Thompson, Gordon, Paul F. Walker and Pam Solo, Study Directors (December 1988). New Directions For NATO: Adapting the Atlantic Alliance to the Needs of the 1990’s. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Institute for Resource and Security Studies and Institute for Peace and International Security. (62 pages).

This report summarizes a study conducted during the summer and fall of 1988, motivated by a conviction that the United State and its NATO allies lack both a coherent assessment of the security challenges of the 1990s and a vision of the actions required to meet these challenges.   The NATO-Warsaw Pact confrontation represents a major diversion of the world’s resources away from peaceful and productive enterprises.   At its heart is the prolonged standoff in Central Europe, the most heavily militarized region on Earth.   NATO nations have a duty to pursue every opportunity to reduce the scale of the confrontation, both in Central Europe and elsewhere.   In the preamble to the North Atlantic treaty, these nations resolve “to unite their efforts for collective defense and for the preservation of peace and security.”   As NATO nears its fortieth anniversary, the expression of that resolve will require a new vision, appropriate to the needs of the 1990s and beyond.   This report, drawing upon interviews with a variety of experts in the fields of foreign policy and defense, offers such a vision.