Conclusions

Abstract

The challenge NATO faced in the 1990s was to prove Hitler wrong. Since the Cold War ended in the late 1980s, NATO has been engaged in a mission to find a ‘sense of purpose’. The debate about the role of an alliance held together by the Cold War is the most crucial issue affecting the physiognomy of any perspective security restructuration in Europe; for it relates to multiple and interconnected international relations issues: change in the world security polarity; core-periphery relations; definition of threat as a precondition of security configuration; fragmentation and integration; redefinition of power and its effectiveness; redefinition of national visions, preferences and interests; and re-evaluation of institutions and demands for international regimes.

An Alliance whose purpose is not the intention to wage war is senseless and useless.

Adolf Hitler