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.

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.

The book will be of great value to scholars, students and policymakers interested in Politics, International Studies, Global Affairs and Public Policy.

The chapters were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Strategic Studies.