"During the Cold War, NATO was a military alliance with a clear adversary and purpose. Today, it is becoming a group of friendly countries with interoperability standards that will facilitate the creation of "coalitions of the willing" on an ad-hoc basis and of a discussion forum. This will give its member states a convenient structure from which to launch multilateral policing actions. Given the inherently divergent core interests of its member states, the question is what underlying threat will unify NATO in the decade ahead. "(Quoted from article)