In its latest edition, September/October issue, Foreign Policy Romania has published a major dossier dedicated to the future of NATO.

Is the enlargement still relevant and on the table? Is there any possibility to fix the gap between the expeditionary operations and the territorial defense of the homeland? What does solidarity mean for the allies? These questions are highly relevant especially today, two months away from a New NATO’s Strategic Concept. On all these topics FP Romania discussed with a Romanian Professor in London-Felix Ciută. FP Romania: The previous Strategic Concepts of the Alliance were forged in very different security environments. Does the Alliance need a new a new consensus?

Felix Ciută: When it comes to consensus, life is never easy in NATO. Even the need for a new strategic concept has been the subject of some considerable debate, so it is to be expected that its contents would cause tension and even disagreement between the allies. Now that the Group of Experts has submitted its final report, we have a reasonably clear picture of what the key points of the new concept will be. It is likely that we will see a restatement of the centrality of Article 5 regarding common defence and a re-focus on the Euro-Atlantic area, but also a reiteration of the need for alliance transformation in order to meet the challenges of operating at strategic distance. Alas, only insiders to the Lisbon Summit will be able to tell how the necessary consensus will emerge, what battles will be fought and what trade-offs will be made between different security philosophies, strategic visions and short-term priorities.

Not that all this is new. We know, for example, that during the 90s there was a constant tension inside NATO between two rival visions of the alliance: one, let’s call it a “strategic” vision, which envisioned a continuation of NATO’s role