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NATO's new strategic concept: rising to the occasion

19 Oct 2009 - 21:13
The process that should lead to a new NATO strategy has been launched at this year's spring Summit in Strasbourg/Kehl, where the Alliance celebrated its 60th anniversary. This strategy, to be approved at the next Summit in Lisbon at the end of 2010 (indeed, another Lisbon strategy), will replace the current Strategic Concept that was adopted at the Washington Summit in 1999, when Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were formally welcomed as new members and the Alliance was waging a controversial air campaign over Yugoslavia. Observers may detect a sense of irony in the fact that yet again NATO is engaged in an operation, this time in Afghanistan, that is stirring a great deal of debate.