Kuwait News Agency: NATO now an Alliance Based on Security Partnership

NATO has evolved from an Alliance focused on a singular threat, to an Alliance based on security partnership between the 28 members and the rest of the world, thanks to the military intervention in Libya, a senior NATO official said here. "The Libya operation was a logical outflow of the view that we need to have partnerships with countries around the world. NATO would not have intervened in Libya without the Arab League making this request to the UN Security Council," said Ivo H. Daalder, United States Ambassador to NATO. His remarks were during a briefing on "US Policy on NATO", as part of the US-NATO Program for Opinion Makers from the Middle East, held at NATO Headquarters last night. In response to a question by Kuweit News Agency (KUNA), Ambassador Daalder said, "NATO is a source of stability in an unpredictable world. You become a source of stability by being ready to be able to act, if a crisis demands that action." "Who would have thought in November 2010 in Lisbon that four months later, NATO would lead a military operation in North Africa, under a UN mandate and at the behest of the Arab League: No one." NATO's 2010 Lisbon summit adopted a new "Strategic Concept", the alliance's new ten-year plan adopted at the 1999 Washington summit.