INTERVIEW-NATO reviewing security post Georgia war-general

By Kristin Roberts

BUDAPEST, Oct 10 (Reuters) Russia's invasion of Georgia has forced NATO to reexamine its assumptions about the safety of member states and could require new contingency planning, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Gen. John Craddock said.

"There's a new geopolitical reality here," Craddock told Reuters in an interview.

"There were several assumptions made for years and those assumptions need to be validated given Aug. 7," Craddock said, citing the date war broke out between Georgia and Russia. "That's what we're doing."

Craddock, on the sidelines of a NATO defence ministers meeting in Budapest, said he had not begun formal contingency planning.

Instead he is first "scoping" to determine whether new plans are needed to protect NATO members and countries with bilateral relations, known as Partnership for Peace (PFP) countries.

Georgia is a PFP country.

"For years there's been an assumption that no nation, either member nation or PFP, had to worry nor should fear an invasion of their sovereign territory. I think there's change now as a result of August," he said.

"We have to take a look at that. We have to go through it. We have to make military judgments and then come to a conclusion, which will lead us either to con (contingency) planning or not. Or maybe there are other plans in place that would allow us to get to the same end," he added. Assessing the threat posed by Russia could shift NATO's attention back to its original adversary, and some allies, particularly in Western Europe, worry about the signal that would send to Moscow.