NATO at 70

A Historiographical Approach

Linda Risso

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780367661052
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429807022
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Economic History

Reflecting on North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) at 70, and the organisation's eventful history, this book challenges the traditional crisis-led approach that sees crises as key driving forces that pushed the alliance in radically new directions. It assesses the long-term development of NATO since its foundation.

Based on a wide range of case studies and on multinational archival research, the chapters in this book demonstrate the continuous effort of the NATO member states to build a shared political space and a common security thinking to enhance the Alliance resilience and deterrent function. The authors also correct the common tendency to focus on either the political or the military dimension of the Alliance. They show the deeply ingrained interdependence between the two and how their complexity has shaped the work, strategy, and development of NATO over time.

Thanks to its innovative approach and long-term scope, this volume offers new exciting insights into the history of the Alliance.

This book comprises articles originally published in Cold War History.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Citation Information
• Notes on Contributors
• Foreword
• Introduction: Writing the History of NATO: A new agenda
• 1 A nominal defence? NATO threat perception and responses in the Balkan area, 1951–1967
• 2 Out-of-area: NATO perceptions of the Third World, 1957–1967
• 3 Defeating the General: Anglo-American Relations, Europe and the NATO Crisis of 1966
• 4 Propaganda on wheels: The NATO travelling exhibitions in the 1950s and 1960s
• 5 Cold War in the Aegean: Favouritism in NATO’s Southeastern flank: The case of the Greek Colonels, 1967–74
• 6 ‘Footnoting’ as a political instrument: Denmark’s NATO policy in the 1980s
• 7 “A mass psychosis”: The Netherlands and NATO’s dual-track decision, 1978–1979
• 8 General Lyman L. Lemnitzer and NATO, 1948–69: a deferential leader
• 9 The NATO-Warsaw Pact competition in the 1970s and 1980s: a revolution in military affairs in the making or the end of a strategic age?
• Index