Regarding the March 6 article by former defense chiefs of staff for five NATO countries, "New times require a new NATO strategy": This so-called new strategy should rest on old common virtues -- honesty and transparency in an overdue public debate. But what the writers (including Klaus Naumann, former defense chief of staff for the Federal Republic of Germany) are expressing with regard to the NATO campaign in Afghanistan is evasive and platitudinous. The article states that NATO is facing a real challenge where self-imposed restrictions deprive it "of the possibility of success."

Very sybaritic! Success for what? Citizens in NATO states are entitled to serious answers.

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