BRUSSELS, Oct. 8 (UPI) -- NATO allies need to examine their defense budgets as they adapt to new security threats, the secretary-general of the alliance said in Brussels.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen spelled out NATO's new strategic concept to delegates at a speech in Brussels, Belgium.
Rasmussen told the audience that the face of security threats was changing. While state conflict can't be ruled out, emerging threats from international terrorist groups, cyberattacks and energy security are "just as real and potentially just as deadly".
NATO allies, he said, needed to update defense capabilities while adapting to the added strain of the global economic crisis.
"We have to avoid cutting (defense budgets) so deep that we won't, in (the) future, be able to defend the security on which our economic prosperity rests," he warned.
Addressing what he considered the fundamental element of collective defense, the secretary-general said NATO was an ideal forum for U.S. and European allies to pool resources to defend their common values.
UPI
