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Prague Summit Poised to Remake NATO, Make History
Wednesday, November 20, 2002
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

A senior defense official, speaking on background, expects nations would still maintain control. "Any use of any NATO capability will be subject to the consensus of NATO. All of the countries of NATO have signed up for this Rapid Response Force and all of the countries agreed to the wording ... that they needed the ability to respond to threats wherever they came from. There's a relationship between these things. We need agile command structures to be able to deploy. We need new capabilities to be able to deploy."

PRAGUE, Czech Republic -- AFIS
The NATO Summit here is historic because it will allow the North Atlantic Alliance to remake itself to face the threats of the 21st century, U.S. officials said.

A senior defense official, speaking on background, said the "headline story" of the summit is inviting new countries to join the alliance. But equally important, he said, are moves to stand-up a NATO Rapid Reaction Force, shrink the technological gap between the United States and the European allies, and to remake NATO's command structure.

The alliance will invite countries to join Nov. 21 following a heads of state meeting. The aspirants are Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Many analysts agree a large number will be invited.

"Former members of the Soviet Union itself may be moving into NATO," the official said. "We believe these new members will strengthen the alliance in a number of ways."

He said the countries don't have "360-degree" militaries -- meaning they cannot perform all missions equally well. But that fits, he said.

"In this day and age, the alliance is not looking on adding large numbers of brigades and divisions and the like," he said. "What (these aspirants) do bring is 'niche' capabilities that will potentially be very valuable in the full spectrum of operations."
(More: DoD News Source)
2002 © The United States Department of Defense.

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