NATO Declares Success on Expected Goals

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20120522/DEFREG02/305220001/NATO-Declares-Success-Expected-Goals?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

CHICAGO — With the conclusion of its carefully orchestrated summit in Chicago, NATO declared success in areas where it had planned to announce progress and dialed back the media’s expectations where it may have fallen short.

As it had broadcasted in the months and weeks before the summit began, NATO announced progress on missile defense and a slew of projects aimed to increase the sharing of defense capabilities between NATO members.

This included a $1.7 billion contract with Northrop Grumman for five Block 40 Global Hawk unmanned aircraft.

At least 13 countries will contribute to the purchase of the UAVs, which will be shared by all 28 NATO members.

Although the contract was signed on the evening of May 21, NATO first made the deal public in February.

On missile defense, NATO formally declared an interim ballistic missile defense capability, a first step toward the alliance’s goal to build a missile defense system to protect NATO European countries and populations.

The announcement did not generate much news mostly because it was long in the making.

Still, summit organizers tried to bring attention to the project, scheduling an opportunity for photographers to snap pictures of NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen receiving a tour of a missile defense exhibit set up in the media area.

The exhibit, which featured a tall, white missile standing in the center, attracted some curiosity as it sat all alone on the convention center floor. The only other exhibit in the large hall was devoted to the city of Chicago, where local chefs handed out food and beer samples.

In his final press conference, Rasmussen declared the summit “highly successful” and said leaders had accomplished exactly what they had set out to do.

However, there were some areas where the message was: this summit was never supposed to accomplish that, so there is no disappointment that it didn’t.

Journalists repeatedly asked what type of financial contributions NATO member countries had pledged to the mission in Afghanistan after 2014 when combat troops are scheduled to leave.

Although some countries were specific in their commitments, many questions remained about who would contribute what to the $4-billion-a-year price tag for maintaining the Afghan Security Forces.

During separate press conferences, President Barack Obama and Rasmussen both said the Chicago summit was never meant to be a donor conference.

Much of that work will be left to the Tokyo Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan, scheduled to take place in July. There, countries are expected to determine how much financial assistance they will provide Afghanistan post-2014.

“While this summit has not been a pledging conference, it’s been encouraging to see a number of countries making significant financial commitments to sustain Afghanistan’s progress in the years ahead,” Obama said during a May 21 press conference.

Pakistan also drove the headlines in Chicago, as the summit took place against the backdrop of tense negotiations between Pakistan and the United States over reopening supply routes in the country.

“We didn’t expect an agreement on the Pakistan transit routes to be reached at this summit. That was not planned,” Rasmussen said.

Pakistan blockaded Afghanistan-bound supplies from moving through the country in November after a NATO airstrike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

Pakistan continues to demand an apology for the event.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari was invited to Chicago late last week. At first it was believed the invite was contingent upon Pakistan opening the transit routes, but the invitation was issued and no such deal was reached.

“We didn’t anticipate that the supply line issue was going to be resolved by this summit,” Obama said during a May 21 press conference. “We knew that before we arrived in Chicago, but we’re actually making diligent progress on it.”

Without a final deal, Obama did not agree to formally meet with Zardari and instead briefly chatted with him on the sidelines. However, Obama did sit down for more than an hour with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on May 20.

Despite the perceived diplomatic snub of Pakistan, Rasmussen said he predicted an agreement would be reached and that Pakistan would reopen the transit routes in the very near future.