Formed in the aftermath of WWII and in the face of the emerging threat posed by the Soviet Union, the transformation that has taken place in recent years within NATO has been neither natural nor easy for the multi-national organization or the United States. When the Soviet Union ceased to exist it seemed NATO would disappear too. The rationale for a large American military deployment in Europe, described by President Eisenhower as a temporary move, no longer could be supported. This work documents the transition of the United States relationship with NATO from a focus on the defense of Western Europe to an inclusive military and political organization concerned with the security of all of Europe with the real potential for employment of its military power beyond the European continent. Despite budgeting and economic concerns raised by key members of the U.S. Congress, President George H.W. Bush supported the status quo and was caught completely off guard when the Berlin Wall fell. He and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney had not fully understood the changed strategic environment in Europe but the U.S. Congress did and offered many suggestions. NATO was saved. President Bill Clinton continued to promote the validity of NATO, expanded NATO eastwards, reduced the U.S. troop level in Europe to 100,000, and gave NATO a mission beyond warfare with the peacekeeping task in Bosnia. A new Atlantic relationship had been forged for the post-Cold War period.

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.

Since NATO's establishment in 1949, the cost of providing for the collective protection of the alliance was to "be shared equitably among the member countries." This report provides a historical presentation of defense burden sharing. Determines the status of U.S. burden sharing initiatives proposed to NATO allies since 1980 and the allies' responsiveness to those initiatives, (2) the allies' record in meeting their military commitments, and (3) the effect of future force reductions on defense burden sharing. Charts and tables.

Focuses on the Seventh Army in West Germany--the largest and best-prepared field army ever deployed by the U.S. in peacetime--to show how the U.S. army redefined its identity, structure, and mission in order to avoid obsolescence during the Cold War era of nuclear weapons and air power.

NOTE: Series number is not an integer: VI

In this analysis of key doctrines, plans and policies at the centre of the controversy about Western deterrence and defence, the author points to "doctrinal deficiencies", and examines NATO ideas on escalation and policy in terms of both logical consistency and implication for strategy.