FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Will Bohlen Elizabeth Boswell Rega
Tel: +1 202 294 4704 +32 (0)473 280 950
Email: wbohlen@gmfus.org eboswellrega@gmfus.org
Transcripts, audio, video on the web: http://www.bucharestconference.org/
New Threats Critical to Article 5 Discussion
~ Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski backs MAP for Georgia, Ukraine ~
BUCHAREST (April 2, 2008) — Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, in a panel discussion at the Bucharest Conference, said NATO’s Article 5 must take into account non-traditional attacks.
“Weapons should not matter; if you blow up a hospital or an electricity plant, if you destroy it through a DDOS [Distributed Denial of Service], the threat’s the same,” he said. “There is no symmetrical response, what’s the response after the attack?”
Ilves, whose country suffered a cyberattack last year, said NATO’s future depends on changing the fundamental philosophy underlying an alliance response.
“As we have these new threats, particularly cyber and energy security, we need to change our metaphor, and get out of the war metaphor,” he said.
Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, a fellow panelist, also stressed that NATO countries need to rethink how they will respond to the rise in asymmetric threats.
“We vastly underestimate the threats we’re living under; biological weapons can be made by mad scientists in a garage,” he said.
Although the panel, which also featured Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan and former Supreme Allied Commander for Europe General Joseph Ralston, began with Article 5, the discussion turned toward the possibility
of NATO granting Membership Action Plans (MAP) to Georgia and Ukraine.
“Ukraine and Georgia should be granted MAP before we leave this town, but current members should be given credible, actionable guarantees,” Sikorski said.
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The Bucharest Conference, happening alongside the official 2008 NATO Summit, is a high-level meeting of influential political, corporate, and intellectual leaders to address pressing challenges facing NATO and the international community. Participants include heads of state, senior officials from country governments, policymakers, think tank leaders, scholars, corporate executives, and media.
NATO’s operation in Afghanistan, the alliance’s enlargement, its future role in global affairs, and Russia’s relationship with the West are just a few of the current and future issues being discussed at the Bucharest Conference. The conference continues the tradition of the German Marshall Fund’s 2004 Istanbul Conference and 2006 Riga Conference by providing a platform for an open dialogue among participants and speakers representing countries and organizations worldwide.
The Bucharest Conference is organized by the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Chatham House.