First NATO ambassador appointed by Australia

Submitted by ian on Mon, 01/23/2012 - 20:54
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Former Liberal leader Brendan Nelson will be Australia's first ambassador to NATO, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on 20 January.

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said that Dr Nelson's appointment represented a deepening of Australia's engagement with the Alliance. During a visit to NATO HQ on 20 January, the Australian Foreign Minister met with Deputy Secretary General Ambassador Claudio Bisogniero and addressed the North Atlantic Council for an exchange of views on the new strategic environment.

Australia is one of four so-called ‘contact countries’ (recently re-branded as “partners across the globe”) with whom NATO cooperates on a purely individual basis and which are not part of its other partnership frameworks. The other three are Japan, the Republic of Korea and New Zealand.

Contact countries choose the areas where they wish to engage with NATO, as well as the extent of this cooperation. The importance of reaching out to nations and organizations across the globe was underlined in the NATO Strategic Concept adopted at the November 2010 Lisbon Summit. Following up on the Lisbon decisions, Allied foreign ministers approved a new partnerships policy at their meeting in Berlin in April 2011. Although the policy document remains classified, it purports to treat all partners in the same way offering them the same basis of cooperation and dialogue, as well as more flexible formats for meetings.

The appointment of an Ambassador to NATO clearly indicates that the Australian government intends to take a more active and prominent role in these developing partnership frameworks. It also follows the November 2011 agreement with President Obama that will see the United States deploy 2,500 Marines in Australia to shore up US alliances in Asia.

In Afghanistan, Australia is the largest non-NATO contributor to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the 10th largest contributor overall.

Dr Nelson is currently Australia's ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg and the European Union. He was a member of parliament for more than 12 years and led the coalition opposition from November 2007 until September 2008. In the Howard Coalition government, he served variously as minister for defence, education, science and training.