NATO chief targets alliance revamp by 2009

MUNICH, Germany, Feb 10 (Reuters) NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer opened a potentially fierce tug-of-war over the future of the alliance today, urging members to agree by 2009 on a new ''strategic concept'' for the body.

NATO's strategic concept is its core mission statement and the current 1999 version was drawn up before the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, which Washington and others insist show the alliance must tackle emerging security threats wherever they arise before they lead to attacks.

It also predates the alliance entering Afghanistan -- its first peacekeeping mission outside the Euro-Atlantic area it was set up to protect.

De Hoop Scheffer told a security conference in Munich the 26-member alliance should work better with the United Nations, the European Union and non-NATO partners, and offer itself more widely as a military trainer in the West Asia and beyond.

''We have learned fundamental lessons from our operations in Afghanistan and Kosovo,'' he said of NATO's two largest current operations.

''Those are the lessons of 21st security. We need to enshrine them in our guiding documents so that they are implemented in practice,'' he told the conference, adding that he wanted NATO leaders to agree on a new strategic concept by a 2009 summit.

Many of his proposals already enjoy strong US backing, with Washington for example long urging NATO to offer itself as a security trainer across the world, and invite ''global partners'' such as Australia and Japan to help out in missions.

But France has led moves to block or water down many of the early steps the alliance wanted to take in this direction.

Paris and several other European nations insisting NATO should focus on core tasks, such as the original pledge by nations to offer mutual defence in the event of attack.

De Hoop Scheffer called for better ties with former Cold War foe Russia, whose President Vladimir Putin earlier used the same meeting to accuse NATO of seeking to threaten Moscow by continuing to offer membership to former Soviet satellites.

De Hoop Scheffer also said the new strategic concept should confirm an informal target for all NATO nations to spend two per cent of their national income on defence -- something that all but half a dozen of them currently fail to do.

REUTERS BDP VC2345