

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is undergoing an important transformation. This is a well-known and mostly acknowledged fact, but everything else in there is out for questioning. What should the pace of this transformation be? Who is to lead in the process and to carry the bulk of operational and financial burden? How much of the consensus between the members on the overall mission of the Alliance there might be? What should the “newer” NATO’s priorities and modus operandi be? What is to happen to the NATO’s “sacred cows” such as an imperative of collective defense and others? Who should be invited into the Alliance, if any and where is that final frontier could be? What could be done so that the Alliance would have public on its side, both internationally and within the member-states? Should NATO continue along the road of becoming a global player and run those out or the traditional area operations, or should it rather retreat to its more familiar and better tested “backyard”? Finally, what sort of relations the Alliance should be building with its neighbors and major partners? This, certainly, is not an ultimate and comprehensive list of those strategic questions that one faces in looking at NATO’s today and, even more importantly so, its tomorrow. However, it does illustrate the intensity of the debate on the future role of the Euro-Atlantic Alliance.