Lecture 2: NATO as a peacekeeper: experience in the Balkans Lecture by Jamie Shea, 15 December 2003 Background NATO Handbook: The Alliance's Operational Role in Peacekeeping Official texts The North Atlantic Treaty Opinion 21/03/00 - NATO Kosovo One Year On: Achievement and Challenge, Report by NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson 25/01/99 - NATO NATO: Its 50th Anniversary - The Washington Summit - The Next Century 25/01/99 - NATO NATO and the New Millennium   More... PDF library 27/11/2003 Bibliographic reference on NATO and peacekeeping (.PDF/21 Kb) Background The greatest and most visible change in NATO's activities since the end of the Cold War is its involvement in ending conflict, restoring peace and building stability in crisis regions. The Alliance is currently leading three complex, peace-support operations - in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo - and handed responsibility for a fourth - in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia 1 - to the European Union in April 2003 after NATO had successfully stabilised the situation. The capabilities and expertise to manage such complex operations have been dramatically enhanced during the past decade, primarily in response to the wars of Yugoslavia's dissolution. In effect, the break-up of the former Yugoslavia was the first Euro-Atlantic example of 21st century security challenges, and as such, has been critical to the development of contemporary approaches to crisis management and peace support operations. NATO in Bosnia and Herzegovina Between 1992 and 1995 decisive action by the Alliance in support of the United Nations, together with a determined diplomatic effort, lifted the siege of Sarajevo, led to a genuine cease-fire and made a negotiated solution to the conflict possible at Dayton in autumn 1995. Since 1995 NATO has led peacekeeping forces on the ground to provide a safe and secure environment for the implementation of the peace accords. NATO in Kosovo In 1999, NATO intervened in Kosovo to halt a humanitarian catastrophe and restore stability in a strategic region lying between Alliance member states. Today, NATO forms the core of the international peacekeeping mission to Kosovo, or Kosovo Force (KFOR), which is seeking to build a secure environment within the Serbian province in which all citizens, irrespective of their ethnic origins, can live in peace and, with international aid, democracy can begin to grow. The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia 1 In spring 2001, at the request of the Skopje authorities and in an effort to prevent an escalating conflict in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia 1 , the Alliance in cooperation with the EU and the OSCE helped to head off a greater conflict and launch a process of reconstruction and reconciliation. In 2003, NATO handed over its peacekeeping mission in the country to the European Union, marking a new level of cooperation between the two organisations.   Turkey recognises the Republic of Macedonia with its constitutional name