Understanding global security - Peter Hough

NATURAL THREATS TO SECURITY
The grandson of Ernst Opik has attracted some ridicule in the British media for what
is perceived of in some quarters as an eccentric obsession, but he has not been afraid
to court such publicity in the pursuit of highlighting the issue of Near Earth Objects.
Opik has been a regular on television shows, both comic and serious, and become a
well-known and well-liked public figure. A media-friendly persona should not disguise
the fact that he has made great strides in gaining political credibility for the issue
for which he is best known. His one-man political campaign in 2000 convinced the
British government to set up the Task Force on Near Earth Objects and then act on its
recommendation to fund a research centre, the Near Earth Object Information Centre.
This centre is now a significant player in both the British and international political
discourse on this vital, yet somewhat neglected issue.
The role of NATO in natural disaster relief
Part of the post-Cold War restructuring of NATO saw, in 1998, the establishment of
a unit at its Brussels headquarters to utilize military resources to protect citizens
from natural rather than military threats. The Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response
Coordination Centre (EADRCC) is a tiny cog in the NATO machine but its creation
epitomized not only a widening of its notion of security but also the widening of its
sphere of operations beyond the defence of NATO member states. The EADRCC is,
in fact, coordinated by the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), in which the
19 NATO states are linked to 27 non-NATO European states, and it emerged from a
proposal by one of those partners, Russia. NATO has had a role in disaster relief
dating back to 1953 when North Sea floods prompted the initiation of a ‘Policy on
Cooperation for Disaster Assistance in Peacetime’, but the EADRCC has enhanced
this significantly.
The EADRCC helps coordinate international relief programmes responding
to natural or industrial disasters occurring in any of the 46 EAPC states. 1 To avoid
any duplication of roles with the UN, a permanent Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Liaison Officer is based at the centre alongside EAPC
state representatives and permanent NATO staff. Hence the EADRCC represents a
means of assisting UN relief when disaster occurs in an EAPC state, or of coordinating
assistance within the EAPC area if the UN-OCHA is distracted elsewhere. In the first
year of its operation, for example, the EADRCC helped coordinate an international
response to problems caused by flooding in Ukraine at a time when the UN-OCHA
was preoccupied with the devastations being wreaked on Central America by
Hurricane Mitch. When UN-OCHA is active in an EAPC state, the EADRCC cooperates
closely with it and supplies material support, such as vehicles and medical
facilities, or logistical support, such as in facilitating the waivering of visa restrictions
for relief workers. A Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Unit (EADRU), comprising
both military and civilian experts from the EAPC countries, is being developed to
accompany the coordination and information-exchange role of EADRCC.
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