Book Description

The Chicago Summit also tested a new partnership policy adopted by Foreign Ministers in Berlin in April 2011 following months of profound discussions amongst the Allies on the role of partners that started before the adoption of the new strategic concept and was concluded at the Lisbon Summit. [...] The London Declaration on a Transformed NATO from July 1990 officially refers to the new strategic environment in Europe and the need to re-think the relationship between NATO and the Central and Eastern European countries. [...] According to the new Strategic Concept, NATO is to offer its partners "more political engagement with the Alliance, and a substantial role in shaping strategy and decisions on NATO-led operations to which they contribute." A need for reform of NATO's partnerships policy was imminent because the existing tools and frameworks were outdated and did not correspond to the new needs. [...] They also acknowledged a need to streamline the existing partnership tools in order to open all cooperative activities and exercises to all partners and to review the political-military framework for NATO-led PfP operations in order to update the way NATO works together with partners and shapes decisions on the operations and missions to which they contribute. [...] The meeting was to demonstrate the new flexibility and even if the selection of partners might have been a sensitive issue, it was a much needed test for the effectiveness of the new partnerships policy.