For the first time in living memory, humanity is confronting a common threat that it must defeat collectively. It is time to start planning for when the eventual victory comes.

EASI brought together former policymakers, diplomats, generals, and business leaders from Russia, North America, and Europe to look at options to address the region’s faltering security system and to chart a roadmap of practical action that would lead to a more secure future.

The Euro-Atlantic Security Initiative set out to identify the practical steps needed to secure the region’s future and to create new pathways to a more inclusive and effective Euro-Atlantic community, focusing on the military, human, and economic dimensions of security.

Achieving a genuinely collaborative approach to missile defense would address a common threat to the Euro-Atlantic region and help remove the misgivings that are blocking progress toward a common security space.

The United States, Europe, and Russia have a crucial stabilizing role to play in the world, but they must begin by transforming the Euro-Atlantic space into a stronger, inclusive security community.

The United States, Europe, and Russia are entering a critical phase that will define relations among them for years to come and, by extension, the future security order in Europe.

While obstacles remain, the conditions are looking good for launching the negotiation process between Russia, the United States, and Europe on the creation of a joint missile defense system for the entire Euro-Atlantic region.

Missile-defense cooperation would be a potential game changer in U.S.-Russian and NATO-Russian relations and a crucial step toward a sounder European security order.

The hoped for undivided “Europe whole and free” of twenty years ago has today become a region in danger of seeing new lines divide the continent with the prospect of heightened tension for all. It will require adjustments and new thinking from all to recapture the promise of an undivided, secure, and prosperous region.

In response to the challenges facing the region, the Euro-Atlantic Security Initiative—an international commission to build the intellectual framework for an inclusive transatlantic security system for the 21st century—has been launched.