The main goal of the Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) on ‘Perceptions of NATO: A Balance 60 Years After’, that took place in Lisbon, on May 17 and 18, 2010, was to provide an assessment of how NATO and its mission are perceived today in the world. The topic seemed particularly relevant when the organization had just completed 60 years of existence and was in a process of redefining its Strategic Concept. What is NATO’s mission today? How is the organization seen and perceived both in member countries and in partner countries? What do the younger generations, those who were born after the end of the Cold War, think about NATO and its role for the future? What is their awareness and knowledge of NATO? How does NATO take care of its own image around the world? These were indeed some of the major questions we wanted to address during the ARW.

The chapters on this book intend to provide answers to, or at least hypotheses for these questions. Authors such as James Goldgeier, Sten Rynning, Volodymyr Dubovyk, Carlos Gaspar, Guillaume de Rougé and Bram Boxhoorn, provide us with a general overview of NATO and its role in the 21st century, assessing the challenges the organization is facing in the near future, namely the approval of its new strategic concept. Andrey Makarychev, Nika Chitadze and Polina Sokolova give us a fundamental insight to the way NATO has been perceived in the so-called partner countries: Russia and Georgia. The texts by Giuseppe Belardetti and Samuel de Paiva Pires focus on the youth or the ‘successor generation’, seeking to assess how the younger generations of member and partner countries see the role of the Atlantic Alliance in the present and in the future. Finally, Carlos Branco centres his analysis on the importance of communications in NATO’s current campaign in Afghanistan.

The co-directors of the ARW wish to thank all participants in the workshop as well as all institutions involved. The Portuguese Institute of International Relations (IPRI–Instituto Português de Relações Internacionais) and Odessa Mechnikov National University were two organizations that originally submitted the application for the NATO Science for Peace Programme, and we wish to thank Dr Carlos Gaspar, director of IPRI for his support and encouragement. Three other institutions joined us in this common effort: the Portuguese Atlantic Commission and the Young Atlantic Treaty Association were represented in the ARW’s scientific committee by Dr Bernardino Gomes and Giuseppe Belardetti; the Centre for Contemporary Portuguese History (CEHCP-Centro de Estudos de História Contemporânea Portuguesa), at ISCTE-Lisbon University Institute, was our host and provided excellent facilities for the workshop’s many sessions. We also would like to thank the NATO Science for Peace Programme for funding the event and to its director, Professor Carvalho Rodrigues, for his excellent opening lecture titled ‘Data or Belief Systems’, which set the tone for the remaining sessions. The work of the staff and graduate students of IPRI and CEHCP, namely Ana Virtuoso, Cecília Vaz, Daniel Marcos, João Albuquerque, Mónica Fonseca and Thiago Carvalho, was essential for things to run smoothly during the days of the ARW. Finally, the editors would like to express their gratitude to Stewart Lloyd-Jones of CPHRC Editorial Services for proofreading and typesetting this book.