By the end of 1996, NATO had asserted its position as the key actor in European security. Discuss.

Since its establishment in 1949, NATO has been “the main institutional framework for the coordination of the foreign, security and defence policies of Western Europe and North America”1. During the Cold War NATO operated under a bipolar system dominated by intense global ideological and strategic competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. Most states fell under the sphere of influence of either superpower, ensuring cohesion, discipline and security stability within NATO and the Warsaw Pact regarding security issues due to common perceived security threats posed by opposing Cold War superpowers. NATO’s central function was to ensure the collective security of European NATO members, established under Article 5 of NATO’s constitution, through providing military deterrents against the security threat posed by the Warsaw Pact.

However, the post-Cold war period provides alternative security dilemmas. The declined military and political threat posed by the former ...