This text contends that the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia have potentially threatened the essence of NATO by forcing the alliance to take on the role of peacekeeper without adequately allowing it to examine the role the alliance wants to or should play in a largely post-communist world.

Focusing on NATO's continued crisis of identity, Joyce P. Kaufman argues that the conflicts in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo have proven to be critical to an alliance that has not been able to define its roles and missions in the post-Cold War w