NATO Affirms Lead Role in West’s Defense : Security: The Atlantic Alliance exhibits a new-found confidence in the Cold War’s aftermath.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, showing a new-found confidence, affirmed Friday that it will continue to play the leading role in the defense of the West.

In the aftermath of the Cold War and the changing political face of Europe, NATO has been casting about for a new role amid uncertainties about its future among some of its 16 member nations.

But a two-day meeting of NATO foreign ministers here produced a new document defining the Atlantic Alliance’s “core security functions” in Europe.

Although various alternative security arrangements for Europe have been widely discussed in recent months, NATO leaders insisted that only the alliance itself could provide the four “fundamental security tasks.”

These, they said, are: “To provide one of the indispensable foundations for a stable security environment in Europe. To serve as a transatlantic forum for allied consultations on any issues that affect their vital interests. To deter and defend against any threat of aggression against the territory of any NATO member state. To preserve the strategic balance within Europe.”

The NATO declaration said that other European institutions such as the European Community, the Western European Union and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe “also have security roles to play.”

“The creation of a European identity in security and defense will underline the preparedness of the Europeans to take a greater share of responsibility for their security and will help to reinforce transatlantic solidarity,” the declaration said. “However, the extent of its membership and of its capabilities gives NATO a particular position in that it can perform all four core security functions.”

In his concluding remarks, NATO Secretary General Manfred Woerner declared: “The meeting has taken us an important step forward on the way to the most radical transformation of the alliance in its history.”

Woerner and Secretary of State James A. Baker III agreed that NATO’s dominant security role would not obstruct other nations’ attempts to create a so-called European pillar--which might ultimately create a Europe-only defense policy. But that decision, said Baker, is up to the Europeans.

The declaration also stressed the importance of the CSCE as a Europe-wide forum to discuss defense and security issues.

Woerner said that no changes were made at the meeting in NATO’s reluctance to become involved in out-of-area military operations, although NATO is adding a “political dimension” where discussion of events beyond NATO’s geographical region can take place.

Both leaders cautioned that Thursday’s NATO declaration, calling for “freedom from coercion or intimidation” for Eastern European nations, does not mean that the alliance is guaranteeing those nations’ safety, as some reports have indicated.

The language of the Thursday document was deliberately left ambiguous, NATO sources said, to avoid committing the alliance to defending Poland, for instance, in the event of a invasion.

The foreign ministers fixed the dates and place of NATO’s forthcoming summit conference as Nov. 7-8 in Rome.