* Ministers to discuss new vision statement
* NATO chief urges modernisation despite austerity
By David Brunnstrom
BRUSSELS, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Ministers met on Thursday to chart NATO&${esc.hash}39;s course for the next decade, hoping to agree on new defences against missile and cyber warfare and on a mandate for global missions despite shrinking European military budgets.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen wants input from foreign and defence ministers for a new NATO Strategic Concept, or vision statement, to be agreed by leaders of the 28-nation alliance at a Nov. 19-20 summit in Lisbon.
"NATO&${esc.hash}39;s core mission to protect the 900 million citizens of NATO countries from attack must never change, but it must be modern defence against modern threats," Rasmussen said. "NATO is the world&${esc.hash}39;s most effective peacekeeper. But to stay effective we need to be engaged with our civilian partners and we must reach out to partners around the world that want to make the world safe," he told the meeting in Brussels.
The Strategic Concept will confirm the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation&${esc.hash}39;s core task of defending its territory and its commitment to collective defence, as well as mandating operations such as the costly mission in Afghanistan.
It will underline the need to modernise national forces to deal with 21st-century security threats, including computer and missile attacks, but also encourage collaboration to make the best use of resources at a time of budget cuts.
The document will also call for NATO to engage more actively with non-alliance members. Rasmussen has underlined the importance of links with countries such as Russia, India, China, Japan and Australia.
He has cautioned against making excessive cuts in defence spending and warned that Washington will look for other allies if Europe fails to pull its weight on security.
U.S. CONCERNED BY EUROPEAN CUTS
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Wednesday he was concerned that cuts in Europe threatened to put more pressure on an increasingly stretched U.S. military. [ID:nLDE69C1TA]
Britain is expected to cut 10 percent from its 36.9-billion pound (${esc.dollar}58.4 billion) budget, while experts at Germany&${esc.hash}39;s defence ministry have listed potential savings of more than 9.3 billion euros (${esc.dollar}13 billion).
Rasmussen and Gates will urge allies to invest 200 million euros in linking their existing missile defence capabilities and interceptors which Washington plans to deploy in Europe.
NATO has called on Russia to cooperate but it has not yet responded to an invitation to join the Lisbon summit.
NATO says the missile defence system is aimed at protecting the territory of NATO states from an increased threat from countries such as Iran, and not to counter Russian power.
Gates said he believed there was broad support for the scheme in Europe, but allies including France want more details.
The ministers will discuss ways to cut costs, including by reducing the number of NATO agencies and headquarters and by increased collaboration in defence.
On the eve of the meeting, a senior NATO official confirmed NATO forces in Afghanistan were facilitating contacts between senior Taliban officials and the Afghan government. [ID:n1358350]
But officials said discussions were in their very early stages and no quick end to the nine-year-old conflict could be expected.
The Strategic Concept is expected to endorse the "global zero" nuclear disarmament vision backed last year by U.S. President Barack Obama, but underline that while nuclear weapons exist NATO will remain a nuclear-armed alliance.
For more on issues facing NATO, please see [ID:nLDE69D0KJ] (Additional reporting by Justyna Pawlak, Phil Stewart, Julien Toyer and Ilona Wissenbach; editing by Andrew Roche)
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