The 2006 Riga summit was a NATO summit held in the Olympic Sports Centre, Riga, Latvia from 28 to 29 November 2006. The most important topics discussed were the War in Afghanistan and the future role and borders of the alliance.M. BUCHER, "NATO, Riga and Beyond" in Disarmament policy, (2007), 84, NATO, Riga and Beyond | Acronym Institute Further, the summit focused on the alliance's continued transformation, taking stock of what has been accomplished since the 2002 Prague Summit. NATO also committed itself to extending further membership invitations in the upcoming 2008 Bucharest Summit. This summit was the first NATO summit held on the territory of the Baltic states.
Security measures
The summit was held in the Olympic Sports Centre, Riga. Roads in the center of Riga were closed down and parking was not allowed at the airport or at several roads, out of fear of car bombs.I-LATVIA, NATO Summit in Riga, 2006 About 9000 Latvian police officers and soldiers took care of the Summit's security, while more than 450 other airmen from seven European NATO countries were called upon to ensure a no-fly zone above the summit in an operation called Operation Peaceful Summit. This enhanced ongoing Baltic Air Policing activities with additional aircraft, communications and maintenance support.L. NEIDINGER "NATO team ensures safe sky during Riga Summit" in Air Force Link, 8 December 2006, U.S. Air Force – Mobile
Summit All agreements were not actually made in the North Atlantic Council meeting, but in fact, it was made in the Istanbul Summit, 2003, except for the signing of the missile defense contract which happened on 28 November. The Council meeting was held on 29 November.
Main topics While the tensions between NATO members from the build-up to the invasion of Iraq had dissipated, the NATO summit, and the months preceding the summit, were marked by divisions between the United States and the United Kingdom on the one side and France, Germany, Italy and Spain on the other. Two rifts existed, one about the military contributions to the war in Afghanistan, and the other concerning whether or not NATO should assume a more global role.
War in Afghanistan
Before and during the summit US president George W. Bush, British prime minister Tony Blair, Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper and Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende made a plea to European NATO members to make more troops available for deployment in Afghanistan, remove the national caveats (i.e. national restrictions on how, when and where forces can be used) and start sending its troops into the conflict-ridden south of the country.X, "NATO and Nuclear Weapons" in Disarmament Policy, 29 November 2006, Can NATO transform for the 21st century? | Acronym Institute D. DOMBEY & S. FIDLER, "Nato makes limited progress on troops" in The Financial Times, 29 November 2006, Nato makes limited progress on troops – FT.com According to Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) General James L. Jones it was not the lack of combat troops and the caveats were the problem, but the lack of adequate helicopters and military intelligence to support airlift and on-the-ground operations.
While the NATO countries in question refused to participate in the fighting in the south, they agreed to remove some of these national caveats, and in an emergency situation, all national caveats should cease to exist, meaning that every ally should come to the aid of the forces that require assistance.NATO, NATO boosts efforts in Afghanistan, 30 November 2006 A number of NATO member states also pledged to provide additional assets, including fighters, helicopters, infantry companies as well as training teams that will mentor the Afghan National Army. NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that the removal of some of the caveats meant that some 20,000 of the 32,000 NATO troops in ISAF are made "more usable" for combat duties and that 90% of the formal mission requirements were now filled. Military sources, however, told reporters at the summit that these caveats never existed in emergency situations, adding that it would be a strange alliance where one country's soldiers refused to support their allies in an emergency. NATO leaders also backed a French proposal to set up a "contact group" to coordinate action concerning Afghanistan, but the United States had reservations about France's proposal to include Iran, which has considerable influence over the west of Afghanistan, in the proposed contact group due to the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme.Agence France-Presse, "Afghanistan being won: NATO" in The Daily Telegraph, 30 November 2006, The group was modelled on the one set up for the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s.
Political scientist Joseph Nye commented that "while the Riga summit relaxed some of these caveats to allow assistance to allies in dire circumstances, Britain, Canada, the Netherlands, and the US are doing most of the fighting in southern Afghanistan, while French, German, and Italian troops are deployed in the quieter north. It is difficult to see how NATO can succeed in stabilizing Afghanistan unless it is willing to commit more troops and give commanders more flexibility."Nye, J. (14 December 2006). "NATO after Riga" The controversy surrounding the differences in contributions to Afghanistan indeed remained after the summit. For instance, in March 2007, British commanders accused the NATO members that refused to fight in the conflict-ridden south (in non-emergency situations) of causing "huge resentment" and a sense of betrayal and undermined the credibility of the alliance. They added that despite the earlier pleas for reinforcements or to have "operational caveats" removed, some countries, notably France and Germany, were still not heeding their requests.T. HARDING, "Do your fair share in Afghanistan, Nato told" in The Daily Telegraph, 10 March 2007, News – Latest breaking UK news – Telegraph
Besides the above discussion about contributions and caveats, the summit was noticed to paint an optimistic picture of the war in Afghanistan and Afghanistan's future. For instance, NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that "real progress" had been made in Afghanistan and that this was the main highlight of the summit. He strongly disagreed with visions of "doom and gloom," and added that five years after the defeat of the Taliban regime, Afghanistan had become a democratic society that is "no longer a threat to the world." He also believed that the defeat of the insurgency was only a matter of time, stating that the war in Afghanistan "is winnable, it is being won, but it is not yet won because, of course, we have many challenges in Afghanistan." In his opinion, these challenges included besides military engagement mainly reconstruction and development work.Closing press conference by NATO Secretary-General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer
Role of NATO
The second, more fundamental rift, concerned a discussion about whether NATO should form close relationships with countries far beyond NATO's borders, in particular Australia, Japan and South Korea.BBC News, Nato looks for global role, 27 November 2006, BBC NEWS | Europe | Nato looks for global role The United States and some other NATO members pressed for a closer relationship with these countries. R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary for Political Affairs explained the US proposal: "We seek a partnership with them so that we can train more intensively (...) and grow closer to them because we are deployed with them. Australia, South Korea and Japan are in Afghanistan. They have all been in Iraq (...) [and] in the Balkans."Briefing on NATO Issues Prior to Riga Summit It was however not clear how far this plan would have gone in practice, but the US insisted they were not seeking to turn NATO into a global alliance: membership would not be offered to the prospective new partners. The idea of a "global" NATO however was strongly opposed by France, which considers NATO a regional defense alliance that should not spread its wings too far over the globe. The French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie summarized the position of France as follows: "The development of a global partnership could... dilute the natural solidarity between Europeans and North Americans in a fuzzy entity [and it would] send a bad political message, that of a campaign launched by the West against those who don't share their ideas. What a pretext we would offer to those who promote the idea of a clash of civilisations." The summit did not reach a satisfying consensus on the future role of NATO and it was considered an exercise in "papering over cracks", much more than it was ever a serious effort to decide on the future borders and core purposes. As a consequence, the debate continued after the summit.
Other topics
Kosovo At the Riga summit, NATO members confirmed the role of NATO-led KFOR in ensuring a stable security environment there.X, NATO – The Way to Riga and onward, 2006 This is perceived to be a reference to the possible United Nations decision in favour of independence. Because Serbia strongly opposes the break-away of Kosovo, the resulting tensions between Serbia and Kosovo could create instability in the region.
Enhanced cooperation with non-members Enhanced cooperation with non-member states closer at home was less controversial and two offers were made: an extension of Partnership for Peace membership, and a training initiative. Partnership for Peace (PfP) membership was offered to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia. NATO hoped that this would bring these countries more into the Euro-Atlantic community as the PfP is a programme of practical bilateral cooperation between individual Partner countries and NATO, thereby allowing Partner countries to choose their own priorities for cooperation.NATO, Alliance offers partnership to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia, 30 November 2006, It is expected that PfP membership is for these three countries the first step towards NATO membership. As a result, the PfP offer sparked the anger of the UN tribunal trying suspected war criminals from the Balkans. NATO launched a Training Cooperation Initiative offering to share NATO training expertise with its Mediterranean Dialogue (MD) countries (Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel and Jordan) and Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI) countries.NATO, NATO launches training initiative for Mediterranean and Middle East, 30 November 2006, The initial phase included expanding those countries' participation in relevant existing NATO training and education programmes, and the establishment of a Middle East faculty at the NATO Defense College in Rome. As a second phase, NATO would consider supporting the establishment of a Security Cooperation Centre in the region, to be owned by the MD and ICI countries, with regional funding and NATO assistance. Senior NATO staff have tended to highlight this project as evidence of NATO's forward-thinking and its desire to avoid becoming a party to a "clash of civilizations".
Comprehensive Political Guidance