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NATO Faces Different Threats Today From 50 Years Ago
Wednesday, November 20, 2002
By Kathleen T. Rhem
American Forces Press Service

"This force will be prepared to deploy on short notice wherever it is needed. ... For all of us, it will require more effective defense spending."

WASHINGTON -- AFIS
The dangers facing NATO today are vastly different from those the alliance faced when it was formed, President Bush said today in Prague, Czech Republic.

Bush is in Prague for the NATO Summit. Member countries are widely expected to invite several nations to join the alliance Nov. 21. Aspirant countries are Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

When the NATO alliance formed in the late 1940s after World War II, the Soviet Union loomed as a threat to America and the countries of Western Europe. The threat grew when the Soviets and their captive Eastern European satellite nations formed the Warsaw Pact alliance.

Today, Bush noted, NATO heads of state are meeting for the first time in a former Warsaw Pact capital.
(More: DoD News Source)
2002 © The United States Department of Defense.

Dan