This collection reflects on the significance of the 9/11 terrorist attacks for the transatlantic alliance. Offering an analysis of NATO's evolution since 2001, it examines key topics such as the alliance's wars in Afghanistan, its military operation in Libya, global partnerships, burden-sharing and relations with the US and Russia.

Since the Libya War in 2011 it has been widely suggested that NATO's role in US security policy has diminished, because Washington gives Europe less and Asia more strategic priority (a tendency that is reinforced by budget restraints), and because the US is no longer interested in always leading NATO activities that mainly concern European conditions. Several experts have suggested that the US expect that the European security challenges primarily should be handled by NATO's European allies in a new transatlantic burden sharing model, and that the US role should principally be Article V-focused. This book investigates to what extent these claims are valid, and what consequences they may have for European and international security.

This book examines the continuing US commitments to NATO in the post-Cold War era. The initial focus is on the recommitment decisions of the Clinton administration. It also extensively explores the US operations in Kosovo, Afghanistan and, in particular, Libya. The case study on Libya is especially important in exploring the Obama administration’s understanding of the purpose of NATO in the context of current economic pressures, domestic US debates about post-War on Terror interventions, and of increasing American preoccupation with Pacific rather than European security. The author utilises substantial archival research and interviews with policymakers and academics, including Ambassador Kethleen Stephens, former Special Assistant to the President Stephen J. Flanagan, and former Director for Non-proliferation at National Security Council Robert S. Litwak. This book is ideal for postgraduate researchers and academics in US foreign policy, foreign policy decision-making, transatlantic relations and NATO, as well as a great use to undergraduate students.

The purpose of NATO: From Regional to Global Security Provider is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the Alliance’s new vision (the new Strategic Concept) and common security impact – associated tasks to be undertaken within a short and longer term time horizon. The book serves as a relevant and timely study of the most pressing issues facing NATO today – including recent lessons gained. It provides recommendations for consideration and further discussion (i.e., the “what” and the “how” regarding future policy options for the North Atlantic Alliance). The intended audience includes international security policy-makers, government officials, elected leaders, academics, interested professionals, civil society and members of the public. Specifically, the book focuses on six topic areas. Part I, the Introduction, relates to conceptual and organizational changes, membership expansion and enlargement. Part II consists of emerging security challenges, including terrorism, piracy, homeland threats, cyber defense and information warfare, energy security, non-proliferation and countering WMD. Part III incorporates national and regional challenges such as the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan/Pakistan, the Horn of Africa, North Africa and the Middle East. Part IV deals with military and non-military assets. It integrates capability development, burden sharing, common funding, ballistic missile defenses and the phased adaptive approach, non-strategic nuclear weapons, and a broad-based comprehensive approach to security. Part V covers multifaceted collaborative relationships between NATO and various governmental, inter-governmental, and non-governmental bodies. This section incorporates outreach and engagement with Russia, India, Pakistan, and China, as well as with other non-NATO countries, the Mediterranean Dialogue (MD), and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI). Formal and informal linkages with the EU, OSCE, and the UN are also essential features of such a cooperative activity. Additionally, the expanding participation of civil society and growing involvement of new key NATO interlocutors (e.g., NGOs, academics) have created new international partnering opportunities as a means of bolstering global security through innovative public-private partnerships. Part VI includes a Summary and Conclusions.

This book states that burden-sharing is one of the most persisting sources for tension and disagreement within NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation). It also belongs to one of the most studied issues within NATO with distinguishable traditions and schools of thought. However, this pertinent question has been rarely discussed extensively by academics. The key idea of the book is to make burden-sharing more understandable as a historical, contemporary and future phenomenon. The authors take a comprehensive look at what is actually meant with burden-sharing and how it has evolved as a concept and a real-life phenomenon through the 70 years of NATO’s existence.

NATO’s 2010 Strategic Concept officially broadened the alliance’s mission beyond collective defense, reflecting a peaceful Europe and changes in alliance activities. NATO had become an international security facilitator, a crisis-manager even outside Europe, and a liberal democratic club as much as a mutual-defense organization. However, Russia’s re-entry into great power politics has changed NATO’s strategic calculus. Russia’s aggressive annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its ongoing military support for Ukrainian separatists dramatically altered the strategic environment and called into question the liberal European security order. States bordering Russia, many of which are now NATO members, are worried, and the alliance is divided over assessments of Russia’s behavior. Against the backdrop of Russia’s new assertiveness, an international group of scholars examines a broad range of issues in the interest of not only explaining recent alliance developments but also making recommendations about critical choices confronting the NATO allies. While a renewed emphasis on collective defense is clearly a priority, this volume’s contributors caution against an overcorrection, which would leave the alliance too inwardly focused, play into Russia’s hand, and exacerbate regional fault lines always just below the surface at NATO. This volume places rapid-fire events in theoretical perspective and will be useful to foreign policy students, scholars, and practitioners alike.

Scholarship on NATO is often preoccupied with key episodes in the development of the organisation and so, for the most part, has remained inattentive to theory. This book addresses that gap in the literature. It provides a comprehensive analysis of NATO through a range of theoretical perspectives that includes realism, liberalism and constructivism, and lesser-known approaches centred on learning, public goods, securitisation and risk. Focusing on NATO’s post-Cold War development, it considers the conceptualisation, purpose and future of the Alliance. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of international organisation, international relations, security and European Politics.

A thorough and straightforward overview of the full spectrum of NATO's military and non-military activities since the Cold War, this accessible study also provides valuable insight into the issues and problems facing NATO in the post-9/11 and post-Iraq War world. Author Jennifer Medcalf clearly and concisely discusses each of the main areas on NATO's agenda and also looks at the future of the organization.

For almost fifteen years, both the EU and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have claimed to partake in a relationship that is purported to be a ‘Strategic Partnership’, albeit one that is troubled by lasting political blockages. The constraints that affect the formal relationship between the two organizations are well-covered terrain in the academic literature – including by most of the contributors to this volume; however, the popular argument that the EU and NATO simply do not cooperate in any substantive way warrants deeper investigation, both theoretically and thematically. Thus, EU-NATO relations might not at first seem like an under-researched area, but much of the existing literature on the issue re-engages oversimplified and formulaic statements about the nature, quality, and practice of interactions between the EU and NATO. This volume aims to develop the EU-NATO research agenda by pursuing three key objectives: (1) reduce the lacuna of theoretically informed analyses of the relationship, (2) add empirically and analytically rigorous case studies to the relevant body of literature, and (3) point to possible developments and solutions in the 'Strategic Partnership'. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue in European Security.

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.