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On Defense, France Bites the Bullet, But Avoids Strategic Insolvency May 7, 2013
Iceland’s Recovery Saga Presents Opportunities for Brussels, Washington—and Beijing May 6, 2013
Which Way Forward for Europe’s Hybrid Regimes? May 2, 2013
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Events
Andrew Light Speaker Tour in Europe May 14, 2013 / Berlin, Germany; Brussels, BelgiumGMF Senior Fellow Andrew Light participated in a speaking tour in Europe to discuss opportunities for transatlantic cooperation on climate and energy policy in the second Obama administration.
In this podcast, GMF Vice President of Programs Ivan Vejvoda discusses last month's historic agreement to normalize relations between Kosovo and Serbia.
Anchor Elaine Reyes speaks with Andrew Small, Transatlantic Fellow of the Asia Program for the German Marshall Fund, about Beijing's potential role in brokering peace between Israel and Palestine
Events
NATO Secretary General Rasmussen outlines NATO strategic concept draft at GMF October 08, 2010 / Brussels
On October 8 at the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) in Brussels, Belgium, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen outlined his vision for NATO’s new strategic concept and cautioned against deep defense budget cuts among members. The strategic concept will be discussed and approved in November at the NATO summit in Lisbon. Heike MacKerron, Senior Director for Europe at GMF, hosted the event and introduced the Secretary General.
The new strategic concept will be “the blueprint for an Alliance even more actively engaged in building international security and upgraded for modern defense,” Rasmussen said. Due to the changing security environment he explained that NATO has to change the way it does business. Both visible military threats and invisible threats such as terrorism, cyber security and energy security are all issues of concern. Rasmussen outlined three areas of change for NATO. He said it needs to modernize its defense and deterrence capability to accommodate new threats. It also needs to update its crisis management capabilities to respond to situations like the one in Afghanistan and to develop its global partnerships to build cooperative security. He went on to argue against defense budget cuts proposed by NATO members as a result of the financial crisis, warning allies against going too far. "There is a point where you are no longer cutting fat; you're cutting into muscle, and then into bone," explained Rasmussen. "We have to avoid cutting so deep that we won't, in future, be able to defend the security on which our economic prosperity rests. And we cannot end up in a situation where Europe cannot pull its weight when it comes to security." Rasmussen said that this would make the European Union's ambition to exert more political influence in the world "a hollow shell." "And the United States would look elsewhere for its security partner. That is not a price we can afford," he said. To view Rasmussen's remarks, please use the video player below or click here for a transcript of his speech. If the video player below does not show, or is incompatible with your browser, please click here to download the WMV file directly.
