerial. Without success on both of the other endeavors, the NRC will have achieved nothing but talk in the past six months. End comment. ¶11. (C) The full text of the draft tasking released on November 11 is as follows: DRAFT NRC MINISTERIAL TASKING ON LAUNCHING JOINT REVIEW OF 21ST CENTURY SECURITY CHALLENGES Recognizing that our nations share important common security interests and face common security challenges, we the Foreign Ministers of the NATO-Russia Council, agreed today, 4 December 2009, to launch a Joint Review of 21st Century Challenges. At this stage, we have identified the following topics as components of the Joint Review: Afghanistan Terrorism Piracy Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and their means of delivery Vulnerability of Critical Infrastructure To this end, we task the NATO-Russia Council in permanent session to initiate substantive work on each of these common security challenges and produce a comprehensive document to be presented in December 2010. An Interim Progress Report will be provided for our review and consideration at our informal Spring 2010 meeting. Work will continue in the framework of the NRC on other key issues for NATO-Russia cooperation, including on Disarmament and Arms Control, and Missile Defense. The NATO-Russia Council in permanent session will take all necessary decisions related to the distribution of work to all relevant NRC sub-bodies to facilitate timely follow-up to the results of the Joint Review. DAALDER