NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told the Atlantic Council that, while NATO's Afghanistan mission shows some "very real problems" within the Alliance, the fundamental lesson that should be taken away is the remarkable "solidarity" of 28 diverse nations fighting together for a common purpose.

In his first U.S. speech as NATO Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen stated that, while "NATO will stay" in Afghanistan "for as long as it takes to succeed," the political and strategic realities make it clear that "things are going to have to change" and quickly.

Senator Richard Lugar argues that NATO's next strategic concept must consider "unconventional threats such as terrorism, drug trafficking, cyber warfare, and energy manipulation" as "attacks" meriting Alliance response under Article V.

Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), the ranking minority member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke for the Atlantic Council to provide a Congressional perspective on how a new Strategic Concept for NATO can best ensure the continued relevance of the Alliance.

The U.S. decision to cancel deployment of a ballistic missile defense system in Central Europe in favor of boosting shorter-range defenses creates immediate policy problems for the Obama administration

The military dimension of the counterinsurgency in Afghanistan requires establishing a high enough degree of security in the country that the Afghan people will transfer their loyalty away from the Taliban (or will feel adequately unthreatened by the likelihood of a Taliban return to express opposition to the insurgents).

Obama administration officials are now admitting what has been apparent for weeks: that they are giving serious consideration to radically downsizing the Afghanistan mission.  That this comes only months after unveiling a substantially different strategy to great fanfare is naturally raising questions.

Assuming the counterinsurgent partners (in this case, the Afghan and American governments) can agree on a desired outcome that consititutes its version of the better state of the peace (BSOP), the next question is how to achieve that condition?

The rollout of President Obama's new missile defense policy was "compressed" because news was leaking and leading to rampant speculation, Alexander "Sandy" Vershbow, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs told an Atlantic Council conference call this morning.

The Honorable Alexander Vershbow, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, and Lieutenant General Patrick O’Reilly, Director of the Missile Defense Agency, joined the Atlantic Council for an exlcusive teleconference briefing on the Obama administration’s decision to pursue alternative technologies and architectures for missile defense in Europe.