Ever since the breakup of the Soviet Union, NATO has been working to transform itself from a cold-war, Europe-focused bulwark against a communist threat to a military and political alliance relevant to the world of the 21st century.

The answer has been for an expanded NATO – now including some of the very Eastern European nations that were formerly considered the enemy – to broaden its sense of defense and to take on out-of-area challenges that are seen as crucial to global security broadly and the West's well-being specifically.

Perhaps most notably so far, that has meant an expanding role for the alliance in Afghanistan – NATO's first assignment outside Europe. There, the United States has increasingly turned over operations supporting the government of President Hamid Karzai to NATO command.

The fact that the transatlantic alliance has gone in less than a decade from doubts about its purpose to requests for its participation in even the most intractable international disputes – from the Darfur region of Sudan to the recent Mideast war – suggests the pact's transition is considered a success.

"It's no longer 'What's its purpose?' when the topic turns to NATO, but rather 'How can we best use it?' " says NATO spokesman James Apathurai. "That's a big transition."

But officials say the transition from "Europe" to "global" is still incomplete, with major challenges remaining in areas ranging from capacity for intervention to efficiency and member financial commitments.

Some observers worry that demands on NATO are surpassing its abilities and jeopardizing its transition process. The Afghanistan assignment, which involves 16,000 NATO-led soldiers now and a projected 25,000 by the end of the year, has the leadership of some member countries holding their breath, as NATO forces face increasing attacks and an entrenched enemy.

But officials here say the growing violence was to be expected as units moved into more of the country beyond the capital of Kabul. And they say that assignments like Afghanistan and even Iraq, where NATO operates a training center for security forces, are preparing the alliance for the 21st-century functions envisioned in its transition.

"Yes, it's a hot summer in Afghanistan," says US Ambassador to NATO Victoria Nuland. "But it's also a very important summer for stabilizing the country." Explaining the intensifying heat that NATO forces are facing there as a result of their penetration into more sectors of the country, she adds, "There's more permanent pressure in more of the country ... and neither the Taliban nor the narco-traffickers are happy about it."

Ambassador Nuland says NATO has come a long way since its Balkans intervention in the mid-1990s, including reforms that streamlined military operations. "We've gotten a lot more flexible – but there's still a lot of work to do in that regard," she says.

For example, she notes that during NATO's bombing campaign against Serbia designed to stop Serbia's ethnic-cleansing operations, each target had to be approved by NATO's highest decision-making structure, the North Atlantic Council. Now in Afghanistan, operations are more in the hands of a country mission command.

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