NATO Summit Begins in Lisbon

The meeting is being billed as one of the most crucial in the alliance’s 61-year history.

Stephen Harper and Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon have arrived in the Portuguese capital for a two-day summit that could determine the outcome of the Afghan war as well as redefine the role of the military alliance that was originally designed to fight the Cold War. General David Petraeus is expected to provide details Saturday on plans to hand over the control of Afghanistan to Kabul by 2014, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai is expected to explain how his government plans to cooperate with the handover. Leaders from NATO's 28 member states are also tasked with creating a new mission statement for the alliance that identifies strategies to deal with emerging threats like cyber warfare and a nuclear-armed Iran.