SDA co-presidents Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, former NATO Secretary General, and Javier Solana, former EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy will welcome General James L. Jones, Chair of the Brent Scowcroft Center, Atlantic Council of the United States and formerly US National Security Advisor to President Obama, Supreme Allied Commander Europe, and Commandant of the US Marine Corps at a gala dinner to mark the SDA’s 10th anniversary as Brussels’ leading security and defence think-tank on Thursday 24th May 2012. Assembled guests will enjoy lively debates with key personalities and a wide range of high-profile people in an informal and entertaining atmosphere.

Join the brainstorming for a broad discussion in the context of ongoing global financial turmoil and ever-present transnational threats ranging from WMD proliferation to drugs and human trafficking, in forums to include:

Capabilities & future technologies • Forging strategic partnerships
Crisis management • Facing up to the cyber-challenge •
Future leaders

Twenty years after breaking free of the dying USSR, Azerbaijan has become an active member of the international community. Rich in oil and gas and a major stakeholder in regional affairs, Azerbaijan continues to face challenges with its neighbours, in particular over energy policy, sovereignty issues in the Caspian sea, and the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. How could the shifting balance of power in the region affect Western interests there? Can bilateral relations between Europe and NATO members with Azerbaijan and its neighbours promote stability in the region? How successful have Caucasus countries been in coordinating their policies towards the EU and NATO?

The SDA is a proud partner of the 2011 Defence Conference. This year's conference, held in Warsaw, will focus on research and development issues in European defence.

The European Defence Conference (EDC) aims to foster cooperation in the defence and security sector between private companies, knowledge institutes, governments and international organizations. The conference format provides opportunities for discussion on policy and procedures, briefing of practical technical results and proposals for future cooperation. Speakers and audience range from European politicians to national government authorities and from researchers to multinational industry representatives.

Intelligence, counter-terrorism and private security stakeholders all rely on the timely and accurate delivery of information to “front-line” staff. In most major security breaches, although relevant data was available it failed to reach the right person in time. Information-sharing to reduce vulnerabilities is vital, so why has intra-European cooperation remained so limited? Do EU and NATO member states mistrust each other when dealing with sensitive security information, or is it security sector rivalries that obstruct cooperation? The Lisbon treaty is meant to unify EU security policies, but coherence on information-sharing remains elusive. How can Europe better harness its information-sharing resources?

As NATO troops start to pull out of the ISAF mission, the focus of attention will be on what happens next and how prepared the Afghan army and police are to take charge of security. The NATO training mission that has been in place since 2009 has planned for an independent Afghan security force by 2014, but can this target be maintained with fewer NATO boots on the ground? Beyond the Afghan army and police, are the country’s civil institutions ready for greater responsibility? How much are civil society actors becoming empowered to take charge and what programmes are currently in place? Has cooperation between NATO, civilian government actors and NGOs now begun to prove satisfactory, and could a “civilian surge” combat the poor governance and corruption that are said to still be undermining the country’s stabilisation efforts?

A United States Mission to the European Union and Security and Defence Agenda lunch discussion with Ivan K. Fong, General Counsel and Mary Ellen Callahan, Chief Privacy Officer and Chief Freedom of Information Act Officer from the US Department of Homeland Security.

The event will be moderated by Brooks Tigner, Editor, Security Europe.

In a wide-ranging discussion, the distinguished panel gave participants an insight to the complex process of coordinating responses to new security challenges. Varied topics such as cyber, critical infrastructure protection and terrorism were the main focus, with numerous specific challenges elaborated. Yet ultimately, as Richard Wright, Director for Conflict Prevention and Security Policy in the European External Action Service stated, the “cross-border and cross-sectoral nature of these challenges” means that “getting in step must include the development of a closer commonality of approaches” then exists today.

Cyberattacks in Europe and across the globe are at an all-time high and showing no signs of abating. Remote hijacking of computers for malicious purposes constitute an “electronic epidemic”. Faced with such rapid technological upheaval, European policymakers seem slow to react. During this high level policymakers debate, Mario Campolargo, Director for Emerging Technologies and Infrastructures, European Commission, Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Microsoft and Jamie Shea, Deputy Assistant Secretary General, Emerging Security Challenges Division, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) contributed their views on this increasingly important topic.

Speaking to an assembly of distinguished guests from across the Brussels security and defence community, General Stéphane Abrial, Commander of NATO’s Supreme Allied Command Transformation, discussed the challenges of force transformation in the current fiscal climate, a challenge he said was “not impossible, it just looks like it”.

Opening Security and Defence Day 2010, Belgian Minister of Defence, Pieter De Crem, explained how the current financial climate of austerity and reduced budgets is encouraging the sharing of resources and better levels of cooperation and interoperability. The recent Anglo-French agreement on naval infrastructure is a clear indication of greater rapprochement between member states on security issues, he said.

The first session explored the purpose of the transatlantic alliance in the strategic landscape of the 21^st century. Thomas Wright of the Chicago Council for Global Affairs said that NATO needs to reposition itself to better engage with new actors as the geopolitical centre of gravity continues to shift to Asia and the Pacific. He also stressed the alliance’s political role in ensuring multilateralism’s advance in an increasingly multipolar world.  

The Security & Defence Agenda is pleased to welcome Ivo Daalder, US Ambassador to NATO, as he presents the new US priorities for transatlantic security. Ambassador Daalder was Director for European Affairs on President Clinton's National Security Council staff from 1995 to 1997, where he was responsible for coordinating U.S. policy toward Bosnia.