You don't get small talk with Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The longtime Danish Prime Minister and new Secretary-General of NATO likes to get down to business quickly. Meetings have to achieve something tangible, notes a colleague. In private briefings before he took on his new job at the beginning of August, Rasmussen was "very focused," says Fabrice Pothier, director of the European office of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There's no bullshit. It's 'Give me some concrete, doable recommendations.'" Two days in, Rasmussen, who at 56 is just four years younger than the military alliance itself, headed to Afghanistan. A trip to Turkey and Greece followed.
Rasmussen's sense of urgency is understandable. He wants to remake the world's most powerful military alliance, born from the ashes of World War II and shaped by its frontline role in the Cold War, into something that's "relevant in today's world." NATO will continue to be the guarantor of territorial defense for member states, he says, but it must also become "a provider of global peace and stability" by targeting threats — terrorism, piracy — in distant lands. It needs to be more flexible and agile, and should work more closely and more smartly with civilian institutions like the U.N., the European Union and the World Bank.
None of those notions is new; all of them, indeed, have been discussed ad nauseam since the end of the Cold War. But Rasmussen seems to understand that if NATO does not act on such ideas soon, the irrelevance that has haunted it will become a reality. "The challenge," Rasmussen told TIME in his first sit-down interview since taking office, "is to transfer [those ideas] into political practice."
At least Rasmussen knows politics. Nicknamed Prime Minister by schoolmates amused by his obsessive interest in the workings of government, Rasmussen went straight from university to parliament. He became known for a meticulous, almost robotic style. Danes didn't love him, but they respected that he got things done. As Prime Minister from 2001 until last April, Rasmussen pushed Denmark to the right by freezing tax increases and cutting immigration numbers, even as he safeguarded its liberal positions on issues like gay marriage and climate change. He oversaw the complex negotiations that led to the last big intake of new countries to the E.U. and boasts, if his straightforward delivery can be called a boast, of knowing most of Europe's leaders. Those connections, and his political heft, will help in his new role. "I'm a reformer," he says. "I want to continue the transformation and reform of NATO."
The biggest immediate challenge is Afghanistan. Though the war is becoming deeply unpopular in Europe, Rasmussen — leaning forward and cutting the air with his hands for emphasis — says taking on the Taliban "is not only Obama's war." NATO contributions are a personal issue: Denmark's military has one of the highest casualty rates in Afghanistan. "Our mission in Afghanistan is really a multilateral mission," he says. "Besides the United States, 41 nations have contributed ... around 30,000 troops." At the same time, he "would very much like to see further contributions from the European side" — perhaps, he says, in the shape of military and police trainers. "We, the Europeans, should look closer into how we view the right balance within the alliance." Echoing the message from the Obama Administration, he says that winning the war rests on providing "Afghans [with] better life opportunities" and strengthening the country's security forces. "My criterion of success will be to gradually hand over responsibility for security to the Afghans themselves."
Priority No. 2 for Rasmussen is Russia, which has always seen NATO's post-Cold War expansion as a threat to its own security. Rasmussen concedes that NATO needs to get better at explaining its intentions and convincing Moscow that there are areas of common interest — Afghanistan, ending the spread of weapons of mass destruction, piracy — on which the former adversaries can work together. In the long term he imagines a "true strategic partnership" between Russia and NATO. But he insists that the organization will remain open to new members — which potentially means Ukraine and Georgia, both of whom have been promised eventual membership, a move that would enrage Moscow. "No country outside NATO can veto NATO decisions to enlarge the organization," Rasmussen says. Nor can the alliance "accept a notion like a special Russian sphere of interest" — though Moscow has claimed precisely that.
Persuading non-Americans that it is in their interest to do more in Afghanistan; finding common ground with Russia while conceding nothing to its neo-imperial ambitions — these are challenges that would daunt any politician. A keen runner and cyclist, Rasmussen has been known to invite Facebook friends (he has 34,636 of them) to exercise with him. He has remade his Facebook page in English, and says he wants to use it to give NATO a human face. There's nothing wrong with that. But his new job requires him to do a lot more than be friendly and accessible. To make sure NATO survives another 60 years, Rasmussen will have to get tough.
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