As a small independent country within the Union, Ireland must adapt its distinctive contribution to world affairs since the foundation of the State to whatever new structure emerges as a result of European security and defence arrangements. It is inevitable in the next five years that a new structure will be put in place. Given the developments that took place following the Amsterdam and Maastricht treaties, together with the new arrangements that will emerge from the Convention on the Future of Europe, it is inevitable that Europe will build its own capacity for the international policeman status that, unfortunately, it has had to look to the US to provide during the past ten years.