In November 1991, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization released "The Alliance's New Strategic Concept" (hereafter Strategic Concept), the first significant revision of NATO strategy since the Alliance adopted the strategy of Flexible Response in 1967. In this new document, NATO acknowledged the dramatic improvements in the European security environment, and positioned the Alliance for the post-Cold War era. Since 1991, the Strategic Concept has guided NATO as it absorbed a unified Germany, massively reduced allied forces, partially overhauled its command and control structures, undertook peace operations in the former Yugoslavia under the aegis of the U.N., conducted combat operations for the first time in its history, and started to tackle the difficult question of enlarging the Alliance. Despite these accomplishments, pundits have subjected the Alliance to a constant barrage of criticism. While individual critiques fall across a wide spectrum, an overarching complaint is that the Alliance has not adapted sufficiently to the changed conditions in Europe.1 Because the Strategic Concept sets out the basic principles of the Alliance and serves as the guide for NATO's future direction, these criticisms also call into question the validity of the Alliance's current strategy. This monograph, therefore, will examine the elements of "The Alliance's New Strategic Concept," to include its implementation and follow-on initiatives, and assess whether these efforts adequately prepare NATO to meet the 21st century. This assessment begins with a brief description of the key elements of the Strategic Concept to inform those who may have been unable to examine it in detail because of the press of other international and European crises. The study next assesses NATO's numerous political and military initiatives for implementing the Strategic Concept, with emphasis on evaluating their success. Particular emphasis will be devoted to the issue of NATO's growing participation in collective security activities, and the inherent contradiction this holds for NATO's continued existence- -specified in the Strategic Concept and routinely reiterated thereafter--as a collective defense organization. The report closes with conclusions and recommendations for further Alliance action.

The Alliance has endeavoured to identify a new raison d'être since 1991, but no unifying set of priorities has surfaced. In the absence of a menace to their vital interests, and with fundamental policy differences dividing North America and Europe, NATO is succumbing to the pressure of the times.

Reports of NATO's death have been greatly exaggerated. Characterizations of NATO as a relic of the past do not square with the fact that the Alliance is busier today than at any time in its history. As Europe has become more unified and more democratic, NATO has assumed new layers of significance in the global security environment. In a post-September 11 world, the old 1990s debate about what is in area and what is out of area is a luxury that the Alliance can no longer afford. Decisions made at the 2004 Istanbul summit aimed at enhancing NATO's partnerships with the states of Central Asia and extending the partnership concept to the Greater Middle East reflect the Alliance's new, more global presence as do new military missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan. Moore argues that a careful analysis of NATO's new, more global focus suggests that it's not the nature of NATO's mission that has changed, but rather its scope. NATO is approaching its new out of area missions with the political tools developed after the Soviet threat faded in the early 1990s when the Allies agreed that, rather than merely defend an old order, they would now create a new one grounded in liberal democratic values, including individual liberty and the rule of law. Indeed, the mission of projecting stability eastward was understood to be inextricable from the promotion of these values. This new mission required that NATO devote greater attention to its political dimension. In fact, as the United States turned to promoting democracy around the world in the wake of September 11, it ultimately sought to enlist NATO in its mission of extending democracy beyond Europe to Central Asia and the Middle East. As Moore demonstrates in her attempt to provide a full and comprehensive understanding of the new NATO, while divisions within the Alliance persist as to just how global NATO should be, the post-September 11 security environment ensures that NATO's survival depends upon its willingness to project security beyond Europe. That mission will be as much political as it is military.

Past NATO enlargement helped create a Europe whole, free, and at peace, but future enlargement, should it occur, faces a hostile and militarily revitalized Russia. This report examines the military requirements and resulting budget costs of extending NATO’s Article 5 commitment to countries such as Ukraine, Georgia, or Bosnia-Herzegovina, which are actively seeking NATO membership, and Sweden and Finland, about which there has been analysis and speculation about membership. Costs to the United States range from $11 billion per year to defend Ukraine to half a billion dollars or less to defend Sweden. The project recommends that NATO incorporate force requirements and cost considerations into its future decisionmaking.

Formed in the aftermath of WWII and in the face of the emerging threat posed by the Soviet Union, the transformation that has taken place in recent years within NATO has been neither natural nor easy for the multi-national organization or the United States. When the Soviet Union ceased to exist it seemed NATO would disappear too. The rationale for a large American military deployment in Europe, described by President Eisenhower as a temporary move, no longer could be supported. This work documents the transition of the United States relationship with NATO from a focus on the defense of Western Europe to an inclusive military and political organization concerned with the security of all of Europe with the real potential for employment of its military power beyond the European continent. Despite budgeting and economic concerns raised by key members of the U.S. Congress, President George H.W. Bush supported the status quo and was caught completely off guard when the Berlin Wall fell. He and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney had not fully understood the changed strategic environment in Europe but the U.S. Congress did and offered many suggestions. NATO was saved. President Bill Clinton continued to promote the validity of NATO, expanded NATO eastwards, reduced the U.S. troop level in Europe to 100,000, and gave NATO a mission beyond warfare with the peacekeeping task in Bosnia. A new Atlantic relationship had been forged for the post-Cold War period.

This book provides an overview of what has happened to NATO from the closing stages of the Cold War to the new era of international terrorism. However, it is more than that. It also argues that NATO has travelled a course that contradicts the prevailing image of an organization in decline and crisis. NATO must be crafted by its members to fit the security environment in which it operates. Rynning argues that the allies did this poorly in the mid-90s but have succeeded better in the past few years. NATO has persisted into this new era because it has overcome a crisis of identity in the 90s and is on track to establish a viable model for flexible transatlantic security cooperation.

Compiled in anticipation of the U.S. attack on Iraq in 2003, this work brings together European and American policy makers, policy analysts, and academics to explore the global political-military ramifications of the "War on Terror," particularly concentrating on US and NATO policy and the responses of the European Union and Russia. Gardner (international affairs, American U. of Paris, France) has organized the 16 chapters into sections exploring the broad strategic impact of September 11th, the future of NATO, NATO and transatlantic relationships, and "War on Terror" ramifications in Central Asian and Middle Eastern regional settings

Mobilizing an interdisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners, this book reviews the history and consequences of NATO’s post-Cold War enlargement into Central and Eastern Europe. It offers a nuanced discussion of the merits and drawbacks of NATO enlargement across the different actors involved and compares the results of the policy against potential alternatives that were not chosen. Particular attention is given to NATO enlargement’s influence on the course of U.S. foreign policy, democracy and security in Central and Eastern Europe, NATO’s own development as a political and military institution, and relations with China and Russia (including the 2022 Russia-Ukraine War). Written for an engaged audience, the book is designed to appeal to students, researchers, and policymakers alike while offering both policy insights and avenues for future scholarship.