The dissolution of the Soviet Empire in 1991 has challenged the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to grapple with an issue that had been avoided and postponed during the Cold War - how to give specific and practical content to the Alliance’s long-standing vision of a peaceful political order in Europe. This paper examines the galvanizing role of language in forging a solid discourse aimed at initiating and consolidating cooperation between the Alliance and its former adversaries in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse. Drawing on discourse analysis as a method of qualitative investigation, the present linguistic exploration of military discourse focuses on a number of NATO official documents that reify the Alliance’s determination to contribute to the construction of a more secure transatlantic environment