news - web sites ) Secretary-General George Robertson called on allied defense ministers Tuesday to shelve Cold War reflexes and be prepared to spend money to gird for the new war on global terrorism.
"What was previously an abstract possibility became on September 11 an appalling reality and...our security environment must now be seen in a fundamentally different and considerably darker light," he said at the start of a two-day meeting.
"We've only just begun what must be a further adaptation of the alliance to meet the new security challenges that we face."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, fresh from a visit to the war front in Afghanistan ( news - web sites ), was expected to brief allies on the campaign against the Taliban and the al Qaeda network, blamed for the September 11 attacks on the United States.
However, talks on a post-war peacekeeping force were likely to be confined to the corridors of NATO's Brussels headquarters.
Britain has said it is willing to lead the force of 3,000 to 5,000 troops, of which at least the lead elements are expected to be in place in Kabul by Saturday.
evoked a mutual defense clause in its founding treaty after the suicide hijack attacks on New York and Washington.
But apart from sending early warning planes to patrol American skies and putting on a show of naval power in the eastern Mediterranean, the 19-nation bloc has been kept out of the action, with Washington calling on individual allies -- chiefly Britain -- for limited help in its Afghanistan campaign.
Robertson, who has insisted in recent weeks on NATO's continued relevance, urged defense ministers to adapt a machine created during the Cold War to fight major land battles in Europe to take on the nebulous target of terrorism.
"We must adapt our concepts, our relationships and especially our defense capabilities..." he said. "And we must draw the necessary conclusions even if that means additional resources for defense and security and new balances inside our defense programs."
Officials say defense forces need better intelligence, more intelligence-sharing and more robust capabilities to counter proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Rumsfeld, in a speech prepared for delivery later in the day, also called for "critical investment" on security.
"One of the illusions shattered on September 11 was the idea that, with the end of the Cold War, the world's democracies could afford large cuts in defense spending," he said.
The ministers were due to hold talks with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, whose country has swung closer to the Western allies in the past three months despite Washington abandoning the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM).
Within hours of arriving in Brussels Monday, Rumsfeld and Ivanov had agreed that technical talks would begin in January to plan details of joint and deep nuclear arms cuts.
Russia remains strongly opposed to a U.S. plan to build a national missile defense, which is prohibited by their ABM treaty, but Rumsfeld said Moscow's muted response to the U.S. move underlined the new amity between the old foes.
"I believe this shows that the U.S.-Russian relationship has matured to the point that we can agree to disagree agreeably on the ABM Treaty, without allowing those differences to affect progress in other areas of our relationship," he said.
The other allies are also expected to rally behind Russia, whose cooperation with the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan prompted NATO foreign ministers earlier this month to promise Moscow a place with its former foes in a special council of 20.
The ministers will also discuss a revamp of peacekeeping operations in the Balkans -- where NATO is leading about 60,000 soldiers -- with a view to treating the area as a single region and not three separate theaters.
"I think it's no secret that a number of allies would wish to see numbers reduced when the possibility arises for them to be," a NATO official said. "This is something the military authorities will address in the context of rationalization and regionalization."