| Summary: | This thesis examines developments in NATO from 1949 to 1999 and discusses NATO's future role in the European security system. The thesis further discusses how particular groups of the Czech society perceive NATO. Since 1949 NATO has developed into the most powerful and the most successful collective defense organization in the world. With the collapse of the communism, NATO had to adapt to the new situation to justify its existence. Since 1990 NATO has significantly changed and is quite different from the 1990 NATO. Today's NATO is actively conducting out-of-area missions, cooperating with former adversaries through the EAPC and the PfP-program, and supporting democracy throughout Europe; however, NATO is also looking for its future form, and for its place and role in the system of European security. The most likely form will be a collective defense organization within the framework of cooperative security system. There was only a lukewarm support to accession of the Czech Republic to NATO within Czech public. This was caused by the Czech historical experience and by the approach of Czechoslovak and later Czech governments to the national security matters since 1989, which resulted in insufficient public discussion on NATO issue in the 1997-99 period.
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