According to the reports, last week, NATO's supreme allied commander Europe, U. S. Navy Adm. James Stavridis, went to Washington to testify before Congress and to make several public appearances discussing important issues such as Afghanistan and the future of the 61-year-old military alliance.

An avid user of Facebook and Twitter, during one of his presentations Stavridis remarked of a "friending" he got from a young person in Indonesia who welcomed the opportunity to correspond with NATO's top European commander but who asked, "What is NATO?"

The report also said that the question isn't an idle one. Most people in NATO's 28 member states are largely if not entirely unaware of NATO except in the most general terms or those who have lost loved ones or had friends killed in Afghanistan fighting under the NATO banner. The reason for this indifference or unawareness is easily understood.

It was further noted by the report that the foundation for creating and maintaining NATO, its bete noires the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, have been gone for two decades. No army threatens NATO or Western Europe. With the current economic crises weighing heavily on Europe, the political focus is inward. And attention has shifted to other parts of the globe where China, India and Brazil are emerging as economic powerhouses and Iran, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan are sources of instability.

Yet, NATO is heavily engaged from the Balkans to Kabul and from the Arabian Gulf to the southern Mediterranean. Of course, it is the war in Afghanistan where nearly 100,000 NATO forces and thousands of its civilians are stationed that is the alliance's major concern. And that war is unpopular with a majority of NATO's public. (With Inputs from Agencies)