ABSTRACT

North Atlantic Co-operation Council (NATO) is still in business today because its member states, and in particular the US, France and Germany. The leadership agenda lay behind both of the two most significant shifts in American policy towards European affairs, which became evident during the 1990s. The first of these was the decision to support NATO enlargement at the beginning of 1994. The second key shift occurred over the course of 1995 and concerned the international response to the civil war in Bosnia. The main objective of the discussions in this chapter is to demonstrate the extent to which NATO's maintenance and survival has been regarded as an important foreign and security policy objective by its three most important member states US, France and Germany in the post-Cold War era. One of the more remarkable developments in NATO since the end of the Cold War has been the evolution of French policy and attitudes towards it.