Strengthening U.S. Security Alliances

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the United States-Japan Alliance have long been bedrocks of U.S. security. But growing threats to that security – among them international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction – present difficult challenges for traditional approaches to military alliances. The United States has thus come to rely more heavily on ad hoc coalitions that include some traditional allies but not others, while embracing countries otherwise considered to be strategic “competitors”.

The United States and its allies must therefore craft joint approaches to new problems, design flexible mechanisms to accommodate the lack of a common, unifying threat and pursue cooperative strategies for the transformation of their military forces. To this end, the Council’s on-going efforts focus on building transatlantic consensus around the nature of the international terrorist threat, examining the roles that NATO might play in addressing that threat and looking into the future of Allied force transformation. Our recent work has also looked at “new frontiers” for the United States-Japan Alliance and the prospects for ballistic missile defense systems in both Europe and Asia.