12:45 P.M. EDT
MODERATOR: Well, thanks again, everyone, for joining us. I'm Christopher Teal with the Foreign Press Center. We happen to have the good fortune of General Eikenberry being in town just for a few days while he's back from Brussels. And so we wanted to take advantage of his time here in Washington to have a little outreach to some of the media that are here. He's going to give kind of a brief overview of NATO issues, particularly as it relates to Afghanistan where he has previously served as commander and then talk a little bit about NATO modernizations and some other issues that you might have interest in.
This will be entirely on the record, just so that we're clear about that, and without further ado, I'll turn it over to you, General.
LTG EIKENBERRY: Thank you very much and what I'd like to do is just spend a few minutes here and give you some context, then quickly get onto whatever questions you'd like to ask.
First of all regarding myself, I had two tours of duty in Afghanistan and my first one was 2002-2003. At that time my mission was leading our coalition efforts for the training and the equipping of the Afghan National Army. My second tour of duty was 2005-2007. At that time, I was the commander of the U.S.-led coalition, so very different times when you think about Afghanistan and when you think about the dynamism of the environment there in terms of the building of the governance, the operational environment, two very different times, so to give you then the perspective that I was there over a course of about a four-year period.
I left Afghanistan in February of this year and was assigned to NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium where I'm the Deputy Chairman of the NATO Military Committee. The NATO Military Committee's the highest military level, executive level, then within the NATO command structure.
In some sense, what I was able to do then, of course, is take experience that I gained in Afghanistan, and perhaps adding some assistance with that experience in Afghanistan, to deliberations that go on within the military bodies of NATO on Afghanistan, but clearly now the scope of NATO operations and the NATO portfolio is much larger than Afghanistan.
Let me talk then just very quickly about what it -- give you a sense of -- at the highest military levels of NATO and at NATO headquarters what are some of the issues that we're facing right now. Three areas: operations, modernization and then the third is in military cooperation. First of all operations, and I think you'll want to talk more about operations when it comes time for questions, but the major ongoing operation is Afghanistan, both in terms of scope and in terms of complexity and in terms of just military challenges that this provides to -- confronts the alliance with.
We now have 40,000 NATO soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines that are serving in Afghanistan, which is the first time in NATO history that there's been what might be called an out-of-theater or out-of-sector deployment outside of Europe in a very difficult operational environment in a very challenging topographical setting. NATO began that mission, as you know, in 2003 -- began its operations inside of Afghanistan in 2003. The mission has evolved in extraordinary ways since that period of time, but that is the number one mission, the number one operation. But in addition to that, NATO is also serving in the Balkans right now. Its primary mission is in Kosovo with the Kosovo force, 16,000 NATO forces serving in Kosovo, and doing an absolutely superb job of helping to provide an environment of security and stability behind which then future political developments and the evolution of the mission in Kosovo can occur.
NATO also provides assistance in Iraq with a training mission for the Afghan -- I'm sorry, with the Iraqi army and with the Iraqi security forces. It is providing support currently in Darfur with airlift. The Somali authorities -- the UN authorities have asked for airlift support for Somalia, which NATO has favorably considered. And then important as well that it's running in the maritime domain through what's called Operation Active Endeavor is conducting in the maritime domain in the Mediterranean, patrolling aimed at deterring of terrorism, smuggling and criminal activities. So throughout -- across the spectrum right now in a variety of operations, NATO is engaged in many locations.
Second, in terms of modernization and transformation, militarily NATO is reviewing its current command structure, trying to find ways to gain more efficiency. It's made tremendous adaptations and adjustments since the end of the Cold War. It continues to review and adapt its command structure on an ongoing basis. So under review right now, as well there is ongoing processes aimed at increasing the NATO military capability, most recently a decision made within the domain of strategic airlift where an agreement was reached by the countries of NATO for nations that wanted to participate in a strategic airlift initiative and now based upon the C-17 aircraft is -- that is a model, or that is the type of capacity that a group of NATO countries elected to move forward with in terms of procurement and timesharing arrangements, has made a lot of gains in that area.
And then finally in the areas of military cooperation, I think that everyone here knows that NATO has a very robust set of relationships that have been established with various groups outside of NATO; for instance, there's a the European-Atlantic Partnership group. This is in addition now to the 26 members of NATO, there's 23 other partner countries that participate with NATO in dialogues of security, dialogues on counterterrorism and also building capabilities within these partner nations when they elect to participate in conjunction with NATO in various operations, such as in Afghanistan, that they're able to field forces that can be fully integrated with NATO forces in the conduct of operations.
There is also ongoing dialogues that occur in the military plane with Russia, with Ukraine. There's a group called the Mediterranean Dialogue, which is a set of eastern and southern Mediterranean nations. There's the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, which is a set of countries that go beyond in the Mediterranean into the Persian Gulf, and most recently there's been the innovation of contact countries, countries that are interested in having security dialogues with NATO and military contact. And those contact countries now ranging all the way into Asia and including, as examples, the Republic of Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
So let me stop there and I'll open it up to questions.
MODERATOR: Umit.
QUESTION: First, a couple of questions, you are the Deputy Chairman of the Military Committee, the Chairman is the SACEUR, right?
LTG EIKENBERRY: No, the Chairman of the Military Committee is General Ray Henault and he is a Canadian, four-star Air Force general. He was previously the Chief of Defence of the Canadian Armed Forces.
QUESTION: How does the military committee coordinate work with the SACEUR?
LTG EIKENBERRY: Yeah, that's a great question. The Military Committee of NATO is -- first of all, the representatives who serve within the Military Committee -- one representative for each of the 26 countries of NATO -- each one of those military representatives are serving as the representative in Brussels of their Chief of Defense, or in the U.S. instance, Chief of Defense like the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So in the United States instance, then the military representative is Vice Admiral Bill Sullivan, who sits there as the representative currently for General Pace.
You have the 26 countries then of NATO that all have their military representatives that meet at Brussels. They are served by what's called an international military staff, a permanent NATO fully integrated combined staff, that serves to support the work of the Military Committee. And then you have presiding over that entire group of 26 on an elected basis, elected by the 26 Chiefs of Defense, you have a military chairman, or Chairman of the Military Committee, who is not a voting member of the 26 at the table that serves then as the -- we could say the chairman of the board, the chief executive. And he is currently the Canadian then four-star Air Force General, General Ray Henault, three-year tour of duty or term of service. And General Henault next summer, the summer of 2008, will be leaving. And then the Chiefs of Defense come this November, November of 2007, will then elect from among themselves a former chief of defense to take General Henault's place and I serve as the deputy.
Your question is: What's the relationship then between that Military Committee and the commands of NATO? Two major commands of NATO is Allied Command Operations, headquartered in Mons, currently under the leadership, the command of General John Craddock, who's also called the SACEUR, Supreme Allied Command of Europe. And then the other major command of NATO headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia, Allied Command Transformation and the Supreme Commander for the Transformation Command is currently Air Force -- U.S. Air Force General Lance Smith.
The Military Committee then serves between the major NATO commands -- I gave you the two major ones. They serve between them and the political authorities known as the North Atlantic Committee, those political authorities then call the permanent representatives underneath then the chairmanship of the secretary general. Well, what does that NATO Military Committee do then? We then take recommendations coming from the commanders of NATO, and we then provide, based upon those recommendations, requirements -- what we would call the best collective military advice to the political authorities. And in turn, when political direction is given to the commands of NATO, that military body meets as a collective and we will translate then political guidance into specific military direction.
QUESTION: Okay. Can I come to my real question then? And thank you for the clarification. Well, I don't know if you're in a position to answer this, but what does NATO from member countries -- in my specific case, Turkey -- given its possibilities and capabilities, how do you want Turkey to contribute more to Afghanistan if you do anything?
LTG EIKENBERRY: Yeah, what I would do is stay away from talking about requirements for specific -- from specific countries. But what I would do is say more broadly that within Afghanistan that currently the commander on the ground and then going up through General Craddock is the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe, they have identified a set of military capabilities that are currently needed in order to -- we believe fully execute operations inside of Afghanistan. And there are shortages right now that exist within those capabilities that have been asked for. There's some shortages of combat infantry capabilities, there's some shortages of intelligence capabilities, there's still a desire within NATO and within the NATO command to establish more -- what are called Provincial Reconstruction Teams in several more provinces of Afghanistan and there's still shortages that exist right now in terms of trainers for the Afghan National Army if you look back from the year 2003 when NATO first went into Afghanistan, NATO went into Afghanistan, established its presence in Afghanistan under the NATO flag in the fall of 2003 under a UN mandate. And at that time, the NATO mission was limited to International Security Assistance Force mandate as existed at that time, which was for the Greater Kabul area -- the security for the Greater Kabul area.
And then over the next several years, the mission expanded to the north, to the west, to the south, and finally to the east, now all of Afghanistan. And that expansion was completed in late -- in October of 2006, so over a three-year period of time, you had that growth from Kabul to all of Afghanistan. And at any point that adaptations were made, that there was a change in mission and the mission expanded, there were challenges with each phase of the expansion of the mission. We can look back in time and in each phase, we identified capabilities that were lacking at that point in time.
But NATO, at each stage, has continued to make those adaptations. So we look at a set of shortages that they have or shortfalls and capabilities that we have and NATO has to address those over time. But I'd be optimistic based upon the past and this three years of experience -- now three and a half years of experience that I've seen with NATO presence on the ground, going on four years of experience, and NATO has continued to make very important adaptations in command and control. It's made adaptations in terms of its way of operating. It's made adaptations in terms of provision of more capability.
So at each point in time, you can turn to address shortfalls and capabilities. That's the snapshot. If you look at the movie of Afghanistan and NATO's presence in Afghanistan over the last four years, you would have to say there's been dramatic innovation, there's been dramatic progress that's been made by the military alliance.
QUESTION: One follow-up --
MODERATOR: I just want to make sure everyone does have a chance to ask questions, so if you don't mind, if we could hold on just a moment. Someone else, please.
QUESTION: Yeah, and again, about Afghanistan, Italian soldiers are in Afghanistan, but because -- as we present the military as a humanitarian mission, more than a fighting mission, there are a lot of restriction about rules of engagement. In general terms, do you see any problem in rules of engagement when there are too many restriction?
LTG EIKENBERRY: Yeah, there's -- and I talked about adaptations and changes that have occurred on the ground in Afghanistan within the military alliance. And in the area of operational restrictions, there's also been improvements that have been made there. Operational restrictions that are placed upon forces in Afghanistan, they have one -- they have several consequences.
The first is that the more restrictions that are placed upon forces in terms of areas, for instance, that they may not be deployed to or types of operations that they may not be permitted to participate in, the only way to offset those kind of restrictions, then, if you're a commander who aspires to have full flexibility of the use of his force, is -- if you're placing constraints, then, on forces, there's only one way to compensate. And that's with more forces. So restrictions on forces can place a burden, then, on the commander and the only way, then, he can offset that -- those impediments is to ask for more. So in one very real sense, it's inefficient business practices from a military perspective.
Secondly, then, there's the consequences for each of the nations of NATO that there can be perceptions that develop over time that not all are doing equal in terms of so-called burden-sharing. Now against that, I tell you that it's important for all of us to remember that wherever you're operating in inside of Afghanistan, whether it's the north, the south, the east, the west, or Kabul, whether you're Afghan National Army, whether you're Afghan National Police, whether you're NATO international military forces, Afghanistan can be a very dangerous place.
And so it's not necessarily a question that there's places of Afghanistan that are much more dangerous than other places. Afghanistan can be a dangerous place for military forces, Afghan and international and all security forces to operate within. But once again, to get back then to your specific point about operational restrictions, yeah, they do have consequences. They do have a bearing on how we approach the operations inside of Afghanistan. But they're -- in general, I would say that if we look from 2003, again, to 2007, if you look at trend lines and -- in general, that has been a very positive development.
QUESTION: Can you talk a little bit about how things have changed since -- I think it was in the -- January or February, you came around town and talked to various groups about how you thought things would progress during the spring and through the summer. How has -- how does Afghanistan look to you today compared to what you expected nine months ago?
LTG EIKENBERRY: Yeah, Demetri, if I had looked back at -- you know, two-thousand -- early 2007, I think very broadly, whether it was on the NATO command structure, whether it was on the U.S. coalition command structure, the intelligence community, the assessment was that Taliban extremists and their al-Qaida allies would be making a concerted effort throughout the spring and the summer to try to go on to the offensive and seize control of districts within southern Afghanistan, eastern Afghanistan.
And if you look back, then, to 2006 and you look through the spring, the summer, and the fall time period in which we have the transition going on from NATO taking command in the south and then NATO taking command in the east, that was a time of maximum extremist effort to take advantage of that ongoing transition, to take advantage of their -- to try to move into areas where there had not been any kind of strong international military presence, really, going back to 2002.
And there was some intense fighting that occurred during that period of time and I think that NATO -- and with support at times also from the U.S. coalition, NATO acquitted itself extraordinarily well. NATO has more presence now in southern Afghanistan, they have more presence in eastern Afghanistan than they did in 2006. Very importantly, the Afghan National Army is doing much better at this point in time than they were several years ago. I think that we've reached a point of development of the Afghan National Army where we should see it growing at a faster rate than heretofore has been the case; the Afghan police, slower in developing, but starting to show some signs of progress.
Now against that addition -- all of that capability, Afghan capability, NATO capability, and I think through very sound operations that have been conducted, that what we've seen is that the so-called Taliban spring offensive was not able to materialize. The Taliban extremist have not been able to mass sufficient forces to threaten the Afghan National Army and to threaten NATO forces and to make gains -- major gains in the south and in the east. Most of the ground momentum, most of the military momentum indeed has been with NATO over the course of the summer.
What we have also seen, though, is that the extremists have changed their tactics and they have shifted from trying to mass larger numbers of extremist elements and then fight as a more conventional force against Afghan National Army and NATO forces. And they have reverted, ever increasingly now, to sheer terror tactics and so their tactics now are one of terror and committing atrocities against the people of Afghanistan, hoping then to try to break the will of the Afghan people and their confidence in their government, their confidence in the international community.
So it's also true, Demetri, if we looked over the course of the spring and the summer transitioning to the fall, that there have been more incidents of violence. But look hard at those incidents of violence that are occurring and they're not military actions; they're atrocities being committed by extremists against the people of Afghanistan and its duly elected government.
QUESTION: There were some concerns earlier in the year that the Afghan people did not believe that the U.S./NATO was committed to Afghanistan and they might pull out. This was a concern in Pakistan as well. Is there less of concern, do you think, among the people now or is that still fairly strong?
LTG EIKENBERRY: I believe that -- I believe that is a -- less of concern. I was on the ground in -- when the transition was underway, Demetri; the final expansion of NATO into the south and the east throughout the latter half of 2006. And clearly, the Afghan people were nervous about trying to ascertain, trying to understand what the NATO force was about and what did it mean in terms of the United States. The United States had the coalition lead beginning in late 2001 inside of Afghanistan.
So yeah, there was -- interestingly, among many of the elite of Afghan society and I think getting down to grass roots -- working its way down to grass roots level, there was nervousness that this transition was going to somehow equate to international disengagement from Afghanistan. Look at where the Afghan people have been over the past 30 years with Soviet occupation, with civil war, in which during the time of the civil war, after the Soviet defeat, the international community did leave Afghanistan and left it. And the Afghan people were on their own during Taliban and al-Qaida combined occupation of their country. So yeah, their memories are such that they're extremely nervous about the staying power of the international community.
Now what I think convinced the Afghan people that NATO was there to stay and see this mission through to its conclusion very much began last summer when NATO did an extremely good job of conducting combat operations in southern Afghanistan against the Taliban force that had made gains inside of Helman Province, Kandahar Province, and several other areas of the south. And they have acquitted themselves extraordinarily well since that period of time. I think the confidence in the Afghan people, in the NATO force has never been higher.
And I think that what the Afghans have also understood as a result now of NATO's time on the ground is that from an Afghan perspective, this is -- the NATO mission is a win-win. The United States of America is still absolutely committed to success in Afghanistan, but we are part of the NATO force. It's not a question of the United States or NATO. The United States is NATO and we're one of the 26 and indeed, we -- the United States of America does provide -- in many areas, provides a lot to that NATO force on the ground. So you've got the United States, you've got the 26 of NATO, and you still maintain very strong United Nations commitment for long-term success.
QUESTION: Sir, there are many stories about how much overextended are the American Armed Forces all over the world. All right. What about NATO? How do you see the capabilities both in military and in political terms? Is there will and is there -- are there any means to implement?
LTG EIKENBERRY: Yeah, I don't want to -- you know, I wouldn't want to speak on the political will of the 26. I don't want to speak for any nation. And at the end of the day, NATO represents 26 collective nations.
But if I look at -- if I look at the discussions that occur in NATO headquarters and I see what's occurring -- what they -- the nature of the discussion of the 26 on the political side, the nature of the 26 on the Military Committee side, I look at the choice that nations are making, the investments that they're making, I don't think there's any question that NATO is firmly committed over the next several years to continuing to carry out its mission inside of Afghanistan, providing for the security and the stability of Afghanistan and trying to create the conditions that governance can be advanced and that reconstruction and development can continue to proceed.
As I noted, there are shortages right now of capabilities in different areas that exist in Afghanistan. These are being addressed at political levels. They're being addressed by the militaries. But it's also important when we look longer term for the NATO military alliance inside of Afghanistan that the improvements that are being made militarily within the alliance on a national basis based upon various nations' experience inside of Afghanistan, indeed collectively for the alliance, the NATO military alliance is improving in terms of its so-called operational business practices and each nation that's participating in the Afghanistan mission, I think it's drawing its own lessons learned, it's continuing to make improvements in its ground forces, it's making improvements in its command-and-control, communications systems, it's making improvement in its intelligence systems, it's making improvements in terms of finding ways to be more interoperable and to operate within the context of a broader military alliance.
So there's gains that are being made each month inside of Afghanistan in the military aspects of the alliance that are important.
QUESTION: The two briefings -- you said there is shortages of equipment. Do they include combat and helicopters in the first place?
LTG EIKENBERRY: Yes.
QUESTION: And secondly, there are reports of increasing civilian casualties, especially in allied air operations. Does it not cause frustration among normal Afghan people?
LTG EIKENBERRY: Yeah. First of all, in terms of capabilities, I would say that key capabilities that need to -- that need to be addressed and must be addressed by the alliance, these are -- these have been stated many times. And that includes more combat force capability, shortages of helicopters, certain intelligence kind of capabilities, and as I had mentioned before as well, the need for more Afghan National Army trainers.
Now, again, it's against a baseline that I talk about this. Currently, 40,000 NATO forces inside of Afghanistan and there's been a steady growth of capabilities over time within that NATO force. But the NATO command will continue to identify shortages of capabilities, new requirements that are needed, and it's against that I'm talking about. So we're talking about incremental needs in order to get to the 100 percent of capability desired. We're not talking about nothing and needing to get from 0 percent to 100 percent. We're talking in certain cases of going from 90 percent to 100 percent, or maybe from 80 percent to 100 percent. So I want to be clear in terms of context there.
With regard to civilian casualties, you know, first of all, you can say that with regard to the NATO forces on the ground, and I know this setting up the Military Committee level, that NATO commanders across Afghanistan, the alliance, it takes the issue of civilian casualties extraordinarily -- it takes the issue of civilian casualties and it's a core issue with regard to NATO operations inside of Afghanistan, that the care that is taken, the adherence to laws of warfare, the rigid adherence to rules of engagement, reviews of rules of engagement, ongoing process, first principle of our operations, is to avoid civilian casualties.
Now, I want to compare and contrast that to an enemy whose ways of operation is to use terrorist tactics to commit atrocities, to intimidate the people of Afghanistan, to mix within the people of Afghanistan and try to put Afghan National Army forces and NATO forces into a position where, in order to defend themselves, they may be in a position where they now are having to get at an enemy which is shielding himself with women and children. So that's the starting point. If there was no terrorist force that we were fighting in Afghanistan that's trying to fight against a legitimate, duly constituted Government of Afghanistan, then we would not have this conversation right now. But we are. Within that, again, our first principle, NATO first principle, is we take extraordinary care to avoid civilian casualties. Indeed, in terms of adaptations and continual reviews that are ongoing, the commander at the International Security and Assistance Force inside of Afghanistan, General Dan McNeill, he recently issued a new tactical directive just reiterating procedures that the alliance forces will follow and our partners will follow with regard to civilian casualties. That is an ongoing review process.
What all this leads us to, though, is that the way forward inside of Afghanistan, I believe every much is one in which we've got to work hard to develop, the Afghans have got to work hard to develop their own competent national security forces, their own Afghan National Army, their own Afghan National Police. Because what we've seen is with their growingly capable army and with police who are competent, that they're able to operate in ways and maintain presence in ways in which the control of the Government of Afghanistan can be firmly planted and maintained and then you're completely removed from a situation in which you've got international military forces that will always have a very difficult time operating inside of Afghanistan because of language barriers, cultural barriers and an array of other challenges. When you are able to shift the paradigm so that it's the Afghan national security forces that are in front and they're taking the lead in bringing control to areas, then this entire question that we're having and this entire challenge of civilian casualties, that's what ultimately will resolve this problem.
QUESTION: As you're training and as the Afghan forces are being trained, is there -- do you think the balance between the use of air power and the use of combat forces and engagement on the ground, is it about right or is it where it has to be given the constraints?
LTG EIKENBERRY: Yeah, Demetri, on that one, not being the operational commander on the ground, it would not be appropriate for me to comment, you know, at this point in time. I'll go back to what I had said, though, that there's extraordinary care that is taken for all forces on the ground, all the international military forces on the ground, for the application of close air support.
You know, there's been some who have speculated that because there's enough ground forces that more close air support is needed, and I think that's a fallacious argument. Afghanistan is a country that is, if you were to put it in U.S. terms from northeastern Afghanistan that would be New York City, southwestern Afghanistan would be New Orleans. The terrain in Afghanistan is formidable. Once again, to put it in a U.S. perspective, Pikes Peak would just be another hill in the Hindu Kush. And then we transition from two-thirds of the country bisected by this Hindu Kush mountain range and we transition to the great red dessert of Kandahar to the south. Not a lot of improved roads outside of the ring road around Afghanistan.
So yeah, from a distance you can say more ground force is needed, and then that will mitigate the use of air power. How many grounds forces? A million? One million five hundred thousand? You're talking about a significant, significant number of ground forces. And into that kind of environment then, if you want to make a huge commitment of ground forces, then what will be the reaction of the Afghan people to that? Do they want that kind of presence on the ground?
Well, that's for their political authorities to decide. But the kind of easy argument that, in order to somehow reduce the amount of close air support that we're going to offset this with a much larger ground force presence, again, I think that's a fallacious line of argument.
MODERATOR: Just a few more minutes left.
QUESTION: General, the new members of NATO, their armed forces have clearly not been ready for military action when joining -- I mean, those countries have not seen action since World War II or whatever. How do you see their development? How do you see their capabilities growing and how do their soldiers perform and if you can express something about the Hungarian PRT?
LTG EIKENBERRY: Yeah. I'll say across the board that the improvement of each one of the contributing force's capabilities through experience on the ground and through some very difficult challenges that they faced and through the loss of life of forces in certain instances, the improvements that they have made have been absolutely dramatic. One of the great things about the 26 members of the Alliance, we -- all of us in different ways, we come from cultures and we field armies from groups of people who are extraordinarily adaptive, creative, faced with challenges. They find remarkable ways to adapt and address what can be some of the most formidable challenges imaginable, which some of our forces, all of our forces, face in Afghanistan. So I've been absolutely in awe of watching the 26 nations who have made various commitments in Afghanistan to watch their steady growth and improvements over time.
With regard to Hungary, I had a chance to visit the Provincial Reconstruction Team that was fielded by the Hungarian armed forces. In fact, I had an opportunity after I left Afghanistan to visit Budapest and within the Ministry of Defense had a video teleconference with the Hungarian commander of the Provincial Reconstruction Team. Hungary's done a great job in fielding that Provincial Reconstruction Team and pulling together not only the military aspects of the providing of security within the province that they're deployed to, but they've done a great job of integrating the rest of the nonmilitary team members within the Provincial Reconstruction Team, so in the case of the Hungarian Government, having good representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from the aid and development teams.
And I think that your particular PRT was one of the very best PRTs in terms of watching how you're able to integrate the military and the nonmilitary piece in a very coherent comprehensive approach to providing security within that province that you're operating in.
QUESTION: How concerned are you about the narcotics problem at the moment? The latest UN -- the new UN report shows another rise? Is there any way to get a grip on this problem?
LTG EIKENBERRY: It's going to take -- Demitri, it's going to take time, patience and more resources to effectively address this problem. Now, there's certain aspects of the narcotrafficking threat that Afghanistan and we're all facing that are important to bear in mind. First of all, when you talk about the degree to which narcotrafficking has penetrated the agricultural sector of Afghanistan, still estimates are that under 10 percent of the farmers of Afghanistan are engaged in any kind of poppy cultivation. And even within that number, single digit number, if that statistic is correct, even within that single digit, many of them might just have a small cash crop on the side.
And then in terms of the geographical distribution of the problem inside of Afghanistan, if you take a look at Helmand Province, if we could remove Helmand Province from the equation of Afghanistan and pull one of 34 provinces, Helmand, pull that out with its poppy production, we've already cut poppy production in Afghanistan by almost 50 percent and I believe that the UN report will highlight that as well.
QUESTION: But you can't pull Helmand out.
LTG EIKENBERRY: But you can't pull Helmand out. And I'm only giving in terms of this because to believe that with the right kind of coherent approach, we should be able to make progress. But more needs to be done, Demitri, in terms of efforts of law enforcement and building Afghan law enforcement capability, judicial capability and in terms of having the wherewithal to deliver much more on the economic front, you know, alternative economies being open -- and opportunities being opened up then to farmers that currently are engaged in poppy production. But with regard to NATO, now NATO's a military alliance and NATO provides support, an appropriate kind of support, for different counternarcotics efforts, for instance, using NATO intelligence capabilities that can be used then by law enforcement officials and by others for targeting of narcotraffickers.
On the other end of the spectrum, let's say, with its Provincial Reconstruction Teams, those Provincial Reconstruction Teams by virtue of the fact that they're leading efforts in terms of reconstruction and development of supporting the Afghan Government, they play a role there. But NATO is a military alliance. It's not NATO's mission to lead in counternarcotics. It's its mission to provide appropriate levels of support and I think in that area it does a very good job.
The final point that you should always make, though, I think about narcotrafficking and problems that we're facing inside of Afghanistan, indeed, it's a huge threat to our success: narcotrafficking, terrorism, corruption of the government and then the possible linkages between all of those. But if narcotrafficking is going to be appropriately dealt with and we keep in mind that 95 percent of the world's opium or poppy may be produced now in Afghanistan, I think that the UN report will also say that about 95 percent of the world's poppy is being produced in Afghanistan.
Now, let's also bear in mind that far less than 1 percent of the world's consumption of opium and opium-based products takes place in Afghanistan. So we could also say then sitting in each one of our very well developed countries that this is not necessarily solely a supply problem -- ninety five percent produced, less than 1 percent being consumed -- that we also have to bear in mind we've got a big demand problem and that demand problem has to be addressed also.
MODERATOR: I think there's maybe time for one final quick question, if anyone had any?
QUESTION: Pakistan. Has Pakistan started to do more to help clamp down or to stop financing, not of al-Qaida, but of Taliban, which I know has been a concern of both the U.S. military and of NATO in the past?
LTG EIKENBERRY: Well, I don't want to, from a NATO, you know, perspective better with regard to Pakistan, many of the kind of questions that I think that have to be addressed here are more appropriately addressed on a national basis or perhaps on a diplomatic basis. But Demetri, the threat that we're fighting against -- and here, we, the Afghans, NATO, the Pakistanis -- it is the same threat that we're facing in both sides of the border.
The Pakistani army and its security forces over the last several years had more killed in combat and more wounded in combat against this same enemy that's attacking NATO forces and Afghan forces on the Afghan side of the border. They've had more killed in combat, wounded in combat, than NATO has in the international military forces writ large have had over the last several years. So same enemy, enemy that's able to operate quite effectively on both sides of the border. I think that the -- there's been a clear recognition of that by all of the parties that are engaged inside of Afghanistan right now. There's been clear recognition of that by Pakistani authorities.
And on the NATO front, there's been over the last several years, I think, steady improvement in terms of its operational coordination and exchange of intelligence with the Pakistani military and Afghan army via a mechanism that's called the Tripartite Commission. It used to be led by -- on the international side -- by the U.S.-led coalition, now with NATO's advance in the mission, it's now led by NATO, but also has the Afghan army and the Pakistani army that participate in the military tripartite. And through that military tripartite, through a lot of different for a, to include working its way down to the tactical level, where coordination meetings will occur at the border, there is a very robust exchange of operational information, intelligence and indeed there's other work that goes on to try and improve the mutual confidence between the Pakistani and the Afghan armies.
QUESTION: Sorry, one more, please?
LTG EIKENBERRY: But I'll also say to Demitri that given all that, still much more has to be done.
MODERATOR: One final question. Final question.
QUESTION: Just a very short question. Is there a chance that the new C-17s will be based in Hungary?
LTG EIKENBERRY: That is a political issue. That's a political issue.
MODERATOR: Thanks, everyone. I appreciate it. Thank you.
LTG EIKENBERRY: Thank you.
