NATO in the Cold War and After: Contested Histories and Future Directions

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.<br/>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.<br/>The book will be of great value to scholars, students and policymakers interested in Politics, International Studies, Global Affairs and Public Policy.<br/>The chapters were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Strategic Studies.