Cord Byrd: “this weekend, the 19 member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will gather in Washington to commemorate…”

“this weekend, the 19 member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will gather in Washington to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of NATO. Some may see the juxtaposition of this summit against the images of NATO airstrikes over Yugoslavia as being ironic. I see it differently. I see it as prophetic. The world has changed in the past 50 years, but as the events in Kosovo so graphically illustrate, the world has grown no less dangerous. NATO, likewise, has undergone significant changes over the years but remains no less important to the security of Europe. The key challenge facing NATO today is the dramatic change in the nature of the threat. The cold war is history; the Soviet Union is defunct; the Berlin Wall is just a pile of rubble. Forces massed along the borders have given way to flash points dotted around the globe. The tense but symmetrical standoff in Europe between the East and the West has been exchanged for the capriciousness of terrorists and tyrants. Just as the nature of the threat has evolved, so must the structure and mission of NATO metamorphose if it is to remain relevant into the 21st century.”