The New Dimensions of Atlantic Security

42nd General Assembly of the Atlantic Treaty Association

Rome, November 3 - 7, 1996

Introduction
 
The Madrid Summit, which ratified the Atlantic Alliance’s enlargement to new Central and Eastern European countries, the establishment in Sintra of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, the signing in Paris of a «Founding Act on Mutual Relationships, Cooperation and Security» between NATO and the Russian Federation and similar agreements signed with Ukraine, have buried once and for all the remaining memories of the Cold War and bear a testimony to the beginning of a new era in Euro-Atlantic relations.
 
We are consequently witnessing the rise of that new «architecture of the European security» which, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, has been pursued over the last years by international organizations and, specifically, by NATO to face the new challenges brought about by the changes in the international scenery.
 
The Gulf War, nationalist unrest, the memories of the bitter divisions of the past, which have tragically arisen in former Yugoslavia, and the Albanian crisis, are indeed only a few striking examples of how the risks the Atlantic community is summoned to cope with have changed. Within such framework security is bound to take up a different meaning, which no longer merely envisages a military significance, but acquires today further and more important aspects as far as its political, economic and social nature are concerned.
 
At the same time, the concept of «Europe» has changed. Only a few years ago, any debate whatsoever on NATO and European security would have essentially been limited to security in Western Europe. The deep changes that have taken place in Europe in the course of these past years have in fact radically transformed such framework and, by breaking up a strategic and geopolitical order that had remained unchanged for the forty years of the Cold War, have cleared the way for a new European dimension, which today identifies itself with a community of common values, destinies and interests. It is undeniable that we have given new life to that original concept of a Europe founded on such principles as freedom, democracy, free market economy and civil rights. These are values and principles that have historically brought together Western and Central-Eastern European countries, but whose sharing had been denied to Central and Eastern Europe by the Iron Curtain.
 
The new dimensions of Atlantic security, thus, require today a different and broader approach to promote, through cooperation, stability in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as in the Mediterranean, in order to cope with the consequences of economic globalization in the Atlantic area and re-shape the military tool so as to meet the new challenges and carry out the tasks the new Europe is called to face up to. Finally, such broader approach ought to rely on a renewed historical consciousness in the aftermath of the Cold War.
 
In addition, within such context, the role and impact of new media and telecommunication technologies are equally important as far as governmental decision-making in foreign and domestic affairs, military operations and the public opinion are concerned.
 
Therefore, such are the issues at stake for the international diplomacy at the eve of the 50th anniversary of NATO. Such are also the issues on whose basis the italian Atlantic Committee promoted the 42nd General Assembly of the Atlantic Treaty Association, which took place in Rome November 3 - 7 1996, and whose proceedings are gathered in this volume. The remarkable feature that emerged from the works of the General Assembly was to convene in a meaningful international forum NATO’s highest political and military dignitaries, the highest representatives of Italian Government and Institutions and over 500 delegates coming from all NATO member countries and from Central and Eastern Europe. They all offered a global analysis on the Alliance’s future through briefs and discussions which took place within the various plenary sessions and meetings of the specific Committees (Political, Military, Economic, Education).
 
This volume highlights the commitments we are called to take upon ourselves as we are being offered today the historic opportunity to draw up a new plan on security that may join a new Europe and the transatlantic community around the principles and values of democracy, civil rights and economic welfare. These principles and values represent the very tissue of the Euro-Atlantic community that the free Nations of Western Europe and North America agreed to safeguard in Washington April 4, 1949.
 
Fabrizio W. Luciolli
Secretary General of the Italian Atlantic Committee