out of area or out of business

In the nineties Senator Richard Lugar made his seminal statement about NATO going either out of area or out of business. Lugar was totally right - then. NATO had to accept new commitments beyond its territory, proliferate stability, enforce peace and enable civic actors to engage in post-conflict peace building were it to sustain its legitimacy. NATO since then has been of vital importance with SFOR in Bosnia-Herzegovina, with KFOR in Kosovo and, most recently, with ISAF in Afghanistan.