New Delhi. NATO troops are likely to stay in Afghanistan for at least five to six years. This was stated by NATO’s Deputy Secretary General, Ambassador Alessandro Minuto-Rizzo, in an interview with India Strategic here during a recent visit.

He agreed that there was some public opposition among the NATO member countries over the deployment in Afghanistan but said that it was paying dividends, and that a long-term perspective of the deployment was necessary to counter terrorists who are, and would be, a threat to the civilized world.

Admittedly, Afghanistan was a difficult country due to its tough terrain and a traditional lack of central control over its vast areas. But ever since the installation of the Karzai government, the educational system was being restored and even women had started coming into the national mainstream.

A career diplomat from Italy and an expert on international institutions, Ambassador Minuto-Rizzo also addressed the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), India’s premier think tank on strategic affairs.

Asked what he expected from India, he said that events and issues could be happening in India’s backyard – like the spread of terrorism – but they had global implications, and “very real implications for the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.”

He noted however that India and NATO did not rhyme yet in international affairs. Nonetheless, he expected India to continue doing only what it was doing, that is, helping in the economic and social development of Afghanistan.

“NATO and India cannot look back upon a common past, this is certainly true. But I believe that there are many signs that indicate that we may well look towards a future of consultation and co-operation on a range of shared interests.”

It may be noted that India is giving financial, food and medical assistance to Afghanistan, supplied through Iran as Pakistan has not yet allowed the road route for Indian supplies. The Indian Border Roads Organisation (BRO) is also building a road network there.

Ambassador Minuto-Rizzo said that NATO was engaging with Pakistan with much greater intensity due apparently to the presence of terrorists on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border.

While there were allegations that Islamabad was either not doing enough to counter the terrorist elements, or even helping them as alleged by Kabul, he said that the Pakistani government was cooperating with NATO to tackle this menace.

Terrorists are a threat to everybody, and NATO was engaged with Pakistan in this exercise.

Ambassador Minuto-Rizzo also indicated that in military terms, NATO aimed to deploy a larger number of strategic transport aircraft and attack helicopters towards neutralizing the terrorist positions.

During the Cold War, he pointed out, NATO built and displayed military strength as a deterrent, to keep away the clouds of potential war.

Today, with the emergence of terrorists as players in the international security calculus, as demonstrated by the 9/11 attacks on the United States in 2001, NATO has to evolve its growth and response appropriately.

The situation was complicated by the failed states, he said, but did not name any country.

Ambassador Minuto-Rizzo elaborated on the evolution of NATO. It was formed by 12 countries, including the US, when they signed the Washington Treaty on 4 April 1949 and vowed to regard an attack on any one of them as an attack on all of them.

“Over time, the Washington Treaty turned into a fully-fledged organization, with a political council, regular meeting of Allied Foreign and Defence Ministers, and integrated multinational military command.”

And even with a static assertion of might, NATO was able to check the use of military force to advance the Soviet political aims in Europe.

But it was never like the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact, which dissolved after nearly 40 years of the Cold War. NATO was not intended to disappear as some thought.

Today, post 9/11, he stressed, NATO has become a dynamic centerpiece of a shrews calculation of trans-Atlantic interests, “to work together and to stay together.”

He said that 9/11 marked the beginning of a new phase for NATO.

With 50000 troops under its command, NATO took charge of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, and by “taking action not only out-of-area but out of- continent, it has demonstrated that it was prepared to adopt a functional, rather than a geographical approach to security.”

The Ambassador stressed that if threats to Europe or NATO countries came from outside the NATO’s regional envelop, NATO would still tackle them wherever they are.

“If the major threats to our security are now outside of Europe, and if we agree on the need to address these problems when and where they emerge, we need military capabilities that are quite different from those we used to have in the Cold War. We need forces that are far more flexible, forces that can react quickly; forces that can be deployed over considerable distance, and then sustained over a long period of time.

“And we need forces that are capable of performing both combat operations tasks and post-conflict reconstruction work.”

Ambassador Munto- R i z z o described as most important the creation of the NATO Response Force, which gives NATO an entirely new rapid reaction capability.

At the same time, NATO needed to cooperate with other countries.

“If we really want to get a grip on the new risks and threats to our security, NATO will increasingly have to work with other actors - with other governmental and nongovernmental institutions as well as with other nations.”

Nato’s active engagement in Afghanistan exemplifies this, he said, pointing out: “less than four years after the Alliance took control of ISAF, Afghanistan is an emerging democracy and an increasingly pluralistic society. There have been free elections, and there is a functioning government and parliament as well as several other new institutions. Well over 4 million refugees have returned home; 80 per cent of the population has access to health care, and 6 million children are in school. A quarter of the parliamentarians are women, and about a third of teachers are women.

There has been significant reconstruction and development, and Afghanistan’s Gross National Product has tripled over the past few years.”

Describing India as “a rising star of the 21st century” as well as “a self-confident, pluralist democracy with a dynamic economy, he said that India also had the challenge of this growing stature, and weight, to find its rightful course in the international arena.