This gave NATO the pretext to engage in the Yugoslav conflicts, but it did not do so until 1995. In the intervening years, NATO used primarily diplomatic means of dealing with the situation. The organization at this point was assisting the United Nations, and eventually took at the role of enforcing sanctions against the combatants. During this time, the conflict continued unabated, as the sanctions had only nominal impact.

Indeed, NATO is forced to change its attitude towards Russia as the international context is changed dramatically and challenges such as terrorism, Iran, or energy are largely influenced by the Russian state. More precisely, in terms of Iran, Russia has solid influences, as for Afghanistan. As for energy security, Russia is one of the most important players on the market and can thus influence decisively the European energetic security.

NATO was founded in the post-WWII environment as a means of Western nations defending their interests against the Soviet Union. With the fall of the U.S.S.R. and the ending of the Cold War, the role of NATO has changed, and to a point it is still going through those changes. The initial concept of NATO was to combine North America and Western Europe in military alliance, capable of and willing

The European security and defence policy (ESDP) aims to allow the Union to develop its civilian and military capacities for crisis management and conflict prevention at international level, thus helping to maintain peace and international security, in accordance with the United Nations Charter." The Petersberg type missions done in association with the WEU were among the first steps taken to increase the voice of Europe on the international scene

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Communist Bloc, the states of Eastern Europe sought to reassert themselves as independent political entities. Milosevic presented many of his activities in a nationalist context. The moves toward "ethnic cleansing" were part of a larger campaign to solidify the new Yugoslavia as an ethnically homogenous Serb Christian state. The artificial order of Communism was going to be replaced by something

Introduction The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was established in 1949 as part of the post-war effort among the nations of the West to work together to establish the peace. Throughout the Cold War, NATO was more of a symbol than an actual military alliance. It was not until the Cold War ended that the first joint military NATO operations were conducted. The first was in 1990 and the second in