The fiftieth anniversary celebration of NATO taking place in Washington this weekend was originally intended as a pompous exercise involving military parades, fireworks and show business personalities. Nothing came of the plans. The celebrations have been scrapped and the strategy paper reduced to a few vague formulations. Instead, a three-day working meeting will take place to discuss further action in the Kosovo conflict under circumstances where profound differences of opinion, both political and military, have emerged within the alliance.
Some commentators even regard such a transformation as the real significance of the war in Kosovo.
An instrument of the Cold War From its foundation in April 1949, up until the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in July 1991, the profile of NATO was dictated by the confrontation with the Soviet Union. With the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact the European requirement for American protection no longer existed, and the tasks and aims of NATO were up for renewed definition. Already in November 1991, at the Rome conference, the agenda was set in favour of the second option. A proposal by French president Mitterrand to develop a European defence organisation, which would be formally associated with NATO but in a position to act independently from America, received only half-hearted support from Germany and was rejected by the rest of the other European members. Later attempts to create a European defence system never went further than a declaration of intent or symbolic gestures.