The Long Entanglement: NATO's First Fifty Years

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The 50th anniversary of the long entanglement between the United States and NATO is an appropriate occasion to reflect. One of the few NATO studies to concentrate on the history of the alliance, particularly the relationship between its senior partner and its European allies, this study examines critial issues in depth, to uncover the ability of the allies to surmount their internal divisions and to confront their Soviet adversary. While NATO archives are still not fully open, the use of declassified documents from the National Archives and the presidential libraries are of invaluable assistance in considering the historical role of America in the alliance, and the continuing relevance of the organization in US foreign policy. The 12 chapters of this book, provide analyses of important issues in the organization's history, and are connected by brief contextual narratives. The resulting picture depicts a 50-year history in which the difficulties in arriving at a consensus among the 15 allies, each understandably concerned with its own national interests, rival those of the alliance in dealing with the Communist threat. The implosion of the Soviet empire in the early 1990s left the organization in search of new reasons for its own existence. While centrifugal forces are arguably greater today than they were during the Cold War, none of the allies seeks to terminate this long entanglement.

Reviews

A treasure chest not a monograph, but a collection of 12 essays written over almost who decades. Yet it remains highly consistent, and the few inevitable overlaps and repetitions do not matter much....His focus on the past is a healty antidote to those "experts" who believe that the world began with the end of the Cold War in 1989. Kaplan also proves wrong those who believe that history must always be boring. For example, his essay NATO: A Counterfactual History offers a thought-provoking speculation about the path Europe might have taken had NATO never been created. Even if the reader may not always agree with Kaplan's extrapolations of "what would have happened it..," this chapter alone is worth the price of the entire book.-NATO Review
As one of the leading NATO historians of his day, Kaplan provides a balanced assessment of the alliance that reflects his conviction that while the world would have been much worse without it...NATO has nevertheless been constantly dogged by internal controversy.-American Historical Review
"As one of the leading NATO historians of his day, Kaplan provides a balanced assessment of the alliance that reflects his conviction that while the world would have been much worse without it...NATO has nevertheless been constantly dogged by internal controversy."-American Historical Review
"A treasure chest not a monograph, but a collection of 12 essays written over almost who decades. Yet it remains highly consistent, and the few inevitable overlaps and repetitions do not matter much....His focus on the past is a healty antidote to those "experts" who believe that the world began with the end of the Cold War in 1989. Kaplan also proves wrong those who believe that history must always be boring. For example, his essay NATO: A Counterfactual History offers a thought-provoking speculation about the path Europe might have taken had NATO never been created. Even if the reader may not always agree with Kaplan's extrapolations of "what would have happened it..," this chapter alone is worth the price of the entire book."-NATO Review

Author Bio

LAWRENCE S. KAPLAN is University Professor Emeritus of History and Director Emeritus of the Lyman L. Lemnitzer Center for NATO and European Union Studies at Kent State University. He is currently Adjunct Professor of History at Georgetown University./e He was formerly a member of the Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense. During his tenure at Kent State he was a Fulbright Lecturer at the Universities of Bonn, Louvain, and Nice, as well as a visiting lecturer at University College London.