09 April 1998
(Hungary is "ready and committed" to NATO membership) (3200) Budapest -- "What we are doing is nothing less than to defy history: to overcome the historic tendency toward instability, nationalism and regional conflict that has plagued this part of the world for generations," U.S. Ambassador to NATO Alexander Vershbow told an audience of Hungarian government officials and business leaders at the Foreign Ministry April 7. "Hungary's prospective membership in NATO is one of the most important aspects of this effort to defy history," Vershbow said. He noted that NATO enlargement is part of the effort to renew the Alliance "that has been under way since the people of Hungary and other nations of the former Warsaw Pact pulled down the Iron Curtain in 1989." NATO is adjusting to the challenges of the post-Cold War era, "while preserving its essential capacity for collective defense." This includes developing a security partnership between NATO and the Russian Federation, Vershbow said, adding that "as a NATO member, Hungary will shoulder an important responsibility for helping to build the NATO-Russia partnership in ways that are mutually beneficial. This will be key to demonstrating to Moscow that NATO enlargement, far from damaging Russia's interests, in fact enhances Russian security by bringing stability, democracy, and security cooperation closer to Russia's frontiers." And NATO's evolving relationship with Ukraine and its Partnership for Peace program "are other ways we have reached out across traditional political boundaries, and where we also look to Hungary to play a leading role." Vershbow also discussed the commitments NATO and its new members are making to each other, including the efforts Hungary is making to modernize its defense sector. "The United States supported Hungarian membership in NATO because Hungary was ready and committed to assume the associated rights and responsibilities of membership in our Alliance. We are more convinced now than ever that this was the right decision," he said. (Note: In the following text, "billion" equals 1,000 million.) Following is the text of the ambassador's remarks, provided by USIS Budapest: (Begin text) NATO ENLARGEMENT AND HUNGARY Remarks by Ambassador Alexander Vershbow U.S. Permanent Representative on the North Atlantic Council Budapest April 7, 1998 It is a genuine delight for me to be here with all of you in Budapest today to talk about Hungary's prospective membership in NATO. I have always been an optimist, but I must admit that I would never have guessed a decade ago that I would one day come to this city as the American ambassador to NATO to talk about the prospect of Hungarian membership in the Alliance. In fact, ten years ago, I was serving as the director of the Office of Soviet Union Affairs in the State Department and I was worried about unfolding events in Hungary. You will remember all this far better than I, Mr. Minister, as you were the State Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when East German tourists in increasing numbers were fleeing to Austria through Hungary and hard-liners in Berlin and Moscow were getting very restless. The situation was explosive, and in Washington we were getting ready for trouble. The conventional wisdom was that Moscow would force its Warsaw Pact ally Hungary to crack down on the border. That might have happened were it not for the vision and enormous courage, Mr. Minister, of you and then-Foreign Minister Gyula Horn. You will have to tell us the full story of how you talked the Soviets and the East Germans out of a confrontation. Clearly, the events on the Austro-Hungarian border a decade ago were instrumental in the demise of the Warsaw Pact and ultimately the end of the Soviet Union. Now, in one of history's interesting twists, two of the same Hungarian politicians who led the country on its first steps away from the Warsaw Pact are leading a renewed and revitalized Hungary into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and other democratic European structures. These are the most interesting of times. Indeed, the changes under way in Europe today are nothing short of breathtaking. In the last ten years, Europe -- and especially Central Europe -- has become a laboratory for change. By working together with the forces for democracy that helped bring down the Soviet Empire -- in Hungary, in other Central European countries, and in the Soviet Union itself -- the United States and its European allies have sought to help achieve something totally unprecedented: a Europe that is undivided, democratic, and at peace for the first time in history; a Europe that is part of a larger transatlantic community, built on a foundation of shared interests and values. The enlargement of NATO, the expansion of the European Union, and the redefinition of our relations with the Russian Federation are all part of this commitment to change the way we approach relations among the member states of the new transatlantic community. What we are doing is nothing less than to defy history: to overcome the historic tendency toward instability, nationalism and regional conflict that has plagued this part of the world for generations. Hungary's prospective membership in NATO is one of the most important aspects of this effort to defy history. This is because NATO's greatest achievement was not in deterring aggression by the former Soviet Union. Rather, it was the Alliance's success in creating a space in the Western half of Europe in which war became simply unthinkable. It was the creation of NATO -- together with that other major U.S. post-war initiative, the Marshall Plan -- that laid the foundation for the extraordinary process of European integration that has reached maturity with the creation of the European Union. By enlarging NATO to the most qualified candidates in Central Europe and by building security ties to all of Europe's democracies, we are seeking to do for Europe's East what NATO did for Europe's West: to consolidate democracy and free-market reforms, to end historic rivalries among the states of the region, and to promote cooperation in addressing common security problems. NATO enlargement is part of a larger strategy of renewing the Alliance that has been under way since the people of Hungary and other nations of the former Warsaw Pact pulled down the Iron Curtain in 1989. Over the past decade, NATO has gone through an extraordinary period of self-transformation. It is the first security Alliance in history that not only outlived its original purpose for being, but has, I would argue, become even more important than at the time of its inception -- more than its founders would have ever imagined. In 1991, NATO adopted a new strategy and began to reform its forces and command structure to meet the new challenges of the post-Cold War era, while preserving its essential capacity for collective defense. NATO reached out to its former adversaries through the Partnership for Peace in an unprecedented effort to use military-to-military cooperation to extend security across the Continent. With the historic steps taken last year -- the Madrid decisions on enlargement, the creation of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, and the signature of the NATO-Russia Founding Act and NATO-Ukraine Charter -- NATO took even bolder steps, prompting many spokesmen to speak of a "new NATO." In my view, today's NATO is not so much "new" as "better." The Alliance's core values of mutual defense, joint military planning, and consensus-based political deliberations remain intact. It is on this foundation -- and only on this foundation -- that NATO can grow and adapt to meet the challenges of a new century. Developing a security partnership between NATO and the Russian Federation is among the most important of the new activities that the Alliance is building on its traditional foundation of collective defense. The NATO-Russia Founding Act, signed last May, spells out an impressive range of ways in which we can cooperate with the Russians. The Founding Act protects our interests by retaining NATO's independence to take its own decisions, while giving us the chance to resolve problems together that we cannot solve as easily by ourselves. As a NATO member, Hungary will shoulder an important responsibility for helping to build the NATO-Russia partnership in ways that are mutually beneficial. This will be key to demonstrating to Moscow that NATO enlargement, far from damaging Russia's interests, in fact enhances Russian security by bringing stability, democracy, and security cooperation closer to Russia's frontiers. An evolving relationship with Ukraine and the active development of the Partnership for Peace are other ways we have reached out across traditional political boundaries, and where we also look to Hungary to play a leading role. Again, these are situations in which everybody wins. Today's NATO is not one of rigid boundaries or lingering suspicion. Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic are now poised to take a full role in NATO's efforts to achieve lasting stability in Europe. I want to explore with you today some of what your prospective membership in NATO means. Membership in NATO is essentially an exchange of commitments. First, membership is a commitment to collective defense through common defense planning and robust contributions to Allied military capabilities. Second, it is a commitment of all Alliance members to permanent political consultations on any subject which affects the security of any member. When Hungary joins the Alliance in a few short months -- as I am confident you will -- we will ask you to make these two commitments to us and to the other NATO members. These commitments will form the basis of our security partnership, and I want to say a word about each. First and foremost, NATO is a collective defense alliance. The strength of its military capabilities, combined with the collective political will to use them, is the abiding source of the Alliance's credibility. This has never come cheaply, but collective defense is infinitely less expensive than trying to finance a national defense alone. NATO and Hungarian officials have been meeting for months to plan Hungary's initial defense contributions to the Alliance and NATO's infrastructure program for Hungary. The starting point has been Hungary's own defense modernization programs. From the Alliance's perspective, the top priorities will include upgrading Hungary's air defense system and linking it to NATO's. NATO will improve communications links between Hungarian and NATO military headquarters. NATO will also be working with your engineers to upgrade facilities -- particularly airfields -- which are essential to our capability to reinforce Hungary should that become necessary. The Alliance is committed to spending $1.3 billion in the three new member countries over the coming decade under the NATO infrastructure program. NATO's planned spending on new equipment and facilities in Hungary will come to about $360 million. In return, NATO expects that Hungary will take a number of steps on its own: to improve interoperability with Alliance military forces, which requires first and foremost to train more Hungarian soldiers and officers to speak English; second, to complete fundamental structural reforms to your forces, especially the development of career non-commissioned officers, together with enhancements in the quality of life so that qualified soldiers and officers can be retained; third, to improve command, control and communications, so that Hungarian forces can operate with their NATO counterparts in Europe or in out-of-area missions. We welcome Hungary's commitment to increase its military expenditures from the current 1.5 percent of GDP by 0.1 percent of GDP annually over the next several years. This will bring Hungary closer to the NATO Europe average of 2.2 percent of GDP. Further down the road Hungary will have to invest -- as all NATO countries must -- in modernization of its military equipment. This will, I am sure, expand opportunities for defense trade and industrial cooperation between Hungarian and American defense firms. But your first priority, and your initial expenditures, should be focused on military interoperability with U.S. and other Allied forces. The United States is confident that Hungary will deliver on its commitments to improve and modernize its forces over the next decade and beyond. It is already clear to us that Hungarian forces will stand with the best in the Alliance in a few short years, and will be net contributors from day one. Indeed, we have seen the high quality of the Hungarian combat engineers serving with us in Bosnia. We have full confidence in your engineers because we have rolled scores of U.S. Army M1A Abrams tanks over bridges built by them. Let me point out, the Abrams costs $7 million per tank, so we are fairly careful about whose bridges we use. Let me turn for a moment to the political commitment that Hungary will be asked to make as it joins the Alliance. Political consultation is a permanent feature of NATO. Last year the North Atlantic Council -- the supreme body of the Alliance -- met on average three times a week. The Council is just as busy this year. In any given week an additional 40 NATO committees will meet on a huge range of subjects. You might say, "Well, of course, bureaucrats love to go to meetings and talk, talk, talk." And there are some days when I have spent 6 or 7 hours in the Council only to wonder just what we accomplished. But the fact is that consultation is important because it is how we find consensus on any given issue. And it is in finding consensus that we are able to take action. The Alliance has been able to act in the former Yugoslavia because Allies are committed to real consultation. Of course, the consensus principle permits any country to block any action even if it is supported by all the others. That is an essential safeguard for all of us. However, at NATO, consensus is viewed less as a right to veto than as a common objective. After nearly 50 years of discussing our shared security concerns around the same table, we and our Allies have learned that consensus should support common action -- not block it. Given Hungary's history in fighting for your country's freedom, we are confident that your country will take a responsible approach to consensus-building when it joins us as a full member around the NATO table. I should add that finding consensus at an early stage of a conflict is not always easy. Ex-Yugoslavia was a tragic example of the high cost of waiting too long. The former Yugoslavia taught us a lesson: We must be prepared to act early and energetically if we want to prevent conflict. This is the lesson we simply must apply in the present situation in Kosovo. In addition to our political responsibilities to each other in Brussels, all Allies must build and sustain political support for NATO at home. Hungarians mobilized in a magnificent show of solidarity with NATO last November during your referendum on membership. Your convincing "yes" was heard on both sides of the Atlantic and confirmed the wisdom of NATO's Open Door policy in Europe and America. But mobilizing public support for NATO membership is only the beginning. The Hungarian public will need to be reassured and convinced again and again that NATO membership is not just beneficial for Hungary, but worth resources required to keep the Alliance strong. Hungarian parents must be convinced that NATO will protect new and hard-won freedoms so that these may be passed along to their children. Hungarian young people must understand that the limitless horizons which they now have growing up in a democracy come with a price. Businessmen and women like many of you in this audience must appreciate that economies do not prosper in the midst of instability. Parliaments, too, need to understand that freedom is not free and that they must be willing over many years to commit the resources necessary to ensure that Hungarian forces can and do meet their responsibilities to NATO. This is a big job; in some ways the hardest job in the Alliance. But with the Soviet Union now fading into history, this Alliance is ours alone to lose. There are still many threats to NATO, but surely the most insidious is indifference and neglect. So far, I have focused on Hungary's responsibilities to the Alliance. Of course, this is a two-way street, and NATO will assume some very serious commitments to you in a few months. The first of these is the collective defense commitment under Article V of the Washington Treaty. This means that an armed attack against Hungary will be considered an attack against the United States and all of NATO's other members. The Article V commitment is the bedrock of the Alliance and one which my country undertakes with the utmost seriousness. The credibility of NATO's collective defense pledge held the Soviet Union at bay for 40 years and continues to serve deadly serious warning on any potential aggressor. Would the American people view an attack on Budapest as an attack on Baltimore? Let there be no doubt, we would. Under Article IV of the Washington Treaty, the United States and all the Allies undertake to consult with Hungary whenever in the opinion of your government the territorial integrity, political independence, or security of Hungary is threatened. Like Article V, Article IV is a very powerful disincentive for any potential aggressor to try to isolate and pressure an individual NATO member. Hungary will never be isolated from its NATO Allies. Article IV also provides the Alliance with an umbrella for common actions against a broader range of risks -- some beyond NATO's borders, as in Bosnia. As a full NATO member, Hungary will soon assume its seat on the North Atlantic Council. I am already working closely with Ambassador Simonyi in Brussels, but the pace of our Hungarian-American partnership will accelerate in the months and years ahead. Hungary is now participating in discussions on the Alliance's updated strategic concept, to be unveiled at the Washington Summit one year from now. This document will define NATO's interests, core functions, and force structure well into the next century. We hope that the new strategic concept will equip NATO to deal effectively with the risks of the 21st century -- including such dangers as proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. Hungary will need to do its part in the NATO of the 21st century, as you did in recent confrontation with Iraq. In addition, Hungary will have a key role to play as we search for stability in Southeastern Europe and other regions on NATO's periphery. Hungary will bring a unique perspective to our new relationships with Russia and Ukraine, and a special perspective and understanding to Alliance consultations on how best to meet the aspirations of other countries seeking Alliance membership. The United States supported Hungarian membership in NATO because Hungary was ready and committed to assume the associated rights and responsibilities of membership in our Alliance. We are more convinced now than ever that this was the right decision, and we look forward to a partnership between our two countries in NATO during the Alliance's next 50 years -- and beyond. (End text)