Rasmussen at Wehrkunde: NATO Moving into Asia-Pacific After Afghanistan

February 4, 2013 • 11:14AM

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen delivered a clear message to the Wehrkunde meeting in Munich on Saturday: NATO is here to stay and will expand its field of operations into the Asia-Pacific. Rasmussen focused his prepared remarks on NATO's future, following the 2014 withdrawal from Afghanistan. He made clear that NATO now has a global mission "wherever, and whenever, the Allies judge their security interests are at stake," adding, "When I look at our world, I see an arc of crises stretching from the Sahel to Central Asia... We must stand ready to deter and defend against any threat." He emphasized that missile defense was a "core element of our collective defence," suggesting that European navies should upgrade ships with missile defense radar to be able to join with the U.S. Navy. He also announced that NATO had recently established a Special Operations Forces Headquarters to conduct joint special operations and was expanding the NATO Response Force. Rasmussen made a strong pitch for Europe to boost its spending on NATO capabilities, noting that, since 9/11, the U.S. share of NATO expenditures has gone up from 63 percent to 72 percent. He admitted that most European NATO countries have cut defense spending—some by 20 percent, and that trend must end.