The issue: Once concerned only with the Red Menace, member nations now target Islamic terrorism

When NATO was founded with the United States as a charter member, its mission statement was simple: Stand by to repel an attack by the Soviet Union. Or, as its first secretary-general put it more broadly, Òto keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down.Ó

THE ORIGINAL 12 members agreed that an attack on one of them would be treated as an attack on all. That still stands, but otherwise the alliance and its mission have changed greatly.

The alliance now has 28 members, including many nations that were not only part of the Soviet bloc but members of the Warsaw Pact, formed by the Soviet Union to counter NATO. The Warsaw Pact, along with the Soviet Union, disappeared in 1991.

Many believed that without the Soviet threat the alliance eventually would fall apart. The opposite happened largely because former Soviet states clamored for membership Ñ as a guarantee against again falling under Russian domination; as a symbol of acceptance in Western Europe; and for the democracy-strengthening safeguards that NATO insists on as a condition of membership.

Now, NATO is drafting a new mission statement. A top priority is winning the war in Afghanistan where NATO supplies about a third of the 100,000 troops there. As the allianceÕs current secretary-general, Fogh Rasmussen, put it, ÒIn todayÕs world, we may have to go beyond our borders to defend our borders.Ó

WITH AN EYE on a possible eventual threat from Iran, the draft called for a common missile defense. And it also called for greater NATO-Russian cooperation on missile defense as well as on terrorism and narcotics.

Curiously, considering that several European nations have been quietly hinting that the U.S. should pull its nuclear weapons out of Europe, the draft statement came down hard on keeping them there: ÒAs long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO should continue to maintain secure and reliable nuclear forces … at the minimum level required by the prevailing security environment.Ó

The success of NATO was that it was never called on to fulfill its original mission, repelling a Soviet invasion. And within Europe the alliance was called on only once Ñ to quell threats to the peace and stability of Europe in Bosnia and Kosovo.

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