ABSTRACT
Principal Factors Determining European Security When the first secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) sought at the beginning of the 1950s to define the purpose of the alliance, he held that its main purpose was to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down. This formula still holds true in the sense that Russia, the United States, and Germany continue to be those states whose relationship to Europe is central to all security issues on the continent. This is true even in the face of the radical change in world politics that has taken place since 1989.
