Definition
The most powerful formal alliance in the international system is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which encompasses Western Europe and North America. Using GDP as a measure of power, the 16 NATO members possess nearly half of the wold total. Its members are the U.S., Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Turkey. NATO was founded in 1949 to oppose and deter Soviet power in Europe. The first actual use of force by NATO was in Bosnia in 1994, in support of the UN mission there. A "dual key" arrangement gave the UN control of NATO's actions in Bosnia, and the UN feared retaliation against its lightly armed peacekeepers if NATO attacked the Serbian forces to protect Bosnian civilians. As a result, NATO made threats, underlined by symbolic pinprick air strikes, but then baked down due to UN qualms; this undermined NATO credibility. More extensive NATO air strikes in 1995, however, alarmed Russian leaders already concerned by NATO's expansion plans. These problems, along with tensions between the American and European NATO members over Bosnia policy, dogged the first major NATO mission of the post-Cold War era .
Common Security Issues -Link page to security issuesConference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) - A brief history of the CSCE/OSCE process
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) - Direct link to OSCE Home Page and links
European Defense Identity - Link to page containing essays on European security issues