This book analyses the evolution of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its policies from the Cold War until today. NATO’s future cannot be fully understood without analysing its past: the origins of its structure and goals, and their transformation over time. By exploring NATO’s geopolitical and military role at crucial points throughout history, this edited volume considers the challenges and threats which have faced the alliance, as well as its strengths and weaknesses. It covers highly-debated and unresolved issues such as budgetary burden-sharing and the military transatlantic gap, the enlargement process, and the role of Asia in influencing NATO’s policies. Combining a historical approach with international perspectives, this book is an interdisciplinary read that will appeal to scholars of diplomatic history and international relations. Chapters 1 and 2 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
Established in 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) performed its assigned mission exceedingly well as it secured peace for its member states and avoided military confrontation between the superpowers during the remaining four decades of the Cold War. But with the dramatic changes that began in 1989, an identity crisis has plagued NATO. Whereas the Cold War years had essentially defined who would be fighting whom in a future conflict, the uncertain post-1989 years are introducing new and possibly calamitous variables. Despite the fact that hardly a voice has been heard calling for its dissolution and that states from the former Warsaw Pact are seeking membership, NATO's members face the demanding task of defining the new strategic challenges and formulating appropriate policies and responses. The articles in this volume combine to present a comprehensive investigation of the diverse problems confronting NATO. The contributions each provide relevant historical background before analyzing current conditions and projecting into the future. An opening essay offers an overview of NATO after forty-five years and is followed by others dealing with NATO's structural changes for the 1990s, NATO's shifting strategy, and NATO's developing connections with other international organizations, such as the United Nations, CSCE, and the European Community. The concluding part of the volume includes essays focusing on NATO's associations with the United States, the Anglo-American "special relationship," the Balkans, the former Warsaw Pact states, and the Middle East.
This book takes a new approach to answering the question of how NATO survived after the Cold War by examining its complex relationship with the United States. A closer look at major NATO engagements in the post-Cold War era, including in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, reveals how the US helped comprehensively reshape the alliance. In every conflict, there was tension between the United States and its allies over mission leadership, political support, legal precedents, military capabilities, and financial contributions. The author explores why allied actions resulted in both praise and criticism of NATO’s contributions from American policymakers, and why despite all of this and the growing concern over the alliance’s perceived shortcomings the United States continued to support the alliance. In addition to demonstrating the American influence on the alliance, this works demonstrates why NATO’s survival is beneficial to US interests.
Why is it that despite the end of the Cold War and the almost constant controversies surrounding the alliance's role in the world, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is still a prominent and vital player in international security? Joe Burton provides an in-depth analysis of NATO's changing role in the post–Cold War era and its ability to survive, adapt, and meet the needs of its members in an increasingly turbulent, globalized security environment. He offers a historically and theoretically informed account of NATO that isolates the core dynamics that have held the alliance together in troubled times. In particular, he examines a series of processes and events—from the 1990 Gulf War to the rise of the Islamic State—that help explain NATO's continuing relevance.
As we reach its 60th anniversary, NATO a security alliance of 28 countries from North America and Europe - remains the principal security instrument of the transatlantic community and the expression of its common democratic values. However, the NATO today is not longer that of 1949. After the collapse of communism and the Soviet Union, NATO had to reinvent itself politically for the initial challenges of the post-Cold War era. In the space of a decade NATO successfully transformed itself from a North American-Western European Alliance focused exclusively on territorial defence into a pan-European institution with new members stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea. NATO s missions have changed and its structures have been reformed accordingly. It has had to adapt to the changing world and changing threats such as terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, transnational trafficking, piracy, cyber attacks or climate change. Sixty years after its foundation NATO has not become rusty or outdated. On the contrary, in the new security environment its role has increased. NATO remains the pre-eminent institutional framework for the USA, Canada and Europe not just to consult together, but also to act together. NATO s key stabilising role in the Balkans and, more recently, in Afghanistan; its role in fighting terrorism; and the continuing interest on the part of several nations in joining NATO, all demonstrate that the Alliance is very much in demand. The Post-Cold War enlargement and the Alliance s future reflects upon NATO s achievements and setbacks at the time that explores the challenges that lie ahead in the future of the most successful military Alliance of the modern Euro-Atlantic history and beyond. This book is a must-have for those interested in international relations, global security and defence issues. IOS Press is an international science, technical and medical publisher of high-quality books for academics, scientists, and professionals in all fields. Some of the areas we publish in: -Biomedicine -Oncology -Artificial intelligence -Databases and information systems -Maritime engineering -Nanotechnology -Geoengineering -All aspects of physics -E-governance -E-commerce -The knowledge economy -Urban studies -Arms control -Understanding and responding to terrorism -Medical informatics -Computer Sciences
This book analyses the expansion of The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) into the post-Soviet space after the end of the Cold War. Based on an extensive analysis of the literature and government documents, including doctrines, statements and speeches by the most influential decision-makers and other actors, it sheds new light on the geopolitical and geostrategic context of the expansion of the military alliance, and assesses its impact on international security relations in Europe. The first chapter introduces readers to the neo-realist approach and develops the methodological basis of the book. The following chapters provide a historical overview of the causes and consequences of two waves of eastward NATO enlargement. Special attention is paid to the annexation of the Crimea and to Russian hybrid-asymmetric warfare. Finally, thirty years after the end of the Cold War, the book notes a disturbing return to militarization in international security relations. To counter this process, the author calls for a reduction of current international tensions and a new policy of détente.
"Examines the first four post-Cold War secretaries general-Manfred Wörner, Willy Claes, Javier Solana, and George Robertson. Drawing on interviews with former NATO ambassadors, alliance military leaders, and senior NATO officials, Hendrickson demonstrates that the secretary general is often the central diplomat in generating cooperation within NATO"--Provided by publisher.
NATO has successfully provided security and stability in Europe through the Cold War era. However, the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact has changed the strategic environment in Europe. The new situation is defined by these significant facts: A direct confrontation between two superpowers does not seem possible; Present day Russia does not have the influence zone it used to have; Some new nation states have appeared while others have disappeared; Geopolitical changes generate unrest and could spawn violent conflicts (e.g., Former Yugoslavia); NATO has made fundamental political and organizational changes to reshape herself to match the emerging security challenges This situation affects all European countries and the North Atlantic alliance's members. These changes do not affect all countries in the same way, because of their different geographical location, and their different internal political and economic circumstances. Working within a framework of fundamental questions and issues common to all members, three individual country perspectives from Denmark, Germany, and Spain are presented. In a final compare and contrast analysis between these country perspectives, the paper identifies major similarities in key areas influencing NATO's future development.
This book examines episodes in NATO’s history from the founding of the North Atlantic Alliance in 1949 to its transition to the post-Cold War order in the 1990s, with an eye to better understanding its present and its future. NATO’s history, now running over seventy years, can no longer be framed in Cold War terms alone. Nor can the organization be understood fully as a post-Cold War institution. Today’s NATO is a product of both these eras. This edited volume offers a reconsideration of NATO’s place in history, looking both at how the alliance coped with the Cold War and how it managed its difficult transition to the post-Cold War international order. Contributors recount how NATO coped with its many political and operational challenges, which on occasion threatened – but never managed to – derail the alliance. The book opens new vistas for explaining how NATO thrived and survived for decades and ponders whether it will survive for many more. The book will be of great value to scholars, students and policymakers interested in Politics, International Studies, Global Affairs and Public Policy. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Strategic Studies.
