NATO's outgoing chief says 'we cut fat, built muscle,' but leaves long to-do list

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen speaks during a Carnegie Europe think tank event at the Bibliotheque Solvay in Brussels on Monday, Sept. 15, 2014. In a farewell speech as NATO's top civilian official, Rasmussen said the alliance finds itself on the front lines of a geopolitical division between "tolerance and fanaticism," and "democracy and totalitarianism." Rasmussen's five-year term as NATO secretary general comes to a close at the end of the month. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)(The Associated Press)

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen speaks with the Associated Press during an interview at the Bibliotheque Solvay in Brussels on Monday, Sept. 15, 2014. In a farewell speech as NATO's top civilian official, Rasmussen said the alliance finds itself on the front lines of a geopolitical division between "tolerance and fanaticism," and "democracy and totalitarianism." Rasmussen's five-year term as NATO secretary general comes to a close at the end of the month. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)(The Associated Press)

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen pauses before speaking during a Carnegie Europe think tank event at the Bibliotheque Solvay in Brussels on Monday, Sept. 15, 2014. In a farewell speech as NATO's top civilian official, Rasmussen said the alliance finds itself on the front lines of a geopolitical division between "tolerance and fanaticism," and "democracy and totalitarianism." Rasmussen's five-year term as NATO secretary general comes to a close at the end of the month. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)(The Associated Press)

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen speaks during a Carnegie Europe think tank event at the Bibliotheque Solvay in Brussels on Monday, Sept. 15, 2014. In a farewell speech as NATO's top civilian official, Rasmussen said the alliance finds itself on the front lines of a geopolitical division between "tolerance and fanaticism," and "democracy and totalitarianism." Rasmussen's five-year term as NATO secretary general comes to a close at the end of the month. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)(The Associated Press)

BRUSSELS When Anders Fogh Rasmussen took over at NATO, the alliance was struggling to contain a growing insurgency in Afghanistan, and some predicted it would soon follow its Cold War foe, the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact, into the dustbin of history.

Five years later, as Rasmussen wraps up his tenure as the 12th secretary general in NATO's history, the U.S., Canada and their European allies are again squaring off against the Russians, and must confront a more diverse and bewildering array of threats to Western security than ever.

"We should be prepared to address all of them, whether it is a conventional threat against our territory, or what I would call hybrid warfare as we have seen in Ukraine a sophisticated Russian mix of conventional military operations and information and disinformation campaigns or terrorism as we see it in Iraq, or cyber-attacks or missile attacks," Rasmussen told The Associated Press in a farewell interview.

"All this is part of today's security environment and NATO must stand ready to protect our societies and our populations against all those threats," said Rasmussen.

The 61-year-old Dane's last day as the U.S.-led defense alliance's top civilian official is Sept. 30. In one of his last official acts, he was scheduled to deliver a speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Tuesday.

On Rasmussen's watch, NATO continued to wage what has been the longest and most extensive military operation in its 65-year history in Afghanistan, a campaign that is supposed to come to an end this December.

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NATO's outgoing chief says 'we cut fat, built muscle,' but leaves long to-do list