Building bridges for security and peace
Wed, 01.04.2009
Old friends and new faces
There is, however, also a lot to celebrate on this 60th anniversary of the founding of NATO. Since 1949 it has been the world’s most important security-policy alliance. It sees itself as a community of values shared by free democratic states. It began with ten western European member states alongside the USA and Canada. Today it also embraces a number of Central and Eastern European states.
And the alliance continues to expand. At this summit it will be welcoming two new members – Albania and Croatia. France too has rejoined the military command structure, which it left in 1966, because of concerns about retaining military independence.
At the summit, the heads of state and government will also be discussing NATO’s relationship with Russia. After the war in Georgia in August last year, relations were suspended. After this NATO summit meeting, the meetings of the NATO-Russia Council are to be resumed.
