NATO’S ROLE IN CENTRAL ASIA

Alexander CATRANIS

---

Alexander Catranis, D.Sc. (Law), NATO Liaison Officer for Central Asia, assistant professor, Panteion University (Athens, Greece)

---

Chapter One: The New NATO

1.1. In the years after the Cold War NATO “operates in an environment of continuing change” and has undergone a deep rooted transformation concerning its strategy, membership and operations. Initially NATO was conceived as an alliance with the aim of protecting its members’ territory from a large-scale aggression emanating from an “enemy” (after 1955 the Warsaw Pact became such an enemy). Its planning was based on the classical concept of war, i.e. confrontation of big military units on a broad theater. Use of nuclear weapons was included in its options, even only as a measure of last resort. NATO’s post-Cold War strategic agenda—German unification, the integration of Central and Eastern Europe, partnership with Russia and the Ukraine, and stabilization of the Balkans—is essentially complete or on the track of being completed. It cannot serve as the Alliance’s strategic purpose.

1.2. In the words of Henry Kissinger “today’s world is in a state of revolutionary disarray.” NATO must keep pace with developments in the international stage and cope with new risks, dangers and threats which are smaller in scale but make Western societies more vulnerable.

NATO’s transformation began in the early 1990s and is still progressing. The Summits in Washington (1999), Prague (2002) and Istanbul (2004) have given NATO its new face. The Alliance is gradually becoming a political rather than military and a collective security instead of a collective defense organization. It has adopted an “Open-Door Policy,” with a…………..

---

Please fill subscription form to obtain full text of this jounal