environment. Tackling them will make a profound difference to NATO’s fortunes. They can be summarized as follows:
task proliferation (the pitfalls of doing too much);
over-reliance on American leadership and a failure of European responsibility;
limits on resources and an inability to obtain an effective allocation of defence capabilities;
a divisive and dangerous relationship with Russia.
We cannot ‘cure’ NATO – like every organization, it will always be found wanting in some way. But we can recommend treatment. The fixes to its problems we see as follows:
doing less but better (task discretion);
rebalancing the responsibilities of leadership toward Europe;
aligning missions with effective and efficiently allocated capabilities;
constructing a realistic partnership with Russia.
Our purpose, then, is clear: to lead NATO toward a healthy recuperation. In this spirit, the book concludes with a summary of how the Alliance ought to prioritize its efforts and so ensure that it remains fit for purpose in the years to come.
Notes
1 1. Christian Whiton, ‘NATO Is Obsolete’, The National Interest, 6 July 2018, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/nato-obsolete-25167.
2 2. Mary Dejevsky, ‘Donald Trump Is Right about One Thing: NATO Is Obsolete’, The Independent, 7 April 2016, https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/donald-trump-right-about-one-thing-nato-obsolete-a6973231.html.
3 3. Interviewed in The Economist, 7 November 2019, https://www.economist.com/europe/2019/11/07/emmanuel-macron-warns-europe-nato-is-becoming-brain-dead.
4 4. Jochen Bittner, ‘Does NATO Still Exist?’, New York Times, 7 July 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/08/opinion/does-nato-still-exist.html.
5 5. Jonathan Clarke, ‘Replacing NATO’, Foreign Policy, No. 93, 1993–4, pp. 22–40.
6 6. ‘The Future of NATO: NATO Flexes Its Muscle Memory’, The Economist, 30 August 2014, https://www.economist.com/international/2014/08/30/nato-flexes-its-muscle-memory.
7 7. Ian Bremmer, ‘The Hollow Alliance’, Time, 27 June 2016, https://time.com/4371195/nato-transatlantic-alliance-us-europe/.
8 8. Elizabeth Pond, Friendly Fire: The Near-Death of the Transatlantic Alliance (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2004).
9 9. Cited in Thom Shanker and Steven Erlanger, ‘Blunt US Warning Reveals Deep Strains in NATO’, New York Times, 10 June 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/world/europe/11nato.html.
10 10. Jens Ringsmose and Mark Webber, ‘No Time to Hedge? Articulating a European Pillar within the Alliance’, NATO Defence College, Policy Brief, No. 5, 2020, http://www.ndc.nato.int/news/news.php?icode=1423.
11 11. ‘Çavuşoglu: Turkey Will Consider Exit from NATO’, Katehon, 10 August 2016, https://katehon.com/news/cavusoglu-turkey-will-consider-exit-nato.
12 12. BBC News, 7 May 2019, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-48189096/iceland-s-green-pm-jakobsdttir-on-nato-membership.
13 13. Roger Cohen, ‘Anti-Semitic Anti-Zionism’, New York Times, 18 October 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/19/opinion/anti-semitic-anti-zionism.html.
14 14. Ted Galen Carpenter, ‘NATO Is an Institutional Dinosaur’, War on the Rocks, 25 August 2016, https://warontherocks.com/2016/08/nato-is-an-institutional-dinosaur/.
15 15. Wallace J. Thies, Why NATO Endures (Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 296.
16 16. Kori Schake, ‘NATO after the Cold War, 1991–1995: Institutional Competition and the Collapse of the French Alternative’, Contemporary European History, 7(3), 1998, p. 381.
17 17. Carl Cavanagh Hodge, ‘Full Circle: Two Decades of NATO Intervention’, Journal of Transatlantic Studies, 11(4), 2013, pp. 350–67.
18 18. James Sperling, ‘Introduction: A Stable Crisis? NATO into the Twenty-First Century’, in James Sperling and S. Victor Papacosma (eds), NATO after Sixty Years: A Stable Crisis (Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press, 2012), p. 1.
19 19. Celeste A. Wallander, ‘Institutional Assets and Adaptability: NATO after the Cold War’, International Organization, 54(4), 2000, pp. 705–35.
20 20. Seth A. Johnston, How NATO Adapts: Strategy and Organization in the Atlantic Alliance since 1950 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017), pp. 118–75.
21 21. Brian C. Rathbun, Trust in International Cooperation: International Security Institutions, Domestic Politics and American Multilateralism (Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 1–23, 163–208.
22 22. This idea was conceived originally by Karl Deutsch and colleagues in Political Community in the North Atlantic Area (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), which is the source of the quotation (p. 5).
23 23. Patricia A. Weitsman, Waging War: Alliances, Coalitions, and Institutions of Interstate Violence (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014), p. 190.
24 24. We borrow here from Kenneth W. Abbott, Jessica F. Green and Robert O. Keohane, ‘Organizational Ecology and Institutional Change in Global Governance’, International Organization, 70(2), 2016, pp. 247–77.
25 25. Munich Security Conference Report 2020: Westlessness, https://securityconference.org/assets/user_upload/MunichSecurityReport2020.pdf.
26 26. Vincent Pouliot, International Pecking Orders: The Politics and Practice of Multilateral Diplomacy (Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 86–116.
27 27. Jamie Shea, ‘NATO at Full Stretch’, International Politics Reviews, 4, 2016, pp. 36–42.
28 28.
