Admiral Sir Ian Forbes: A grand strategy for Nato's future

From a lecture by the Deputy Supreme Allied Commander, Transformation, to the Pilgrim Society

How in the future are we to marry up Nato's warfighting role with a post-war stabilisation and reconstruction mission? After all, the battles in Afghanistan and Iraq are now over winning the peace and not the war.

If there is an area where we have had divergent thinking across the Atlantic, this is it. Working our way through the "Fog of Peace", as it is now termed by think tanks in Washington. The European expression of peacekeeping is grounded in a different culture from that of the United States.

Ours in Europe inclines more towards a UN peacekeeping model, whereas the US approach is more geared to the suppression of organised military opposition. Iraq and its aftermath will bring this matter to a head. The reality is that nation building and reconstruction takes years.The US military is configured to fight and win wars not conduct endless peacekeeping operations. Developments in Iraq since the end of high-intensity conflict are bound to force a positive re-evaluation of peacekeeping operations in the US, and some steps toward convergence between European and US approaches.

Given Nato's proven record in Bosnia, Kosovo and now Afghanistan, the alliance brings much to the table in this respect. It can, potentially, avert an overstretching of US defence resources and a further major spiralling of the US defence budget and deepening division between US and European policy priorities.

A common strategic vision is thus essential to strengthen the Atlantic Alliance for the years ahead, to facilitate international coalescence around a new sense of purpose and a new grand strategy.