If it proves to be accurate, Richards' projection could entail the U.S. and NATO spending half a century in Afghanistan.
Notwithstanding which, the day before the NATO summit began in Portugal the chief of the Alliance, Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, was interviewed by Britain's Daily Telegraph and again celebrated the war in Afghanistan as a prototype - a template according to the newspaper account - for future global operations envisioned in the new Strategic Concept.
While stating "If conditions are not met fully by the end of 2014, then we will have to continue the combat mission," Rasmussen asserted:
"Our core function will remain territorial defence of our populations But we must realise that in the modern world we have to go beyond our borders
to actually protect and defend our borders."
In line with the report serving as the foundation of the new Strategic Concept - "NATO 2020: Assured Security: Dynamic Engagement," prepared by a "group of experts" headed by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright - Rasmussen indicated NATO's priorities not only beyond the bloc's borders but transcending all borders: "The purpose of the new strategic concept is to prepare the alliance to address the new security challenges - missile attacks, cyber attacks, terrorist attacks." [4]
Leading up to the summit, NATO conducted the Cyber Coalition 2010 exercise from November 16-18. "Military experts from all NATO countries" were invited to take part and the Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Tallinn, Estonia (established in 2008) participated in the cyber warfare exercise. [5]
Earlier in the week Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke in language similar to that of Rasmussen, not echoing NATO's positions but indicating whence they emanate.
His comments included:
"Some...declared the alliance dead at the end of the Cold War, when its job was to block Soviet tanks from rolling into West Germany. NATO demonstrated its value in the years that followed - transforming into a political engine for integrating the former Soviet states of Eastern Europe into the larger community of nations."
"A key element centers on NATO's commitment to invest roughly $280 million
over 10 years to link its missile defense capabilities with new missile systems being developed by the United States. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former Danish prime minister who is now NATO's secretary general, says the determination to press ahead with the missile shield is likely to calm skeptical publics that NATO can protect them. It should also provide a better bulwark against Iran." [6]
U.S. permanent representative (ambassador) to NATO, Ivo Daalder, who while at the Brookings Institution wrote articles advocating the creation of a global NATO [7], said in a recent opinion piece published in the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune that, regarding what will prove to be the most significant issue decided upon at the Lisbon summit in addition to that regarding the Afghan war - extending the American interceptor missile system to all of Europe:
"[T]he United States is on track to provide the lion's share of this capability. Our contribution, called the Phased Adaptive Approach, will exploit advances in sensor and interceptor technologies to swiftly deploy a strong, smart missile defense system. At the core of the system is the SM-3 missile, a proven ship-borne system that will also be deployed on land at sites in Romania (by 2015) and subsequently in Poland (by 2018)...." [8]
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