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A wide-ranging new history of NATO, from its origins to the present day--published for the alliance's seventy-fifth anniversary For seven decades, NATO's stated aim has been the achievement of world peace--but playing great power politics always involves conflict. Russia's war on Ukraine and on Europe's security order puts the alliance under threat, but also demonstrates why transatlantic cooperation is so necessary. But how did NATO get to where it is today, and what does its future hold? In this incisive new account, Sten Rynning traces the full history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation from its origins to the present. Across its seventy-five years, NATO has navigated the twists and turns of Cold War diplomacy and nuclear deterrence, and has grown its membership. The alliance has become a guarantor of peace, but Rynning explores how its complex inner workings alongside Russian and Chinese opposition are now shaping its direction. At a time of strategic competition and geopolitical upheaval, Rynning offers us a clear-sighted account of the alliance's intriguing history--and asks what its ambitions might be for the future.
This book provides an overview of what has happened to NATO from the closing stages of the Cold War to the new era of international terrorism. However, it is more than that. It also argues that NATO has travelled a course that contradicts the prevailing image of an organization in decline and crisis. NATO must be crafted by its members to fit the security environment in which it operates. Rynning argues that the allies did this poorly in the mid-90s but have succeeded better in the past few years. NATO has persisted into this new era because it has overcome a crisis of identity in the 90s and is on track to establish a viable model for flexible transatlantic security cooperation.
The war in Afghanistan has run for more than a decade, and NATO has become increasingly central to it. In this book, Sten Rynning examines NATO's role in the campaign and the difficult diplomacy involved in fighting a war by alliance. He explores the history of the war and its changing momentum, and explains how NATO at first faltered but then improved its operations to become a critical enabler for the U.S. surge of 2009. However, he also uncovers a serious and enduring problem for NATO in the shape of a disconnect between high liberal hopes for the new Afghanistan and a lack of realism about the military campaign prosecuted to bring it about. He concludes that, while NATO has made it to the point in Afghanistan where the war no longer has the potential to break it, the alliance is, at the same time, losing its own struggle to define itself as a vigorous and relevant entity on the world stage. To move forward, he argues, NATO allies must recover their common purpose as a Western alliance, and he outlines options for change.
Perceptions of time contributed to recent Western military failings The “decline of the West” is once again a frequent topic of speculation. Often cited as one element of the alleged decline is the succession of prolonged and unsuccessful wars—most notably those waged in recent decades by the United States. This book by three Danish military experts examines not only the validity of the speculation but also asks why the West, particularly its military effectiveness, might be perceived as in decline. Temporality is the central concept linking a series of structural fractures that leave the West seemingly muscle-bound: overwhelmingly powerful in technology and military might but strategi...
The missile defence policy of the US plays a crucial role in international affairs and is normally studied from a US perspective. This book is different, it delivers a sharp analysis of regional and national variations and integrates them with US viewpoints to present a rounded and comprehensive study. What will be the international ramifications of American plans to deploy a comprehensive national missile defence policy? This is a key question for all those wishing to build a sense of the global future and is here answered with clarity and rigour by expert contributors. This new study breaks the mould of traditional assessments that focus exclusively on the US world picture and are inevitab...
This book provides an authoritative account of how the US, British, and French armies have transformed since the end of the Cold War. All three armies have sought to respond to changes in their strategic and socio-technological environments by developing more expeditionary capable and networked forces. Drawing on extensive archival research, hundreds of interviews, and unprecedented access to official documents, the authors examine both the process and the outcomes of army transformation, and ask how organizational interests, emerging ideas, and key entrepreneurial leaders interact in shaping the direction of military change. They also explore how programs of army transformation change over time, as new technologies moved from research to development, and as lessons from operations were absorbed. In framing these issues, they draw on military innovation scholarship and, in addressing them, produce findings with general relevance for the study of how militaries innovate.
Where the implications of war and peace are open to question, the possibility of change depends more on politics than economics. This book asks whether the region's great powers can overcome opposing interests and commit to political restraint. The concept of regional security is based on great power support for regional order. However, there are many pitfalls to consider: notably, the politics of contested nationalisms; the Asia-Pacific rivalry of China and the US; and India's inclinations to function - or be seen - as a benevolent hegemon for the region. Yet there are signs of renewed determination to move the region in new directions. While China's Silk Road projects are long-term regional investments that hinge on regional stability, the US is attempting to fashion new partnerships and India strives to reconcile regional differences to promote a peaceful environment.This book, as it sets out the emerging agendas of the great powers and local powers, makes a significant contribution to a better understanding of the international relations and diplomatic politics of South Asia.
This open access volume surveys the state of the field to examine whether a fifth wave of deterrence theory is emerging. Bringing together insights from world-leading experts from three continents, the volume identifies the most pressing strategic challenges, frames theoretical concepts, and describes new strategies. The use and utility of deterrence in today’s strategic environment is a topic of paramount concern to scholars, strategists and policymakers. Ours is a period of considerable strategic turbulence, which in recent years has featured a renewed emphasis on nuclear weapons used in defence postures across different theatres; a dramatic growth in the scale of military cyber capabili...
The Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) has come a long way since its inception as the European Security and Defence Identity under NATO. Yet more than a decade after emerging as an autonomous entity, with its own capacity for civilian crisis management and military action, the European Union's CSDP is still very much a work in progress. This fully revised and updated new edition provides the most comprehensive account available of the CSDP and the debates surrounding it. Written by a leading authority in the field, the second edition draws on the author's own extensive research in the area, including hundreds of interviews with key actors, and takes account of developments since the reforms of the Lisbon Treaty. A brand new chapter assesses international relations theory and European integration theory as tools to understand the CSDP, and critically engages with theoretical approaches that view security and defence policy as the exclusive domain of sovereign nation-states. The book concludes with an analysis of future hurdles for the European Union as it responds to new and often unpredictable crises across the globe.
Dyson explains the convergence and divergence between British, French and German defence reforms in the post-Cold War era. He engages with cultural and realist theories and develops a neoclassical realist approach to change and stasis in defence policy, bringing new material to bear on the factors which have affected defence reforms.