NATO at 60: Bigger, Bolder, Better?

The Alliance’s 60th Anniversary Summit in Strasbourg-Kehl in April 2009 provides an ideal opportunity to pay tribute to NATO’s progress through recent history, inform the new Administration, and openly debate how NATO must evolve to face the new and growing challenges of the 21st century. In the face of increasingly volatile public support for NATO, more needs to be done to help Americans and Europeans understand the Alliance’s continuing value and to trigger national debate on both sides of the Atlantic about NATO’s legacy and challenges.

For this reason, four Washington-based think tanks (the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Atlantic Council, the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University, and the Center for Transatlantic Relations at SAIS) have partnered to host a series of high-level workshops on various challenges facing NATO.

With the support of NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division, EADS, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, and the German Marshall Fund, and in partnership with the German Embassy in Washington, CSIS is hosted a conference on December 9th at the German Embassy. This final meeting in the series, which will convene over 100 high-level experts and policymakers from Europe and the United States, will present the findings from the three prior workshops and allow two panelists to respond. The final conference proceedings will serve as the foundation of a report offering concrete recommendations concerning NATO missions, processes and partnerships, and capabilities. Produced by the four partner institutions, this report, to be distributed in January 2009, will help prepare the Alliance for its 60th Anniversary Summit by presenting a consensus-based evaluation of the Alliance’s future roles and missions.


Welcome and Opening Remarks offered by (from left to right) Julianne Smith, Ambassador Klaus Scharioth, Ambassador Pierre Vimont, and Dr. John Hamre


Moderator Dan Hamilton and speaker Espen Barth Eide on the “NATO Missions” panel

Video (00:32:11) | Audio (00:32:11)

“NATO Partnerships” panel with Stephen Flanagan and Ambassador Zoltan Martinusz

Video (00:46:05) | Audio(00:46:05)

Keynote Address: “Launching NATO’s Next 60 Years – Where We Are, Where We Need to Go” by Ambassador Kurt Volker


“NATO Capabilities” panel with Admiral Edmund Giambastiani, moderator Hans Binnendijk, and Nick Witney (from left to right)