"The center of gravity for the last 50 years in the alliance has been in Western Europe," NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General James Jones, told Newsweek magazine.

"But the center of activity is, in my perspective, moving east, and I think its not an understatement to say that the geostrategic center of interest for the foreseeable future has to be the greater Middle East."

The comments come as the Western Alliance, credited with winning the Cold War, is undertaking the most sweeping transformation since the end of the superpower standoff with the now-defunct Warsaw Pact.

In a major expansion of its geographical sphere of operation, NATO has assumed control of an allied military operation in Afghanistan designed to keep Taliban and al-Qaeda force at bay.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week that the size and shape of "the US footprint," or deployment posture, in the world will evolve to reflect new security requirements of the 21st century.

He did not offer details, but Jones made clear the alliance intended to establish a presence far beyond Afghanistan and the Middle East -- and was expected to move into Africa.

"Africa is replete with ungoverned spaces for attracting the merchants of terrorism, radical fundamentalism, weapons of mass destruction and all kinds of criminality," he said, "and I think were going to see more of that."

The NATO commander suggested covering the African continent with a network of relatively small but efficient military facilities, or so-called "forward operating locations," that could accommodate alliance troops should a need for their intervention arise.

NATO is considering "bare-bones footprints with dirt strips and very low-level maintenance, but strategically in place," he said. "As you might imagine, a lot of those would be perhaps somewhere in Africa and the like. They have been called 'lily pads.'"

Jones, who assumed command of NATO forces in January, also said events in Latin America were cause for "an emerging concern" not only for NATO but also for the United States.

The overhaul of NATO's strategic posture stems from Rumsfeld's 2001 proposal to create a rapid response force that would allow the alliance to step beyond its traditional focus on Europe by giving it global reach.

The plan received the alliance's formal stamp of approval at its Prague Summit in November.

In June, NATO defense ministers overhauled the alliance's command sturcture, transforming the Norfolk, Virginia-based Allied Command Atlantic into Allied Command Transformation headed by US Admiral Edmund Giambastiani.

According to defense officials, the main task of the revamped command, which was inaugurated that same month, is to establish the response force that is expected to become fully operational late next year.

The force, whose size is expected to eventually reach 20,000 troops, will be able to deploy to trouble spots within days and conduct operations on a sustained basis for up to a year, the officials said.

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