that will be a milestone, a milestone when we shift from one point to the other. what should happen in 2013 depending on, of course, how the situation on the ground evolves, we expected to happen in 2013, and that is where in chicago we will solidify how we get to 2013, what we will do to the end of 2014, and by the way, what is the nature of nato's role and the international role, which the president started to address in his visit to bagram air base a week ago, as well as part of the strategic partnership agreement that the united states has now signed with afghanistan and nato, which has an enduring partnership agreement signed in lisbon. we'll start filling out what that means as well. >> sir? >> behind you.

>> good to see you again. i'd like to get back to nato enlargement both in the north as well as the south. first of all, in the north sweden and finland have not asked to join, but they've really become almost allies in any sense of the word, we took part in the combat missions. in libya they're doing baltic air policing, swedes and finns are going to as i understand it, well, at any rate cooperating very closely. would you say a few words about cooperation? the second more important question has to do with macedonia. macedonia's secession to nato when the main dispute is solved but the international court of justice ruled that about six months ago that greece had no right, it was almost a unanimous decision, greece had no right on the 1995 agreement to keep, to block macedonia's membership in

international organizations that while the negotiations are going on. sounds like the united states in a sense has raised the bar because, you know, if i understood the icj's decision, it shouldn't matter that the negotiations are going on and, in fact, macedonia, as you know, was slated to get in bucharest in 2008 with croatia and albania. so if you could speak to those two issues. i'd appreciate it. >> thanks for both parts of the question. on sweden and finland, sweden even more than finland, they are extraordinary partners. they participate -- sweden participates in every single operation that we are conducting with major cooperation and operation unified protect libya, a leading role in the north and afghanistan, until recently, although that's gone down, has contributed significantly in

kosovo, as has finland in many different ways. they could be allies tomorrow. by the way, i remind them of that, too. it is -- there is something -- the membership does have its privileges. for one you get to sit at the table to make decisions, and if you don't, if you're not a member you get to sit at the table but you don't get to make decisions. but it's a national decision. sweden will have to decide, finland will have to decide, like every country, whether or not they want to become members of nato. the good news is you don't have to be a member of nato to be an extraordinary partner. on baltic air policing, they have air covers in the baltics but they're not part of the nato mission of baltic air policing as of yet so, that's why i was shaking my head. op macedonia, the issue is very simple. in bucharest, it was decided by all 28, at that time 26 members of nato, that macedonia would be invited as soon as the main

issue was resolved to mutual decision and satisfaction. this is a consensus-based organization. the way it works. you need all members to agree. since greece has insisted that it needs to resolve the main issue prior to being willing to say yes to an invitation, the reality is until that is resolved in a mutually satisfactory way an invitation will not be forthcoming. that's how this organization works. we are not going to have the icj or anybody else telling nato when and how it should take in new members. that is for nato to decide among the 28 countries. that is the recognized way in which every enlargement has happened from 1952, when greece and turkey were the first two countries to join nato, until 2008, when the last two, albania and croatia, became members and

will continue to adhere to that fundamental decision which we all made in bucharest, which is an invitation will be forthcoming when a decision has been reached. that there's no change in the u.s. position. we've had the same position since 2008. >> yes, ma'am. >> thank you. clara o'donnell, visiting federal brookings, originally from the center of european reform. i have a question on smart. we recognize that defense industrial interest do remain an obstacle to defense corporation. i was wondering if you had any suggestions on how this obstacle could be overcome. thanks. >> big question and very important question. part of the obstacles for smart defense is if you want to have industrial cooperation, joint procurement of weapons systems, you need to do that on the industrial side as well as in the policy side.

and one reason nations are hesitating in cooperating internationally is because they want to defend their own defense industry. some of the multinational programs actually are designed to enhance international cooperation. i mentioned ags. the ags program has very specific -- in the contract, very specific benefits for local industries of those participating in the procurement of that system. so all 13 countries, not just the united states, are providing significant industrial input and getting significant industrial benefit from that cooperation. but working out these deals is very complicated, requires good politics as well as good industrial cooperation. that is very difficult. it takes time, and it's much easier, particularly if you have a large enough defense industry,

as some europeans still do to just buy local, whether there's french, british, italian or what have you. so trying to figure out how we're going to mesh these two pieces, the need for industrial cooperation to help drive procurement cooperation is one of the areas that we're increasingly looking at and recognize as important, not just within europe but also between europe and the united states. >> bill courtney, retired diplomat. when sergey lavrov announced that a facility in russia might be used, this caused some stir among russian nationalists because putin just kanl paped on an anti-u.s., anti-nato platform running for president. why do you think the russians agreed and how do you see the mixture of cooperation and competition with russia in regards to nato?

>> bill, thanks for asking that question because i think it's very important. the one success story in the nato/russia relationship, one of many, but the one that really stands out is the cooperation of afghanistan. russia came -- has come to the conclusion that for nato and isaf to succeed in afghanistan is in russia's fundamental interest. and, therefore, it has cooperated with nato and with the united states on the transit of goods, equipment, and personnel. 220,000 american troops have been flown into and out of afghanistan through russian airspace in the last few years. similarly, many thousands of tons of material have now transferred through rail lines through russia into afghanistan. and as we start drawing down our forces, getting the stuff out becomes equally important.

and russia has been a great member of that coalition, of the transit coalition that exists. the multimodal transit, which is the base is being used for which would allow us to fly out of afghanistan into russia and then transport the same materials onto trains, is yet another step in the direction of making sure that the transit system really does work to the benefits of all. and despite the protests that happened, we've been hearing on the streets in russia because of this agreement the government remains committed to fulfilling it. it set out my good colleague, former colleague, to make the case for why this is important. and when he says anything nice about nato, you ought to listen because that's an important -- that's an important event. and it means that, in fact, they

want something to happen in a positive way, and they do, and on this issue, as, for example, counter piracy and counter narcotics training, two other issues where the nato-russia and u.s.-russia cooperation is beneficial to both sides and we remain committed and we remain implementing it despite the differences that we have on other issues. >> yes, sir, in the back? >> you won't believe it. my name is ivo also. i'm from al jazeera, balkans. can we go back to a little bit to enlargement -- >> could you speak a little louder? >> croatia and slovenia are already nato, macedonia, bosnia have a big desire to be part of montenegro, but serbia didn't show any desire to be part of nato. is nato actually afraid a little bit that serbia would be too close to moscow, maybe russia

can offer some military base in the south of serbia maybe? and also in bosnia -- practically divided -- and under serbia control. they saying we put a referendum about nato, if it's necessary, just one part of the country. and, also, we want to see what belgrade is saying about nato membership. please, your comment. thank you, sir. >> serbia has an evolving relationship with nato. it's a relationship where we now have an individual partnership plan, signed and negotiated with serbia. serbia has not indicated once they became a member of nato. as i said, this is a decision individual countries will have to reach themselves. for now, serbia has focused primarily on moving towards the eu, and it gained candidacy

status a few months ago, which was important. there was an important election. there were many important elections on sunday. there was another one in serbia, which -- and we will see the second round next week. but the forces that want to continue the process of euro/atlantic integration in serbia remain strong, which is good for serbia and it's good for europe. how and when and whether that integration will have a nato angle, there's something for serbia to decide. we are open to it. the serbs, in fact, have a mission to nato. they have an ambassador at nato whose sole job is to have an interaction with nato, and we will find whatever partnership activity, partnership relationship belgrade wants, we are willing to support it. with respect to

bosnia-herzegovina, one of the interesting thing is it remains one of the few areas there is large agreement across the entire country. and bosnia has made significant steps in recent weeks and months on meeting some of the key requirements with respect to defense property, registration, that will enable them to have a new relationship with nato in the weeks and months ahead, demonstrating that nato and the ability to become a member of nato remains one of those things that helps political consensus form in a country, to make the kind of difficult political decisions that sometimes are necessary in order to move forward. so we are hopeful that bosnia will continue down that path and enable it to move closer to nato membership as it makes the reforms that are necessary. >> i can't hear you. can you speak up a little?

>> -- is going to have referendum about nato. i'm not talking about the whole of bosnia, because the president of that entity of bosnia, he said that a few days ago, we are going to have eferendum in the republic. >> i will leave the internal politics of bosnia-herzegovina to the people of bosnia-herzegovina to comment on. >> yes, sir. >> yef piala, washington lawyer, occasional academic. the united states has articulated something of a pivot toward asia, and i wondered what the implication -- have we thought about what the implications for nato and with respect to signing or encouraging europe to take more responsibilities in the european theater? >> thanks, jeff. i know what it means to be an occasional academic. i feel your pain. the pivot, if you want to use

that word, which seems to have resonated around, needs to be understood in the right way. this was not a pivot away from europe. it was a pivot away from a decade of war in which europe needs to become a partner. and we see europe as a partner in that activity. for us europe remains our partner of choice. it remains the place where the economic and military and political weight of that coalition is larger than in any other part of the world. we need europeans to be with us to deal with the global challenges that we face together. the fact that we are spending now more time thinking about operating in asia should be seen as something that europeans ought to welcome, both because it's important there is

stability in asia but also because we see europe not as a competitor in asia but very much a parer in, as a part of our solution to deal with the global challenges that we face, together. that does mean that europe will probably have to continue to think about what can it do for europe. that is an important question. it's an important question europeans need to ask each and every day, but it doesn't mean that we're going to do asia, quote, whatever that means, so you can do europe. it is we have global challenges that need to be addressed together. we think that what is happening in asia is fundamental to global security, fundamental to asian security, it's fundamental to american security, and, oh, by the way, it's fundamental to european security. so that's why it's important for us to be engaged there, but that doesn't mean we should be less engaged in europe, which we're not, nor that we don't want europe to be part and parcel of that very engagement in asia and around the world. >> yes, this lady in the back?

>> hi. thank you, mr. ambassador, for your service. mary beth long, former high level group. there are some critics that say that some of the nato member states have gone wobbly when it concerns political will regarding the actual facilities of nuclear weapons on their territory and that that wobbliness of political will, coupled with the actual deterioration of the facilities and the equipment, puts at real peril nato's nuclear posture in the coming years if nato doesn't act quickly. is that an overstatement or where is nato on that, and is the u.s. concerned regarding the future nuclear posture regarding nato? >> yeah, i think it's an overstatement, in both the political and the technical sense. in the political sense, i think there is a fundamental consensus that nato will remain a nuclear alliance as long as nuclear weapons exist, that that requires a widespread cooperation on the nuclear issue

which we have been engaged in for 40, 50 years, and we need to continue to be engaged in. at the same time, there's an interest on the part of many european countries to contribute to the president's agenda and to help create the conditions necessary for a world without nuclear weapons. and we are trying to manage that political desire on the one hand to ensure that nato will remain a nuclear alliance as long as nuclear weapons exist, while also working to create the conditions for nuclear weapons to -- for nuclear weapons no longer to exist. technically speaking, we have made -- we have done the investments necessary to ensure that the weapons are safe and secure, which is ultimately the most important thing that we need to have when it comes to any nuclear weapon no matter where they are. they need to be safe and secure

and effective as necessary. for as long as they exist, that needs to happen. we are continuing to make the financial and it technical investments necessary, not only we, the united states, but we, all european countries, to ensure that's the case. so i think we are in the position where we have reached a level of nuclear burden sharing, of risk and responsibilities that are most allies are comfortable with, and we're continuing to make the investments necessary to ensure that the weapons that are -- that remain are safe, secure, and effective. >> hi. stuart patrick, cfr. good to see you again. >> good to see you. >> you mentioned that this was a pivot away from a decade of war. and i guess my question is, what is nato's rationale post-afghanistan? in other words what is nato pivoting toward? obviously a residual guarantee of security and reassurance for

european allies who are still on edge about russia's future trajectory. but you mentioned a number of global challenges without necessarily specifying what those were. or is nato's future in the counterpiracy business, the counterterrorism business, the coin business or occasional stability operations business, energy and security? a lot of those things would seem to be crime, perhaps. a lot of those would seem to be things that link us to our allies, but where nato may or may not be the instrument of choice that one would turn to first off such as your reflections on what is its mission. >> i appreciate the question. it's apropos given that we're meeting in chicago in two weeks. i'd start off with the most important verity of nato is it's the only organization besides

the u.s. military that isscapable of conducting coalition, high-intensity combat operations. there's no other place in the world where you can bring a number of very capable militaries -- and these are the most capable militaries in the world -- together and operate together in a way that shares the burdens more fairly than one would do if one had to operate by itself. that's point number one. point number two is in the strategic concept that was adopted in lisbon, i think the most important sentence was the consistence -- the third sentence that says that nato is a source of stability in an unpredictable world. when those words were written and agreed in 2010, there wasn't a single person, not a single person, who thought that three months from that moment nato would conduct a major air operation over libya. and the only organization capable of doing that, again, aside from the u.s. military,

was nato. there was no other organization that could have done this. and having the capacity to be ready to act militarily when the need arises is something that we ought to value greatly and we americans ought to value it greatly because the alternative to nato doing it is us doing it. and that is costly for us. it is unnecessary. it's probably less effective politically as well as in some ways militarily than if we have a strong nato capable of acting together. again, the libya operation is an important example. i mentioned the statistics in terms of combat operations. here is another one. the total cost to the u.s. taxpayer of the libyan operation was $1 billion. that's what we are spending in afghanistan each and -- each

three or four days. that's value for money. now, rightly, the interest that nato countries have, in particular southern european countries in libya, was higher than ours. so they should do it. but nato existed to enable them and that's why we need to invest, even if it's a little bit, so you can be ready when the time comes to use military force or to threaten to use military force for deterrent or signaling purposes to have an alliance that is capable of doing so. that's why it's important for us to invest in it, it's important for europeans to invest in it, because the alternative is is uncle sam doing it, which is something neither they nor we should want. >> i love that question because it's so durable. and in 50 years in journalism if you were ever stuck for a story you could say withered nato, no matter whether it was '60s, '70s, '80s. yes, in the back? >> thank you.

elise with cnn. thank you for your comments. >> would you stand up, please? >> sure. thank you for your comments, ambassador. i wondered if we could take that a bit further and as nato is evolving about whether this is not just a transatlantic security organization or is it -- do you find that nato is going to increasingly be going out of theater to do such counterpiracy operations, counterterrorist operations? obviously there's an interest in investing in these types of security operations, but are we going to see nato evolving into a more nontraditional security organization which deals with these 21st century threats? thank you. >> well, i think you are already seeing nato evolving over time to something like that. last year nato had more than 150,000 men under nato command and control operating in six operations in three continents. that was last year. we shut down two operations. we succeeded in libya, and we ended the training mission in

iraq. so now we have four operations -- afghanistan, the gulf of aden, kosovo and still a counterterrorism operation in the midterranean. not only do we have the operations as nato countries, each and every one of those operations has partner countries that are contributing directly to these operations. some come as far away as australia and new zealand who are actively cooperating not only in afghanistan but in the piracy mission in the gulf of mexico of and the arabian sea. you have a country like morocco. just think about it. a country like morocco has 220 troops in kosovo and participated in operation unify protector because it now looks at nato as a source, what you may call a hub, of an international global security network that you want to be associated with in order to deal

with the challenges that you can do by yourself. and increasingly we see in nato where it's not just partners like sweden and finland who have long seen this as their natural places but partners in the middle east. remember, operation unify protector, four north african and middle eastern countries participated and afghanistan. 22 countries from mongolia to malaysia to singapore to el salvador and conga have forces in afghanistan to be part of an international operation. so that's part of what nato's mission has to be. it's part of that being there as a source of stability in this unpredictable world, building these partnerships that are necessary in order to deal with the security challenges that are more diffuse, more global, and more difficult to tackle unless you do it in partnership with other countries. >> last question, and i need to remind you this is on the record.

let's see. yes, sir? >> hi, i'm from g.w. law school. the u.s. administration recently announced the establishment of the atrocities prevention board. i was wondering what was the reaction among the nato allies to this new institution and has it triggered any developments and their thoughts about expanding their intelligence capabilities and their military capabilities to deal with types of missions given that nato will likely be the instrument of choice for these sorts of missions in the future? thanks. >> i can't say there's been a direct link between that decision by the obama administration and thinking inside nato. what i can say is these are hardly new issues for nato. after all, every single use of force in the 1990s had to do with the prevention of mass atrocities in one form or another. afghanistan is the one big

exception. but bosnia, kosovo, and the libyan operation were all operations closely linked to the protection of civilians to deal with a humanitarian emergency that required the use of military force. and as part of the new thinking within nato, there is an increasing emphasis on making sure that we have the capacity to respond to whatever situation may arise in which the use of military force may prove to be useful. one of the lessons we learned from libya was that a very precise application of airpower, the most precise application of airpower we've seen to date can have a major positive impact on the ability to protect civilians, particularly when those civilians are being attacked by their own government.

not every situation will allow that. every situation will be unique. but it is something where nato does, as 28 democracies coming together, needs to be in and is thinking about how it can be in a position to act if it is desirable to do so. >> thank you. thank you very much. [ applause ] on our companion network c-span later today, a look at lessons learned from japan's earthquake last year and the subsequent nuclear meltdown from the heritage foundation in washington live at noon eastern. then at 3:00 p.m., also on c-span, a member of russia's democratic opposition movement. she's talking about russia's presidential election and the future of democracy