NATO 2000

The fifth decade of the Alliance's history was witness to the most far-reaching and significant changes in the political landscape of Europe since the Second World War. The changes brought in their wake new challenges and difficulties and brought to the surface many long-standing regional and ethnic antagonisms and conflicts. However they also gave birth to new opportunities for re-establishing normal international relations between countries separated by artificial divisions for nearly fifty years.

At the political, economic, social, cultural and human level, the peoples of Europe witnessed the fall of previously impenetrable barriers and the disappearance of long-held prejudices. They have been brought together once again as neighbours sharing a continent, with joint concerns for their environment and its resources and a rich heritage of national and regional characteristics to share with each other.The same changes brought with them chances to improve security throughout the continent. They have enabled NATO countries to realise many of their long-standing objectives and to channel their energies and experience into positive cooperation in the interests of Europe as a whole.

How NATO has seized these opportunities and pioneered new forms of international cooperation in the security field is the story we now tell. The developments of the 1990s have combined to create a new environment - one in which the goal of creating a just and lasting peaceful order in Europe is once again a realistic and viable political objective. The steps which are being taken to attain it are inter-related and interdependent. They do not follow a strict chronological pattern and are subject to rapid advances or setbacks just like any other developments in world affairs. These are the building blocks of Europe's future security.