NATO Strategy in the 1990s: Reaping the Peace Dividend or the Whirlwind?
Dr William T Johnsen
Monograph by the US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute
"In November 1991, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization released "The Alliance's New Strategic Concept" (hereafter Strategic Concept), the first significant revision of NATO strategy since the Alliance adopted the strategy of Flexible Response in 1967. In this new document, NATO acknowledged the dramatic improvements in the European security environment, and positioned the Alliance for the post-Cold War era. Since 1991, the Strategic Concept has guided NATO as it absorbed a unified Germany, massively reduced allied forces, partially overhauled its command and control structures, undertook peace operations in the former Yugoslavia under the aegis of the U.N., conducted combat operations for the first time in its history, and started to tackle the difficult question of enlarging the Alliance."