The Atlantic Council established the Strategic Advisors Group (SAG) to offer policy solutions to the NATO Alliance at a decisive moment in its history. Three years ago, the Council recognized that NATO had a window of opportunity to either fix itself or we would all suffer the consequences. Given the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, growing momentum for a new Strategic Concept for NATO and the arrival of new military and political leadership within the Alliance, we saw both an urgent need for new thinking and circumstances that might make courageous change more possible. These decisions would require political will, strategic...

In the late 1940s, a visionary generation of transatlantic leaders – shaped by the experience of the most devastating war in human history – decided to build a new world based on respect for universal human values and cooperation among nations. Thus was born the United Nations, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the International Court of Justice, the Bretton Woods Institutions of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the European Coal and Steel Community and, of course, NATO.

NATO was conceived as the security arm of a transatlantic community, anchored firmly in the context of this emerging international...

NATO’s purpose has three key elements: to embody the mutual commitment to the protection and defense of allies in the event of an attack; to help resolve international crises when invited; and to cooperate with others to resolve common security threats. The overriding goal of the Alliance is to make NATO citizens feel safe. NATO safeguards the freedom, common heritage and civilization of the Alliance, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law, and promotes transatlantic security and well-being based on the preservation of peace and stability in areas vital to those ends. NATO is...