NATO countries much too obsessed by tanks.

• Author: Book, Elizabeth G.
• Position: Washington Pulse - Brief Article

NATO's top civilian says he finds tanks quite useless for the wars of the 21st century. "They don't stop flows of refugees. They don't stop drugs. They don't stop people trafficking," asserts Lord George Robertson, secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. "There is an obsession with tanks, but I think that is entirely wrong. It is the intelligent soldier who is the key capability of the NATO countries. We saw that in Afghanistan. It has got to be the intelligent individual who is in charge of the super-intelligent equipment."

During a roundtable with reporters, Robertson said that for countries to join NATO, their governments must be willing to replace weapons with trained soldiers. "These countries have got the capability of changing their military forces into highly trained people. We've already got people, forces, from all of the applicant countries serving in the Balkans and serving extremely well. But nobody is going to slide in under the door of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. They will have to work at it. There will be demanding standards. And only...