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• AP reports NATO defense ministers extended their debate on counter-terrorism to include their eastern neighbors Friday, seeking greater cooperation with 27 mostly former East bloc nations at a second day of talks. The dispatch observes that NATO is looking to step up its PFP program to increase member nations’ role in a wider campaign against terrorism. According to the dispatch, the 19 NATO allies believe the former Soviet bloc nations which border a string of volatile nations from the Balkans through the Caucasus and on to Iran and Afghanistan can be useful partners in preventing the spread of chemical, nuclear or biological weapons or their use by terrorist groups.

A purported statement by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld at a meeting of NATO defense ministers Thursday, that pre-emptive action may be necessary to deal with rogue states and terrorist groups, generated prominent interest.

Under the title, "Rumsfeld tells NATO to face up to terror threat," The Guardian reports senior U.S. officials confirmed that there was now a NATO consensus for "pre-emptive" strikes to combat terrorism though, crucially, no agreement on specific plans.

The Times quotes unidentified officials saying there was agreement that NATO should be prepared to fund the necessary capabilities to deal with nuclear terrorism. Such capabilities included NBC suits, missile defense systems, the means to deploy troops rapidly to conflicts around the world, and advanced weapons. The officials reportedly pointed out, however, that there was less agreement on whether NATO should take pre-emptive action against terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction.

The New York Times quotes a senior Defense Department official saying no formal debate was held at Thursday’s meeting on altering the NATO charter with an expanded definition of mutual self-defense including preemption. The newspaper notes that NATO Secretary General Robertson declined to discuss NATO’s response to hypothetical scenarios of preemptive attacks on specific nations, such as Iraq.

On a dissenting note, Frankfurter Rundschau opines meanwhile that the strategy of military prevention is based on the erroneous view that prevention against terrorists can be military. Not so, the newspaper believes, stressing that it can only be done by the police and the secret services. According to the newspaper it is not a task for NATO, which, it claims, was not conceived for that purpose, is not equipped for it, and does not have a mandate from its member nations. The newspaper disagrees with plans to globalize NATO’s sphere of operations, and with what it sees as turning the Alliance into an "ambush squad against dubious countries on the pretext of fighting terror." All this, the newspaper argues, "brings NATO onto a false path that can only lead to disaster."

In the wake of Thursday’s meeting, media generally see NATO moving toward a leaner, meaner and more global alliance. There is a perception that NATO is seeking to agree a series of new military priorities as well as a timetable for their implementation to be endorsed at the Prague summit in the fall.

NATO Thursday launched a wide-ranging review of its military capabilities and structures, as the U.S. urged allies to boost their ability to deal with threats from weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, writes the Financial Times. The newspaper adds that defense ministers agreed on a new initiative to improve military capabilities in areas seen as critical to counter emerging threats, such as precision-guided weapons; transport aircraft air-to-air refueling and logistics to permit rapid deployment; and defenses against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear attacks. The newspaper considers that the effort represented NATO’s latest shift away from Cold War-era structures and forces and its push for greater relevance to modern needs. The move to beef up specific capabilities was clearly designed to stiffen political will in Europe. Alliance officials hope that NATO leaders, at the Prague summit, will agree on a detailed list of planned new capabilities, and a timeframe for procurement and implementation, stresses the newspaper. The article adds that the moves will be accompanied by a thorough review of NATO’s command structure, which the U.S. and other countries think is centered too much on regional, fixed commands and too little on mobile headquarters forces that could be deployed quickly to run NATO or coalition operations. It notes, however, that this is likely to be sensitive as each member country has traditionally sought a significant NATO presence, such as a fixed subregional command, on its soil and each country’s personnel posts within the NATO bureaucracy are jealously protected.

Le Monde agrees that NATO must adapt to the changing nature of the threats to its members. The newspaper believes that Washington has finally resigned itself to the fact that "Europe will never be able to catch up with the United States militarily because of budget constraints." Instead, it now favors a system in which different NATO members would acquire different military specializations. "The pragmatic aspects of such a plan go some way toward Europe’s way of thinking," the newspaper notes, adding: "For Washington, NATO remains the conduit for its influence in Europe. And Europe, for its part, knows that it will be some time before the European defense project can replace NATO’s collective security umbrella…. So both sides have reason to hope that the alliance will find a second wind by reforming itself."

CNN reported at the Prague summit, NATO members are again to discuss how to tackle the military gaps, focusing on the possibility that countries could specialize in certain military fields. The network stressed that the aim is to break away from NATO’s traditional role of defending Europe from what is currently seen as a nonexistent Soviet threat and to give the Alliance the means to project power to far-flung regions harboring terrorists that threaten allied nations.

• According to Moscow’s Itar-TASS, June 6, Defense Minister Ivanov Thursday expressed satisfaction Thursday with the results of the first meeting of the Russia-NATO Council. "There are not very many words in the statement adopted at the meeting, but it contains a number of specific instructions to translate into life the Rome declaration," he reportedly said, adding: "We plan to make a joint examination of threats to armed forces of Russia and NATO across the entire Euro Atlantic space, will examine a possible range of threats to airliners, nuclear facilities and other important centers of military and civil infrastructure. Practical cooperation between Russia and NATO would also start in rescue operations at sea, non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and peacekeeping activities."

BALKANS

• Radovan Karadzic has refused to respond to a letter sent by SFOR, urging the former Bosnian Serb president to give himself up to the ICTY. Karadzic’s wife instead wrote back to the SFOR forces, writes The Times. The newspaper reports that Defense Secretary Hoon, speaking on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in Brussels, said the letter depicted Karadzic as a "kind" man. He told reporters that it contained no offer by the fugitive former leader to surrender to the Tribunal.

  FINAL ITEM