Certainly this was not a "routine" event by any standard. It was, in fact, an event that less than five years ago would have been considered unthinkable. But since the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989¾described at the time by a NATO officer as "the bonfire of the certainties"[footnote #3]--events in Europe have moved so rapidly that even the unthinkable has become reality in security affairs. During this period, even the "routine" functioning of the Alliance has ceased to be routine, and the nature of the American leadership role has been called into question on both sides of the Atlantic. From the fall of the Berlin Wall through the first use of NATO forces in combat in Bosnia in 1994, NATO has found itself in a race to keep up with these dramatic changes in the trans-Atlantic security environment.

The growth of a NATO role in peace support operations such as those in Bosnia, and, within the NATO framework, the development of the NACC (North Atlantic Cooperation Council) Ad Hoc Group on Peacekeeping and the Partnership for Peace (PFP), are examples of this phenomenon. Yet the pace of these breathtaking developments has not been maintained without cost. The ability of NATO, NACC and the PFP to play an effective role in promoting peace and stability in Eurasia has been complicated by the rapid and sometimes disjointed manner in which these institutions have been forced to evolve. Indeed, while many of NATO's new "partners" have expressed concern that the "Partnership" has not evolved far enough or fast enough, a convincing case can be made that the events of the past five years may have outstripped the capabilities of trans-Atlantic and European security institutions¾and the political will of their members¾to adapt to them. The resulting roles and limits associated with potential NATO, NACC, and PFP involvement in future operations can best be understood in the context of NATO's original attempts to respond to the unanticipated requirements for a revision of the Alliance role in meeting the security and defense requirements of its members in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War.