ABSTRACT
In accordance with the emerging North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) strategy, Alliance military authorities are preparing a corresponding force-structure proposal. Assessing Europe's future security environment was one of the most delicate tasks the review had to undertake because of the transitory value of such an assessment in an evolving situation and, most of all, because political and military planning would rest on this evaluation. Since the start of the Vienna negotiations on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe in 1989, the Alliance had begun to look at the European security environment "beyond Conventional Forces in Europe," in order to adjust to a situation of parity with the Warsaw Pact. In accordance with the emerging NATO strategy, Alliance military authorities are preparing a corresponding force-structure proposal. In tandem with a reduced Soviet offensive capacity, NATO might create a four-tiered defense arrangement, which will permit a military response matched in combat power to an escalating threat or act of aggression.
