NATO’s new Strategic Concept to focus more on Russia, EU
NATO can guarantee the safety and security of its members only if it engages dynamically with countries and organizations that are outside its boundaries, concludes a group of experts that has created a draft for the organization’s new Strategic Concept.
On May 17, a group of experts appointed by Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen to lay the groundwork for a new Strategic Concept for NATO presented its analysis and recommendations to the North Atlantic Council (NAC), NATO’s web site reads.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, head of the team of experts who wrote the document, explained the report’s two underlying conclusions: - First, the Alliance has an ongoing duty to guarantee the safety and security of its members. Second, it can achieve that objective only if it engages dynamically with countries and organizations that are outside its boundaries, she said.
- Partners should play an increasing role in NATO activities, said Secretary Albright. NATO should improve its ability to work with other countries and organizations, in particular the European Union with its overlapping membership.
Secretary Albright singled out NATO-Russia relations: - It is clearly in NATO’s best interest to work with Moscow to build a cooperative Euro-Atlantic security order and to respond to such shared concerns as terrorism, nuclear proliferation, piracy and drug trafficking.
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NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen will use the draft as a basis for a new strategic concept that will be submitted for approval at the alliance’s next summit in Lisbon, Portugal, in November. The previous strategic concept focused mainly on NATO’s peacekeeping role in places like Bosnia and Kosovo. It was adopted in 1999, soon after the end of the Cold War and before the Sept. 11, 2001.
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