NATO chief: Russia's military doctrine outdated

NATO said on Saturday a new Russian military doctrine identifying NATO expansion as a threat did not reflect the real world.

Russia was angered by NATO expansion to include former Warsaw Pact states after the collapse of the Soviet Union and was particularly incensed by the alliance's promise of eventual membership to Georgia and Ukraine, former Soviet republics Moscow still considers part of its sphere of influence.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev approved the new military doctrine on Friday.

"I have to say that this new doctrine does not reflect the real world," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of a security conference in Munich.

"It does not reflect realities and it is in clear contradiction with all our endeavors to improve the relationship between NATO and Russia."

"We must develop an effective missile defence," he told an international conference in the Polish capital.

"In the coming years we will probably face many more countries and possibly even some non-state actors armed with long-range missiles and nuclear capabilities," he said.

Rasmussen also insisted later during a press conference that "a nuclear capability will remain an essential part of a credible deterrence in the future."

"I share the great vision of a world free of nuclear weapons.

"But as long as we do have nuclear weapons on earth and as long as we know there are countries and non-state actors that aspire to acquire such nuclear capacities, I think we should have a nuclear capacity as part of our deterrent policy."

Rasmussen told the conference that a system for protection against missiles should be part of NATO's policy of deterring threats.

"Deterrence works against rational actors but not all actors that we will have to deal with in the future will be rational.

"That's why deterrence and defence need to go together and why we have the obligation to look into the missile defence options," he said.

Anti-missile defence systems already in place within the NATO alliance fall under a US shield that has missile interceptors in the United States, Greenland and Britain.

Plans for it to be extended into eastern Europe have raised serious concern in Russia.

Turning to Russia, Rasmussen said Moscow's policy towards Georgia are fuelling "profound concerns" in NATO countries.

Russia and Georgia fought a brief war in August 2008 over the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia, which Russia occupied.

Rasmussen also said "Russia sent a wrong kind of signal by conducting military exercises that rehearse the invasion of a smaller NATO member," referring to Russian and Belarus war games in September on Poland's border.

In February, the Kremlin published a strategy paper listing first among "chief outside military threats" the fact that NATO is attempting to "globalize its functions in contravention of international law."

Department of Monitoring,