NATO's Next Strategic Concept: How the Alliance's New Strategy will Reshape Global Security

Capping months of diplomatic signaling-and to no ones eventual surprise-the declaration capping the North Atlantic Treaty Organizations most recent summit at Strasbourg and Kehl confirmed what members have been saying for some time The organization needs a new strategy.1 The last one, signed over a decade ago, followed on the heels of the NATO intervention in Kosovo and Bosnia. Since then the United States has endured a traumatic terrorist attack and become bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq with a handful of increasingly reluctant NATO partners. Born as a bulwark against the Soviet Union in 1949, the alliance survived the fall of communism by expanding its portfolio from the mere static defense of each others borders to enhancing regional stability through engagement and enlargement. Now NATO is facing a new reality, and the call for a new strategic concept goes to the heart of its relevancy.