The first point in the preface of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Strategic Concept reconfirms the bonds between NATO nations to defend one another under Article 5. This was a response to the requirement by some Central and Eastern European (CEE) states that reassurance of Article 5 remains fully operative. The fourth point in the preface commits NATO to the goal of creating the conditions for a world free of nuclear weapons.1 This includes further reductions of U.S. nonstrategic nuclear weapons (NSNW) deployed in Europe. It also implies mutual reductions and closer cooperative relations with Russia.

From a Euro-Atlantic perspective, relations with Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union have proven challenging. On numerous occasions, the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have reached out to the Russian Federation in an attempt to build a cooperative security framework. While inroads have been made over the years, the overall relationship has been hit or miss, leading to regular resets of bilateral U.S.-Russia relations and periodic efforts by NATO to reengineer its relationship with Russia. In 2011, in the wake of an upswing following the U.S.-Russia reset policy launched by the Barack Obama administration and the positive spin on NATO-Russia relations in the aftermath of the 2010 Lisbon Summit, experts and decisionmakers already wonder whether the reset will continue to move forward or whether relations with Russia will again run aground on longstanding differences.

From a Euro-Atlantic perspective, relations with Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union have proven challenging. On numerous occasions, the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have reached out to the Russian Federation in an attempt to build a cooperative security framework. While inroads have been made over the years, the overall relationship has been hit or miss, leading to regular resets of bilateral U.S.-Russia relations and periodic efforts by NATO to reengineer its relationship with Russia. In 2011, in the wake of an upswing following the U.S.-Russia reset policy launched by the Barack Obama administration and the positive spin on NATO-Russia relations in the aftermath of the 2010 Lisbon Summit, experts and decisionmakers already wonder whether the reset will continue to move forward or whether relations with Russia will again run aground on longstanding differences. For most of the successful results in the past two decades, there have been downturns. In reality, the Euro-Atlantic community and Russia have collectively failed to create a European security framework addressing shared challenges through common responses for the post–Cold War era. Some ambitious attempts have raised hopes, but none has led to building the community of trust needed to lay the past to rest once and for all.