Richard L. Kugler; F. Stephen Larrabee

The West's challenge after the Cold War is to build a new NATO to secure the alliance's unstable eastern and southern flanks. An expanded alliance not only betters the odds for East-Central Europe's political and economic reform. It also reduces the dangers of German-Russian rivalry, instability spilling west and rampaging nationalism. The first step is a new transatlantic bargain, one that balances changed U.S. and European interests, and recognizes that the concerns of Europe's periphery are central to the continent as a whole.