GENEVA: NATO's Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Friday that the alliance wants "a solid, trustful" relationship with Russia, and it is up to Moscow to clarify whether it wants the same.
De Hoop Scheffer told security experts meeting in Geneva that such a relationship would be a "long-term investment in European, and indeed global, security."
"It is up to Russia to clarify whether she holds a different view," the NATO chief said.
The relationship between Moscow and the 26-nation alliance was tested Thursday when Norwegian and British fighters were scrambled to intercept eight Russian bombers that neared the Nordic country's territory.
The Russian planes stayed inside international air space during the maneuvers, which officials described as a statement of Russia's growing military prowess.
"If we look at Russia's recent behavior, we see that even after a decade of steady progress the NATO-Russia relationship remains vulnerable to Cold War stereotypes. We have to get beyond this state of affairs. We must not allow short-term tactical considerations to put at risk a long-term strategic partnership," De Hoop Scheffer said.
He also told an annual security conference organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies that NATO needed a "new strategic concept."
"Our prevailing security paradigm has shifted," he said, adding that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States showed that NATO had to engage security threats where they arose, even if they were outside the territory of its member states.
"The need to look at security functionally, rather than geographically, has been well understood," De Hoop Scheffer said. In order to do so, he said, political leaders must recognize the importance of sending troops when and where they are needed.
He criticized leaders "who might talk eloquently about the new threats, yet fail to provide necessary political and military means to meet them," citing in particular the lack of sufficient helicopters in Afghanistan, where NATO has 40,000 troops involved in battling Taliban insurgents following their overthrow by a U.S.-led coalition in 2001.
De Hoop Scheffer said he would continue repeating what his predecessors had preached, which is that NATO members should spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense.
"The large majority of allies doesn't make it by far," he said, exempting only the United States, Britain and France from criticism.
