I’ve just returned from Bratislava, Slovakia where the NATO Fall ‘09 Defense Ministerial was held, followed by an official visit to Slovakian senior defense leaders.

The Defense Ministerial is a chance for all 28 of the NATO Defense leaders (Ministers and Secretaries of Defense) to gather in a plenary session for a couple of days and discuss key issues.  Our new Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, led the event.
Bratislava is Slovakia’s historic capital perched on the Danube River. The city of a half-million in a country of some five million is full of lovely classic European architecture and within a few minutes drive from  the Tatra mountain range and hundreds of medieval castles and historic villages, some of them declared UN world heritage sites.

The conference began with speeches and a brief presentation of Slovakian culture, including short performances in opera, contemporary ballet, and vibrant folk dancing.  The President and Minister of Defense of Slovakia welcomed everyone, and we swiftly went off to a working dinner.  In the conference hall, a huge circular table seated all 28 Defense leaders as well as the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Italian Adm.Giampaolo DiPaola; the Commander of Allied Command Transformation, French Air Force Gen. Stephan Abrial; and me.  The dinner meeting was crisply run by the Secretary General, and afforded both me and Gen. Stan McChrystal, International Security Assistance Force commander, the chance to report on the situation in Afghanistan.

We followed up the next morning by a busy day of meetings and a working lunch that included the 28 NATO leaders, the 14 Ministers of Defense from Troop Contributing Nations who are engaged in Afghanistan outside of NATO (e.g. Australia, Sweden, New Zealand etc); Minister of Defense Wardak of Afghanistan; and Ambassador Kai Eide, the UN High Representative.  Both are good friends and colleagues doing hard work in challenging circumstances.  Again, the meetings focused on Afghanistan, the upcoming Presidential run-off election there, and the ISAF mission in general.

In addition to the obvious and vital discussions on Afghanistan, there was time to speak of the NATO Response Force, the Alliances “Quick Reaction” capability; transformation and the potential for reform and reorganization; missile defense and the new U.S. proposals with an eye toward NATO involvement; and a variety of other key issues.  Both Secretary General Rasmussen and Secretary of Defense Bob Gates highlighted the Alliance’s solidarity during their press conferences, and I echo their sense of alliance solidarity across the wide range of topics.  There was plenty of spirited discussion and challenging questions, but I came away from the meetings – my first as SACEUR, although I’ve attended many in other jobs – with a very positive sense of the alliance and the individual leaders.

As the NATO conference concluded on Friday, I was invited to remain for a series of meetings with Slovakian defense leaders.  My host was the Chief of the Defense Staff, four-star General Lubomir Bulik.  He and I attended meetings with the Jaroslav Baska, Slovak Minister of Defense, Robert Kalinak, Slovak Minister of Interior, and Rudolf Pucik, Slovak Chairman of the Defense Committee in the Parliament.  At each meeting, we discussed the strong Slovak commitment to NATO in general and the mission in Afghanistan in particular.  I was also able to discuss some topics of interest under my U.S. European Command hat, including mutual use of training areas for preparation of allies for the ISAF  mission.

Adm. James Stavridis
SACEUR and Commander EUCOM

Related links:
ISAF Troop Contributing Nations
NATO Ministers agree on key priorities for Afghanistan
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)