Clinton to outline new NATO roles in speech on security; threats from terror, disasters

Clinton to outline new NATO roles

PARIS — The traditional definition of national security is obsolete and must expand beyond countering threats from other nations to include dangers such as terrorism and earthquakes, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday.

In Paris for an address on the future of U.S. cooperation in European security, defined for more than half a century by the NATO pact and old Cold War allegiances, Clinton said the definition should now include threats unaffiliated with any government, including terrorists, cyber attacks and natural disasters.

“There are a lot of implications that were not part of the original NATO concept but which we increasingly define as security,” she said.

Clinton was meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy and his national security adviser, Jean-David Levitte, before the an address at France’s military academy. Clinton will speak to threats facing Europe, the administration’s approach to missile defense, arms control with Russia, and the importance of NATO.

Speaking to reporters traveling on the plane with her to France, Clinton said she wanted her speech to be part of “the whole discussion that’s going on about the definition of European security” as NATO reviews its goals and strategies for the next 50 years.

Clinton also said she would address new Russian proposals for European security.

On the controversial issue of a missile defense network for Europe, Clinton said the U.S. would welcome Moscow’s input on research and development.

“From our perspective missile defense is much more now about defending against non-state actors and rogue regimes than it is about what we classically thought as the need for deterrence,” she said.

Clinton arrived in Paris after attending two days of conferences on Afghanistan and Yemen in London. At the meeting she also stressed the necessity of punishing Iran for its failure to come clean about its nuclear intentions.