Origins of NATO

III. Changes in Europe's Geopolitical Environment Page 8

IV. The Need for a System of Collective Security Page 12

i. Fragmentation Page 12

iii. Arms Proliferation Page 14 iv. Russian Nationalism Page 15

V. Necessity of an International Coercive Mechanism Page 17

VI. NATO's Institutional Advantages Page 19

VII. NATO: More than a Military Apparatus Page 23

VIII. Creating a Broader NATO Page 28

IX. New Military Roles for NATO Page 32

X. NATO's Economic Role in Europe Page 38

XI. The Future of American Support for NATO Page 41

Early in December 1993, the last three U.S. Air Force F-111 fighter bombers in Europe took off from their base in England and flew west to be cloth-balled in Utah, Georgia and Arizona. By last February, 7,000 more American military personnel had permanently left Europe for the United States. Clearly, American influence in Europe is ebbing.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is no stranger to turmoil. It has endured countless crises ever since its formation in 1949. But after keeping its nemesis-the Soviet Union-in check for decades without actually fighting a war, the NATO alliance has now lost its common enemy and, perhaps most importantly, its confidence that the United States is willing to back up NATO commitment

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eal. Third World countries are bidding for the knowledge and technology of nuclear weaponry that could well be for sale throughout the impoverished former Soviet republics. Libya, for example, has overtly tried to recruit Russian nuclear scientists with some success.13 Finally, conflicts caused by fragmentation of societies frequently spill into the international arena. Greece, for example, is frightened of a potential fall-out from the Balkan disputes. Fragmentation also causes a power vacuum as neighboring states compete for the influence that the central authority once held. The once quiet Muslim populations in the former Soviet Union, for example, are now being rallied by the competition between Turkey and Iran for influence among the Islamic republics. Fragmentation may also endanger civil rights. Democratic self-determination alone does not guarantee human rights. The civil war in the former Yugoslavia is a case in point. Serbians are fighting to create an ethnically cleansed Croatia, and simultaneously are repressing Albanians who are seeking to create a similar ethnic enclave in Kosovo. The interest of the European community in preventing these abuses is rather clear. The human rights violations stirred by ethn

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