The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was born out of the need to strengthen the capacity of a war-devastated Europe in order to defend itself against and deter a Soviet Union which was rapidly consolidating itself under communism and strengthening its military power. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, NATO's primary objective was accomplished without having recourse to any military operation. Today, with no easily defined enemy, NATO is facing an identity crisis. Indeed, since the end of the cold war, the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the increasing military imbalance between the United States forces and those of the European members have reduced NATO's cohesiveness as a defense Alliance. The September 11 attacks on New York and Washington and the unprecedented invocation of Article 5 which states: "an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and collective self-defense shall be taken" have merely accentuated this trend.
             In this new era, NATO has to reinterpret its general aim of safeguarding the freedom, common heritage and civilization of its members by promoting stability and well-being in the North Atlantic Area. The organization has to give a new meaning to its original objective by focusing its aims in new directions, which will benefit the interests of each and every member country. In fact, the greatest challenge of NATO today is to identify and agree on the common interests of its member countries. In recent years, the security agendas of the United Sates and the European members have begun to differ widely. While discrepancies have begun since the Cold War was over, they can be expected to widen further on current issues. In his speeches, NATO's Secretary General, Lord Robertson stressed on "the fundamental requirement for strong cooperation between Europe and North America on the f...