4
understood that the principal threats to the North Atlantic area will likely stem from outside of
Europe—to NATO’s east and to the south—and that political and economic instability in these
regions has already spawned a variety of transnational threats ranging from terrorism to drug
trafficking to weapons proliferation. Security, as was well demonstrated by the events of
September 11, can no longer be understood in principally geographic terms. As NATO Secretary
General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer observed in explaining the Alliance’s recent interest in the
Caucasus and Central Asia, “ failing states can cause instability in their own region and well
beyond. These threats know no borders. We can only meet them through a broad network of
international cooperation.”
7
7
Speech by NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer at Baky State University, Azerbaijan,
November 5, 2004 (http://www.nato.int/docu/speech/2004/s04110sd.htm)