Deterring Armageddon: A Biography of NATO

Deterring Armageddon: A Biography of NATO. Peter Apps. 2024. Headline Publishing Group. 624 pp.

Back Cover

The history of the world's most successful military alliance, from the wrecked Europe of 1945 to Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

Deterring Armageddon takes the reader from backroom deals that led to NATO's creation, through the Cold War, the Balkans and Afghanistan to the current confrontation with the Kremlin following the invasion of Ukraine. It examines the tightrope between a powerful United States sometimes flirting with isolationism and European nations with their ever-evolving wishes for autonomy and influence. Having spent much of its life preparing for conflicts that might never come, NATO has sometimes found itself in wars that few had predicted - and with its members now again planning for a potential major European conflict.

It is a tale of tension, danger, rivalry, conflict, big personalities and high-stakes - as well as espionage, politics and protest. From the Korean War to the pandemic, the Berlin and Cuba crises to the chaotic evacuation from Kabul, Deterring Armageddon tells how the alliance has shaped and been shaped by history - and looks ahead to what might be the most dangerous era it has ever faced.

 

Quotes

A simple document that, had it existed earlier, might have prevented two world wars.

—President Harry S. Truman. 

The fourteen articles of the NATO treaty have offered just the right balance of clarity and vagueness to keep the alliance going, providing both flexibility and a sense of mission.

—Modern-day NATO officials.  

NATO relies on momentum, and a lot of the momentum is generated by a sense of threat and fear.

—Andrea Kendall-Taylor, former US intelligence official.

We thought for a while that if we have mutual relationships with a nation that we trade with, and economic interdependency, there will never be war again. Well, that has been proved wrong.

—Admiral Robert Bauer. 

—How many people work for NATO? 
—About half.

—Secretary General Joseph Luns.

[NATO is] as weak as the . . . nation states want to make it or as strong as they want to make it.

—Secretary General George Robertson.

Consensus isn’t everyone saying yes. It’s no one saying no.

 —Senior NATO official.

The last thing that a leader may be is pessimistic if he is to achieve success.

—Dwight D. Eisenhower to Averell Harriman.

The US needed to add conditions to its defence of Europe, or consider pulling out. 

—John F. Kennedy.

Summary + Notes

INTRODUCTION.

NATO has proved remarkably effective at ensuring that ‘not a single inch’ of its territory in the North Atlantic area has fallen to a foreign power. Founded in 1949 to prevent another world war by uniting Western democracies against Soviet expansionism, its founders believed it was the only way to avoid a catastrophic conflict in Europe. The alliance has endured for 75 years, adapting to Cold War tensions, post-Soviet expansion, and modern threats like cyber warfare. Despite internal disagreements and bureaucratic challenges, NATO remains the world’s longest-lasting military alliance, credited with preserving peace among its members. The book explores NATO’s evolution, from its Cold War origins to its role in the 21st century, emphasizing its ability to deter aggression and maintain unity despite political and strategic differences.

CONTEXT IN 2023.

1. A Sense of Threat and Fear (2022–2023) 

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine revitalized NATO, prompting rapid military reinforcements in Eastern Europe. The alliance’s response included deploying battle groups to vulnerable member states like Estonia, Latvia, and Poland. The war in Ukraine underscored NATO’s relevance, as members united to support Kyiv while reinforcing their own defenses. The chapter highlights NATO’s strategic shift from "out-of-area" operations (e.g., Afghanistan) back to collective defense, driven by the fear of Russian aggression spreading to NATO territory.

NATO’s three core tasks:

1. Deterrence and defence.
2. Crisis prevention and management.
3. Cooperative security.

2. A Very Political Alliance (2023) 

NATO’s expansion to include Finland (and eventually Sweden) underscored its political nature, where consensus-driven decision-making often clashes with national interests. Turkey’s veto over Sweden’s membership highlighted the challenges of unanimity. NATO’s bureaucratic structure, the role of the Secretary General as a catalyst for consensus, and the delicate balances, between military strategy and political diplomacy, or between U.S. leadership and European autonomy.

Dwight D. Eisenhower became the first Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) in january 1951. Winston Churchill persuaded Lord Hastings Ismay to become NATO's first secretary general in 1952. Twofold aim: to prepare for war, and to be seen as credible enough to deter aggressive action by the Kremlin.

 CONCEPTION AND BIRTH. 

3. From the Ruins of Dunkirk (1945–1948)  

Hitler had been dead less than two weeks, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s had died the previous month, and Churchill was swept from power. Operation UNTHINKABLE, a unilateral British plan to launch an immediate pre-emptive war against the Soviet Union in mid-1945. Ernest Bevin, born in 1881 to a single mother in rural Somerset, started work as an unskilled labourer aged eleven before founding Britain’s most powerful labour body, the Transport and General Workers’ Union: The soviet state is contrary absolutely to our concept of democracy. New Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee appointed Bevin as his Foreign Secretary specifically to stand up for Britain and a devastated Europe against the Kremlin. Postdam Conference: Harry S. Truman, Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill, later Attlee. Charles de Gaulle would never forgive his allies for not inviting him to Potsdam. The Soviet Union demobilised –but it maintained three-fifths of its wartime strength and started fraud and intimidation, stripping, repression and annexation of other nations. The George Kennan 8,000-word telegram: The Soviet state had no intent – or even, in its current Stalinist state, ability – to embrace peaceful cooperation with the West. Britain and France were negotiating their own peace treaties with the Kremlin. US choice between isolationism or alliance. Truman Doctrine: Washington will stand firmly against Soviet efforts to expand the Eastern bloc by violence or subversion. In June 1947, Marshall presented the new US economic rescue package in a speech at Harvard University. Early in 1948, came the disappearance of Czechoslovakia as a free democratic state. The Dunkirk treaty between Britain and France. The Treaty of Brussels signed by Britain, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium. When France joined it became the Western Union Defence Organisation.

4. Airlift and Alliance (1948–1949) 

The ‘Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance – known as the Rio Treaty – was a ‘hemispheric defence’ agreement, in which all signatories agreed to treat an attack on one as an attack on all. Hickerson and Achilles were soon determined to take it as a model to build an Atlantic structure. NATO would be a different type of body, committed to defensive action but built for confrontation. The 1948 Czechoslovakia coup, followed by the ‘suicide’ of Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk, sent a shiver of apprehension across the western hemisphere. The Soviet Union might inadvertently start a war by underestimating US commitment to the defence of Europe. By early 1948 the US, Britain and France were advancing secret plans to create a democratic state of West Germany from the ‘bizone’. When the Soviets discovered this in March, they withdrew from the Allied Control Council that administered the city. In Washington, the bureaucratic process of building a larger treaty were underway. ‘We cannot appease, conciliate or provoke the Soviets,’ wrote Douglas. ‘We can only arrest and deter them by a real show of resolution.’ John Foster Dulles win over his fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill, Hickerson focused on the Truman administration and the Vandenberg Resolution authorized the negotiation of a transatlantic treaty. The resulting compromise – an open-ended agreement that any party could call for a review after ten years and leave after twenty – was vital for NATO’s long-term growth. Berlin blackade: Operation VITTLES, the beginning of an airlift that would last 323 days. The airlift would cost 101 lives, including 40 Britons and 31 Americans, with the loss of 25 aircraft. British Prime Minister Clement Attlee agreed to let US B-29 nuclear-armed Superfortress bombers – the aircraft that had dropped atomic bombs on Japan less than three years earlier – fly from British bases. An initial thirty-day deployment was extended to sixty days, becoming a permanent presence for the defence of Europe  On 4 April 1949 twelve nations came together on Constitution Avenue. The treaty’s Article 5—collective defense—became its cornerstone. The United States was for the first time formally entering into the outside world, abandoning isolationism, but there was little structure at all behind the commitments in the charter, and no military command system.

THE FIRST COLD WAR.

5. Putting the structure (1949–1951)  

NATO’s early years focused on building military structures under General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who became its first SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander Europe). Eisenhower’s leadership was pivotal in building a cohesive defense structure, drawing on his experience from World War II, despite resource constraints and disagreements over strategy, such as reliance on nuclear deterrence. The Korean War (1950) demonstrated the need for a unified defense, leading to the integration of West Germany into NATO and the establishment of permanent military commands. Tensions between the U.S., which favored a forward defense strategy, and European nations, which were more cautious about provoking the Soviet Union.

On 29 August 1949, less than a month after the U.S. Senate ratified the NATO treaty, the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb at a test site in Kazakhstan. The explosion shattered America’s nuclear monopoly and sent shockwaves through Western capitals. Meanwhile, U.S. B-29 bombers conducted joint training exercises with British, French, Belgian, and Dutch forces, a display of unity in the face of growing Soviet power. By 1950, the Soviet Union maintained four million troops under arms, with an additional 800,000 available from Eastern Bloc nations. In stark contrast, the entire U.S. military had been reduced to less than 1.5 million personnel—scattered globally and representing just 10% of its 1945 strength. The imbalance left Western Europe vulnerable. Against this backdrop, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman proposed a bold solution on 9 May 1950: the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). This initiative aimed to bind European economies together, reducing the risk of future conflicts by integrating key industries.

At 4 a.m. on 25 June 1950, North Korean artillery unleashed a devastating barrage, marking the start of a full-scale invasion of South Korea. Backed by up to 200 Soviet-supplied aircraft, North Korean forces overwhelmed their southern neighbors. The U.S. and its allies were caught off guard. As the situation deteriorated, U.S. broadcaster Edward R. Murrow warned his audience: "If South Korea falls, it is only reasonable to expect that there will be other—and bolder—ventures." The conflict did not just threaten Asia; it exposed gaping holes in Western defense strategy. The Korean War did not change NATO’s fundamental purpose, but it accelerated its evolution. The alliance, still in its infancy, faced a harsh reality: If a Soviet offensive struck Europe, the war would be won or lost in West Germany—a nation not yet even part of NATO. West German Chancellor Conrad Adenauer understood the stakes. As he later declared, "The fate of the world will not be decided in Korea, but in the heart of Europe."

By October 1950, the war in Korea had taken a dramatic turn. As UN forces crossed into North Korea, Kim Il Sung urgently requested Chinese intervention. On 25 October, China launched a massive counteroffensive. General Douglas MacArthur, commanding UN forces, publicly advocated using nuclear weapons—only to be sharply rebuked by President Truman. The crisis revealed deep divisions in U.S. strategy and underscored the need for stronger transatlantic leadership.

On 23 October 1950, Dwight D. Eisenhower—then a civilian and president of Columbia University—received an urgent call from the White House. President Truman asked him to return to service, this time to lead NATO’s defensive forces. The official decision to appoint a Supreme Commander for NATO, as its first SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander Europe) was formalized at the North Atlantic Council meeting in Brussels on 18 December 1950. Within days, Colonel Robert Brown—who had built Eisenhower’s D-Day headquarters—was in Paris, overseeing the setup of NATO’s new command center at the Hôtel Astoria. Truckloads of U.S. troops arrived from Heidelberg, transporting equipment and supplies to establish the alliance’s operational hub. Amid these developments, the loss of British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin in April 1951 was deeply felt. Winston Churchill praised him as a "valiant spirit" and "wartime comrade," while Truman called him "the embodiment of rugged honesty and the ancient English virtues." His leadership had been instrumental in shaping NATO’s early years.

6. The Eisenhower Spiral (1951–1952)  

Eisenhower outlined his strategy for defending Western Europe to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery: The West, with its 350 million people, vast industrial capacity, and skilled workforce, had no reason to fear the 190 million Soviets, whom he dismissed as "backward." The real threat, he argued, was disunity among Western allies—while the Soviets stood united. This conviction would guide Eisenhower throughout his career, both as NATO’s Supreme Commander and later as U.S. President. As he wrote in his diary, the solution was clear: "There is only one thing for us to do—and that is to get this combined spiral of strength going up. These people believe in the cause. Now, they have got to believe in themselves."

In Paris, the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) lived up to its name. Its first senior staff—mostly Americans who had served with Eisenhower since World War II—laid the foundation for NATO’s operations during its critical first decade. For the first half of 1951, SHAPE operated from the Hôtel Astoria on the Champs-Élysées. By April, Eisenhower declared it fully operational, with Montgomery—wearing his trademark beret—seated in the front row among senior commanders. The two leaders who had liberated Western Europe now stood together again, this time to defend it.

The permanent headquarters would later move to Rocquencourt, a forested estate 25 kilometers west of Paris, originally the French president’s shooting retreat. Eisenhower understood that NATO’s success depended on more than planes, tanks, and ships. As he remarked, "NATO needs an eloquent and inspired Moses as much as it needs military hardware." To Army Chief of Staff Joseph Collins, he framed the challenge bluntly: "Our problem is one of selling and inspiring." Yet, his task was complicated by rising neutralist sentiment in Europe and skepticism at home. For the first time, Congress debated whether the U.S. should attach conditions to its defense of Europe—or even consider withdrawing.

Critics like Senator Robert Taft and Herbert Hoover advocated for an "American Gibraltar" approach—relying on nuclear deterrence and avoiding overseas commitments. Eisenhower, however, saw the dangers of isolationism. While he opposed what he viewed as wasteful New Deal-style spending, he also recognized that "national security and national solvency are mutually dependent." A permanent, crushing military burden, he warned, could undermine democracy itself. By October 1951, he had privately aligned with the Republican Party, pledging to resign his commission if offered the presidential nomination. His concerns extended beyond politics: "We can only say that properly balanced strength will promote the possibility of avoiding war," he wrote, emphasizing the need for both security and fiscal responsibility.

NATO’s strategic reach grew in October 1951, when Turkey and Greece were approved for membership. Their accession, formalized in Lisbon in February 1952, extended the alliance’s frontier eastward—giving NATO its first direct border with the Soviet Union. Eisenhower’s message was consistent: Western democracy had to be defended without bankrupting the nations protecting it. The balance between strength and sustainability would define NATO’s future. 

7. Massive Retaliation, Massive Divisions (1952–1958)

In just over a year, Dwight D. Eisenhower transformed NATO from a theoretical pact into a fully operational military organization. Under his leadership, the alliance expanded its ground forces to 98 divisions by 1954, all capable of full mobilization within 90 days. Yet, as NATO’s planners explored the potential use of atomic weapons, they confronted a grim reality: nuclear war could mean near-instantaneous annihilation. General Lauris Norstad, commander of NATO’s air forces, later revealed that early war plans assumed the U.S. might have only 15 atomic bombs available in Europe—a stark reminder of the era’s precarious balance of power.

Lord Hastings Ismay, NATO’s first Secretary General, became the alliance’s guiding force—earning the nickname "Papa OTAN". Ismay and his team established the International Secretariat in a prefabricated annex beside the Palais de Chaillot, keeping the organization lean and efficient. By July 1954, NATO’s civilian staff—including interpreters and translators—numbered just 189. Ismay’s tenure laid the groundwork for NATO’s enduring structures and functions, many of which would define the alliance for generations. As Theodore Achilles, a key NATO diplomat, later observed: "Practically everything accomplished through an international organization is achieved not in meetings, but in the delegates’ lounge—over coffee, tea, martinis, whiskey, or vodka." 

The early 1950s marked a pivotal shift in global military power. In October 1952, Britain—determined to maintain its status as a world power—successfully detonated its first nuclear device off the coast of Australia. The decision had been unequivocal: "Whatever it costs," Britain would not be left behind in the atomic age. Meanwhile, the U.S. accelerated its own nuclear capabilities. In April 1952, the B-52 bomber made its maiden flight, while the U.S. Army unveiled the "Redstone" missile—a nuclear-capable ballistic weapon derived from Nazi Germany’s V-2 rocket, designed by Wernher von Braun. The Cold War’s tensions flared on multiple fronts. In June 1953, East Berlin workers staged an uprising, demanding better pay, conditions, and democratic rights. The Soviet response was brutal: tanks rolled in, crushing the rebellion. Over 250 protesters were killed, and 1,000 more imprisoned. That same summer, the Korean War ended in a fragile armistice (27 July 1953), with both sides returning to positions near their pre-war borders. The conflict reinforced a chilling consensus among U.S. defense and diplomatic circles: Only the explicit threat of massive nuclear retaliation could deter Soviet aggression—even in conventional wars. 

By 1955, NATO faced a critical decision: admitting West Germany into the alliance. The move was controversial, but strategic necessity won out. General Alfred Gruenther, Eisenhower’s Chief of Staff and later Supreme Commander of NATO forces, was hailed as the "human IBM machine, the perfect staff officer, the smartest man in the U.S. Army, and the most factual man of his times." West Germany’s inclusion redefined NATO’s purpose, famously summarized as: "To keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." In response, the Soviet Union formalized its own alliance—the Warsaw Pact (May 1955)—binding Eastern Bloc nations in a permanent military coalition. As the Cold War evolved, Soviet "peace propaganda" promoted the idea of a "Europe for the Europeans", while a new term entered the geopolitical lexicon: "détente"—a relaxation of tensions.

Yet, crises continued to test NATO’s resolve. In French Indochina (soon to be Vietnam), Ho Chi Minh’s Vietcong, backed by Russia and China, escalated their insurgency. By mid-1956, the Suez Crisis erupted after Egyptian President Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. When Israel, Britain, and France launched a military intervention, NATO found itself sidelined—a bystander to events that would reshape the Middle East and Europe. The alliance also struggled to respond effectively to the Hungarian Revolution (1956), where Soviet forces brutally suppressed pro-democracy protests. While NATO debated reforms to improve decision-making and responsiveness, real power remained concentrated among its largest members—particularly the United States. As one diplomat later reflected, "It was not as bad as Suez." But the crises of the 1950s made one thing clear: NATO’s greatest challenge would be adapting to a world where Cold War tensions could erupt anywhere, at any time. 

8. Sputnik, Nukes, and Charles de Gaulle (1957–1960)

The 1957 launch of Sputnik sent shockwaves through the West. Overnight, the Soviet Union demonstrated its technological prowess, casting doubt on NATO’s reliance on U.S. nuclear guarantees. The space race had begun, and with it, a deeper crisis of confidence in transatlantic security. French President Charles de Gaulle seized on the moment, pushing for an independent nuclear deterrent and openly criticizing U.S. dominance within NATO. France’s pursuit of its own atomic arsenal strained relations with Washington and set the stage for years of transatlantic friction. By May 1957, Lord Ismay stepped down as NATO Secretary General after five pivotal years, making way for Paul-Henri Spaak of Belgium. Ismay left behind an alliance that had weathered the Suez Crisis, but now faced new challenges. That same year, Dwight D. Eisenhower met with Harold Macmillan, who had replaced the politically wounded Anthony Eden as British Prime Minister. Their discussions underscored a shifting dynamic: NATO was entering a new era.

Under General Lauris Norstad, NATO’s fourth Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), the alliance continued to evolve. Norstad—the last of Eisenhower’s trusted circle—oversaw the deployment of America’s Thor and Jupiter missiles, capable of striking targets up to 1,700 miles away, and the Regulus cruise missile program. These weapons extended NATO’s nuclear reach, but they also deepened European dependence on U.S. strategy. The December 1957 NATO summit—the first in the alliance’s history—became a defining moment. Leaders gathered to address the growing nuclear threat and Eisenhower’s proposal for "nuclear sharing", a plan to give European allies a greater role in nuclear decision-making. By the end of the decade, U.S.-built missiles were stationed in Britain, Italy, and Turkey, reinforcing NATO’s deterrence posture. Yet, beneath the surface, cracks were forming.

De Gaulle’s frustration with NATO was twofold: He resented what he saw as American overreach, fearing the alliance could infringe on French sovereignty by controlling French forces in wartime. At the same time, he demanded more global support for France’s colonial ambitions. His stance was uncompromising. When Secretary of State John Foster Dulles met with de Gaulle in Paris on July 5, the French leader made his position clear: France was "not interested" in cooperating with NATO on infrastructure, nuclear weapons, or anything else that might limit its autonomy. Tensions escalated further in November 1957, when Soviet troops blocked U.S. supply convoys on the 110-kilometer autobahn linking West Germany to Berlin—a city that, while not officially NATO territory, remained a symbol of Western resolve. The incident highlighted Berlin’s vulnerability and the limits of NATO’s authority, as U.S., French, and British forces there operated outside direct alliance command.

In a bid to ease Cold War tensions, Eisenhower invited Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to the White House in 1959. But hopes for détente collapsed spectacularly on May 1, 1960, when a CIA U-2 spy plane, piloted by Gary Powers, was shot down deep inside Soviet airspace. The Paris Summit disintegrated in acrimony. Khrushchev stormed out, and Eisenhower’s planned visit to Moscow was abruptly canceled. The fallout was immediate and severe. Eisenhower’s frustration with European allies boiled over. In August 1959, he vented to Norstad: We sent our divisions there to help them in an emergency. Now, if we talk about taking out one division, they claim we are deserting them. The incident exposed the fragility of NATO’s unity—and foreshadowed the turbulent decade ahead.

9. Testing Kennedy in Berlin (1961)

The 1961 Berlin Crisis, culminating in the construction of the Berlin Wall, became a defining moment for NATO. President John F. Kennedy’s resolute response to Soviet provocations reassured European allies, but it also laid bare the terrifying risks of miscalculation in an era of nuclear brinkmanship. The transition from Eisenhower to Kennedy marked a profound shift for NATO. When Kennedy entered the White House in January 1961, his administration was more acutely aware of the threat of atomic war than any before—or since. The Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP-62), drafted in 1960, allocated 3,200 nuclear warheads to strike the Soviet Union, China, and other Communist states in the event of war—an attack projected to kill 360 to 450 million people. Against this grim backdrop, Dirk Stikker took the helm as NATO’s new Secretary General, tasked with navigating an alliance under unprecedented strain. 

On 6 January 1961, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev delivered a defiant speech, endorsing "wars of liberation" and signaling a harder line on Berlin. Kennedy and his team—including Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara—sought a more "flexible response" to Soviet aggression, moving beyond Eisenhower’s doctrine of massive retaliation. The stakes became clear at Kennedy and Khrushchev’s first summit in Vienna on 4 June. Khrushchev threatened to recognize East Germany as a sovereign state, effectively ending the 1945 Potsdam Agreement that guaranteed Western access to Berlin. Kennedy’s reply was unequivocal: "If that’s to be the case, there will be war, Mr. Chairman." As tensions escalated, McNamara and SACEUR Lauris Norstad urged Kennedy to reinforce U.S. troops in Europe. The crisis was reaching a breaking point.

On 12 August 1961, East Germany sealed all but 13 of Berlin’s 120 crossing points, erecting what would become the Berlin Wall. Two Soviet divisions encircled the city in a show of force, while the world watched in shock. The U.S. responded swiftly. The White House announced that Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and retired General Lucius Clay—the hero of the 1948 Berlin Airlift—would fly into Berlin, reaffirming America’s commitment. At the Checkpoint Charlie crossing on Friedrichstrasse, U.S. and Soviet tanks faced off in a tense standoff. Though a fragile understanding emerged—Soviet and East German guards would permit Allied military personnel to enter East Berlin—no one was satisfied. Kennedy acknowledged the grim reality: "It’s not a very nice solution, but a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war." Behind the scenes, deep disagreements persisted. McNamara argued that conventional warfare in Germany might be possible without triggering a nuclear exchange. Norstad, however, believed any major conflict would escalate to nuclear war almost immediately. NATO’s smaller members grew increasingly uneasy. As Rusk wrote to Kennedy, the allies now understood "our reasons for seeking alternatives between surrender and incineration." The crisis had exposed the limits of unity—and the horrifying choices ahead. 

10. Cuba (1962)

The Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world closer to nuclear war than ever before—and its repercussions reshaped NATO. While the alliance stood firmly behind the U.S. during the standoff, European members feared being dragged into a conflict over which they had little influence. The crisis exposed a fundamental paradox: Europe often demanded greater engagement in transatlantic decisions, yet balked at sharing responsibility—whether in military spending, diplomatic risks, or decision-making. In the end, the crisis strengthened transatlantic consultation and led to the creation of the Nuclear Planning Group, giving European allies a more meaningful voice in NATO’s nuclear strategy.

By April 1962, the immediate Berlin Crisis appeared to have eased. As one official observed: "I think the immediate crisis in Berlin is over, and that we have won this round." West Berlin’s economic and cultural revival continued, and supply routes remained open despite the Soviet cordon. But the underlying tensions persisted. NATO’s unwritten agreement to maintain West Berlin as a U.S.–British–French enclave deep within East Germany was a triumph of resolve, but it came at a cost. General Lauris Norstad, NATO’s Supreme Commander, felt his relationship with the White House deteriorating. By July 1962, he offered his resignation—a sign of the growing strain between military leadership and political authority. The alliance faced another shocking revelation: Soviet infiltration of Europe had reached alarming depths. By the end of 1961, intelligence confirmed that France, Germany, Britain, and Sweden had been deeply compromised. For senior officials, the scale of Soviet penetration was not just a security failure—it was a humiliation.

By mid-October 1962, the U.S. discovered 162 Soviet nuclear warheads in Cuba, including 90 tactical devices. In Washington, officials feared a U.S. strike on Cuba could provoke a Soviet seizure of West Berlin. Kennedy’s team settled on a naval blockade as the least provocative option, but airstrikes and invasion plans were also prepared. Crucially, Kennedy insisted on consulting European allies—though their role remained largely symbolic. On 21 October, Kennedy explicitly ordered—with recording devices running—that no Jupiter missile in Turkey could be launched without his direct authorization. Elsewhere, Strategic Air Command (SAC) officers, including those at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, retained autonomy to launch nuclear weapons if they detected "unambiguous" evidence of war. In a cable to Norstad on 22 October, Kennedy acknowledged the difficult position he had placed the alliance in: "As this situation has developed, I have given much thought to the impacts upon NATO and your task as SACEUR. I regret the inability to widen the circle of discussion during this period… While I know our actions create a difficult situation for you, I have every confidence in your leadership to help us through this critical time." Yet, the Kennedy administration privately dismissed NATO’s role as "very marginal" in crises. The reality was stark: U.S. forces assigned to NATO operated under direct American command, often independently of alliance structures.

As the crisis subsided, U.S. patience with Europe wore thin. One American official noted: "My impression is that other [European] ministers are getting seriously concerned, partly because they sense that U.S. patience is running out. Whether this will result in effective action [to build Europe’s own defenses] remains to be seen." Just a week after the crisis ended, former Secretary of State Dean Acheson addressed the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, reflecting on NATO’s evolving challenges. As the alliance approached its 14th anniversary, he remarked: "Like a youth of the same age, NATO is growing out of its clothes." The 1960s and ’70s would bring a new reality: "In the 1940s and 1950s, the threats to NATO were external. In the 1960s and ’70s, the threats were all internal."

DÉTENTE, DISAGREEMENTS AND REAGAN

11. The Shadow of Vietnam (1963–1974) The Vietnam War strained U.S.-European relations and distracted the U.S. from its commitments to NATO. War’s unpopularity in Europe led to protests and a decline in public support for the alliance, as well as defense spending. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union’s military buildup in the 1970s forced NATO to reassess its defense posture: Détente. "Flexible response" strategy, which combined conventional and nuclear forces to deter Soviet aggression.

"‘The secretary general . . . in the 1960s for the first time spent as much of his time keeping the allies together as keeping the Soviets and the communists out,’"

"1963, and on 10 June,"

"Kennedy made a unilateral offer of a test ban treaty"

"‘Partial Test Ban Treaty’, banning all but underground nuclear tests and signed on 5 August."

"the creation of a hotline with the Kremlin,"

"In June 1963 de Gaulle removed the French Atlantic fleet from NATO command as he had with the Mediterranean fleet in 1958."

"As 1963 progressed, Kennedy’s own frustration with his European allies grew."

"In 1964, Kremlin powerbrokers forced Khrushchev from office,"

"a group of senior officials led by Leonid Brezhnev,"

"European reluctance to join the US in Vietnam also undermined transatlantic trust."

"On 21 February 1966 the French leader gave a press conference,"

"foreign forces must leave France.21"

"both SHAPE and NATO’s civilian HQ in Paris would now need to find new homes"

"Belgian construction crews completed the new Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in time for its opening on 1 April 1967 in Mons, Belgium."

"De Gaulle’s departure from NATO’s"

"made it easier to replace outdated alliance"

"strategy,"

"another growing challenge: the emergence of what US ambassador Cleveland called a ‘generation that does not remember why we got into an Atlantic alliance to begin with’."

"The ‘Prague Spring’"

"sparking a Soviet invasion on 20–21 August,"

"the ‘Brezhnev Doctrine’."

"For the first few hours of the invasion, however, its sole teleprinter was out of action, while NATO radar stations failed to report Soviet planes flying into Czechoslovakia. The German delegation complained that NATO’s initial response was ‘practically non-existent’.30"

"NATO’s approach to the rest of the Cold War, a commitment to balance the military forces of deterrence with the diplomacy of détente.33"

"Richard Nixon"

"speech on 20 January 1969 offered a new era of détente with Brezhnev,"

"next to express concerns about the new generation’s approach to NATO."

"growing sense of isolationism’.37"

"Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt became Germany’s first left-wing Social Democratic Party chancellor,"

"Britain Conservative Edward Heath ousted Wilson in the June 1970 election."

"Alexander Haig, a former general serving as Nixon’s chief of staff, who would later become SACEUR, would in the future allege that Brandt was influenced by the Kremlin directly through an aide – his secretary, Gunter Guillaume, publicly exposed in 1973 as an East German spy.42"

"departure"

"departure of de Gaulle appeared positive"

"over US support for the French ballistic missile programme."

"The first REFORGER exercises – conducted annually from 1969 – showed US equipment in Europe was not always maintained well enough"

"US–Soviet Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT),"

"from both Pentagon and State Department to the North Atlantic Council.49 But a mounting"

"The Europeans kept their concerns quiet as the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT 1), signed by both leaders on 27 May 1972,"

"as the ‘Helsinki Process’ began in 1972,"

"The Russians, the New York Times suggested, hoped the ‘Helsinki’ negotiations – actually conducted in multiple locations – would deliver a binding agreement that would ‘seal the division of Europe and . . . pronounce the formal end of the Cold War’."

"From October 1971, NATO had another new secretary general: Joseph Luns, a former Dutch foreign minister who had been at the top table of NATO diplomacy for almost its entire history."

"the alliance had dodged the bullet of an isolationist becoming president,"

"second term, the Nixon administration decided to declare 1973 ‘the Year of Europe’,"

"tellig the Europeans that unless they increased military spending, Congress might pull out US troops – but the Europeans did not believe them."

"‘The Europeans cannot have it both ways,’ he said. ‘They cannot have the United States’ participation and cooperation on the security front and then proceed to have confrontation and even hostility on the economic and political front.’"

"As Nixon resigned and Gerald Ford was sworn in as president on"

"9 August 1974,"

"supreme allied commander Europe"

"General Alexander Haig" 

12. Back to the Brink (1975–1980) Soviet military buildups and the deployment of SS-20 missiles in Europe reignited Cold War tensions. NATO’s "dual-track" decision (1979) to deploy U.S. Pershing II missiles while negotiating arms control with the USSR reflected its balancing act between deterrence and diplomacy.

"‘NATO is saved every ten years or so by a Soviet flare-up which scares them.’"

"In July 1975 Ford, Brezhnev and delegations from thirty-four other nations descended on Finland for"

"the Hesinki ‘Final Act’,"

"year, the Helsinki deal would prove a disappointment."

"the 1976 election"

"Former California Governor Ronald Reagan"

"Democrat Jimmy Carter"

"policy’.22 The new Carter administration"

"Vice President Walter Mondale flew to Brussels to reassure the NATO allies of US commitment."

"In January 1979, French, German, US and British leaders met in Guadeloupe without the smaller powers and agreed what would be known as NATO’s ‘dual track’ approach:"

"‘Enhanced Radiation Weapon’ (ERW) or ‘neutron bomb’,"

"On 6 June 1977 its existence was unexpectedly revealed to the world by the Washington Post.36"

"But Soviet propagandists and anti-war campaigners portrayed it as the ultimate capitalist device, killing humans but leaving property intact.37"

"‘Topaz’"

"‘Topaz’"

"‘NATO was my enemy, and I went into it to destroy it.’39"

"massive issues with communications and logistics. ‘We couldn’t go to war if we had to,’"

"Pentagon and then NATO also introduced a new approach to combat, dubbed ‘Air-Land Battle’,"

"be shwcased in the first Gulf War in 1991."

"SALT 2 negotiations between the US and Kremlin delivered a June deal to limit long-range missiles to 2,400 on either side,"

"NATO"

"Europe was much more threatened by shorter-range Soviet"

"alerts’. On 9 November 1979, US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski was awakened by a telephone call reporting a Soviet missile attack,"

"Brzezinski had believed Soviet warheads were on their way. He had decided not to wake his wife, concluding there would be no point and it would be best for her to be asleep when the first warheads hit.43"

"On Christmas Day 1979 the USSR invaded Afghanistan."

"Carter pledged to increase defence spending by 5 per cent for the next five years,"

"SALT 2 was withdrawn"

"In June 1980 the joint US–Canadian North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) inadvertently issued three more accidental attack alerts,"

"bomb exploded underneath a Brussels road as SACEUR Haig drove overhead."

"Directive 59 (PD–59),"

"unrest in Eastern Europe."

"Poland’s"

"Reagan’s victory over Carter"

"intervention in Poland would ‘alter the entire international situation’, effectively destroying workable East–West relations." 

13. The Gloves Come Off (1981–1982). President Reagan’s hardline stance against the USSR revitalized NATO. The alliance’s 1983 Able Archer exercise nearly triggered a Soviet preemptive strike, revealing the dangers of miscommunication during heightened tensions.

"‘My theory on the Cold War is that we win and they lose.’2"

"the negotiating process had weakened the alliance.5"

"military activities along the Soviet border designed as a deliberate ‘psychological operation’"

"30 March 1981,"

"President Reagan"

"bullet"

"Socialist François Mitterrand took the presidency in France,"

"Ottawa, Reagan unsuccessfully lobbied Chancellor Schmidt to abandon a multibillion-dollar gas pipeline bringing Soviet gas from Siberia"

"American personnel in Europe were now under mounting threat,"

"the largest ever audience for a presidential speech."

"members. The deal would leave Moscow supplying 20 per cent of those nations’ gas needs,"

"believed the Kremlin was now spending as much as 17 per cent of its gross domestic product on the military."

"unprecedented for any economy during peacetime – and also unsustainable.45"

"In early April 1982 Argentina invaded the Falklands."

"peak, the Royal Navy remained a substantial part of NATO’s maritime combat power."

"two-thirds of its surface fleet, 4,000 of its best-trained troops, more than half of its Harrier vertical take-off fighters, and several modern submarines were heading to potential destruction 8,000 miles away.50"

"Helmut Kohl was already drawing ahead in German polls, and would replace Schmidt as chancellor in October."

"US and NATO drills in 1983 would be larger and even more aggressive, and they would inadvertently bring the alliance closer to atomic war than at any point since 1962." 

14. Dancing Blindly on the Edge (1983). The Able Archer war scare underscored the need for better crisis management. NATO adapted by improving communication and reinforcing its nuclear deterrent, while public protests against missile deployments highlighted domestic opposition.

"Union. As the 1980s progressed, Wolf wrote later, the Kremlin became ‘obsessed’; its preoccupation with warnings of war became the primary task – beyond domestic dissent – of the KGB and its Warsaw Pact spy services.5"

"On 19 March SACEUR Rogers"

"March"

"‘We have to deal with the world as we find it,’ he said. ‘And there is a Russian deployment of a massive number of warheads, and they are aimed at us.’12"

"the ‘Strategic Defence Initiative’ – immediately dubbed ‘Star Wars’"

"‘evil empire’"

"RYAN programme,"

"when the West might have sufficient ‘superiority’ to launch a surprise attack."

"as rickety as the Soviet state it was trying to protect."

"Summer 1983 saw Mikhail Gorbachev visit Canada"

"June, Averell Harriman"

"visited Moscow and met Andropov as a ‘private citizen’."

"on 1 September, a Soviet SU-15 blasted Korean Airlines Flight 007 from the sky"

"After Reagan was shot in 1981,"

"US officials had briefly believed the US might be about to be under Soviet attack."

"on a Sunday morning, 23 October, two truck bombs slammed into the barracks housing US and French peacekeepers, killing 307, including 241 US military personnel."

"invaded the island nation of Grenada,"

"Grenada,"

"ABLE ARCHER 83,"

"Defence Minister Dmitry Ustinov told high-ranking officers that recent US military actions had been judged ‘sufficiently real’ to order an increase in Soviet combat readiness.49"

"On 8 November,"

"that night either Andropov or Ustinov – or both – ordered the entire Soviet arsenal of 11,000 warheads to maximum combat alert."

"ninety-four-page ‘above top secret’ report commissioned by Bush in 1990 was finally published in 2015 a member of the US Information Security Oversight Office – the arbiter of classification in the US government – described it as ‘probably the most interesting document ever to have come across our desks’.61"

"Robert Gates,"

"intelligence failure. ‘We may have been at the brink of nuclear war and not even known it,’" 

15. Endgame (1984–1989)

NATO’s persistence contributed to the Soviet Union’s collapse. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty (1987) reduced nuclear threats, but the alliance remained vigilant as the Cold War wound down.

"As"

"1984 began,"

"Time magazine named Reagan and Andropov their ‘men of the year’.3"

"April would see what US and British officials described as the largest Soviet naval exercises ever"

"same scenario: a conventional Warsaw Pact offensive that led to nuclear war within a week.8"

"In January 1984, at a disarmament conference in Stockholm, NATO states formally presented a six-point proposal on preventing an accidental war."

"Andropov’s death was announced on 9 February."

"NATO’s new incoming secretary"

"Lord Peter Carrington,"

"LIONHEART, the largest British exercise of the entire Cold War.21"

"the BBC broadcast a drama entitled Threads that attempted to portray the reality of a major nuclear exchange."

"restore the balance between deterrence and détente"

"Thatcher told reporters afterwards, Gorbachev appeared a man the West could do business with.25"

"Reaganite tone-deafness continued."

"Gorbachev accepted, simultaneously announcing a unilateral freeze of Soviet SS-20 deployment"

"By mid-1985"

"Gorbachev"

"glasnost (transparency) and perestroika (restructuring)."

"December 1986 NATO summit endorsed the US–Soviet suggestions of reducing atomic forces on both sides by 50 per cent,"

"warned removing the missiles increased the danger Europe might be overrun by a Soviet"

"attack.47"

"attack.47"

"security’.50 As Reagan and Gorbachev signed the intermediate missile treaty in December, the first sparks of a new round of unrest were about to spread across Eastern Europe."

"May 1988 the first Hollywood blockbuster filmed on Soviet soil – Red Heat, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a Russian cop – prepared to open in America."

"Strikes in Poland also escalated through the summer,"

"to cut the Soviet military by 500,000 personnel,"

"to withdraw and disband six tank divisions from East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary by 1991 – a total of 50,000 men and 5,000 tanks."

"the Kremlin would be called on to reduce its control over Eastern Europe so that countries could run their own affairs. In exchange, the West would provide ‘some type of promise’ that NATO would not exploit that by moving into Eastern Europe or undermining Soviet interests."

"forty on 4 April, new Secretary General Manfred Wörner said the alliance had given Europe its longest period of peace since the Roman Empire."

"NATO allies had committed on paper to supporting German reunification"

"Mitterrand and Thatcher felt it was occurring much too quickly,"

"Beijing’s Tiananmen Square,"

"demanding similar change in China to that the world was witnessing in Europe."

"June 1989, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping sent in tanks and troops."

"Poland held its first democratic elections since the 1920s,"

"Czesław Kiszczak, the Communist interior minister who had signed the arrest order for Lech Wałęsa in 1981, now shook the Solidarity leader’s hand"

"the reburial of Imre Nagy and other executed leaders of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution."

"on 23 August approximately two million Baltic citizens joined hands from Tallinn through Riga to Vilnius,"

"joining the three"

"capitals in the longest unbroken line of interlinked human beings in history."

"protests spread across East Germany. Honecker resigned on 18 October."

"On 9 November, a Communist Party spokesman announced incorrectly that East German citizens could cross the border that night."

"At NATO and military headquarters"

"jaws just"

"dropped.’75"

"Thatcher, Mitterrand and Gorbachev worried about German reunification,"

"Czechoslovakian and Bulgarian governments had fallen; only Nicolae Ceauşescu in Romania clung on."

"the mob came for the KGB in Dresden."

"protesters continued to push forward,"

"if the protesters came any further into the compound,"

"they would all be shot.81" 

THE ERA OF INTERVENTION

16. Driving Fast Through Fog (1990–1991)

The fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) and German reunification (1990) forced NATO to redefine its purpose. The alliance expanded into Central Europe, despite Russian objections, and intervened in the Balkans to prevent ethnic conflicts.

"1989. After the deaths of several thousand protesters in mid- to late December, Romania’s Nicolae Ceauşescu had finally been forced from office,"

"hunted down, subjected to a summary trial and shot on 25 December."

"‘When military men don’t know what to do, they do what they know,’"

"1990 the professional heads of every military in Europe except Albania and Vatican City – thirty-five nations in total, including the US – met for the first time. It"

"together. The most immediate problem, he said, was keeping Eastern Europe from outright collapse."

"The first six months of 1990 saw the West German chancellor ruthlessly pursue reunification with the support of both the US and NATO Secretary General Manfred Wörner. That meant ignoring concerns and sometimes outright opposition from Mitterrand and Thatcher,"

"Germany became ‘neutral’"

"‘the old Pandora’s box of competition and rivalry in Europe would be reopened’."

"‘An American president who wants a Europe whole and free cannot accept neutralisation of a united Germany,’"

"‘There can be no ambiguity.’5"

"presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction,’"

"Gorbachev said that any expansion of the ‘zone of NATO’ was unacceptable, and later claimed that US Secretary of State Baker had replied, ‘We agree with that.’8"

"On 10 March, Lithuania declared its intent to restore independence,"

"Within little over four months of the wall coming down – despite mutterings from France, Britain and the Kremlin – Kohl had achieved an indisputable democratic mandate for a united Germany."

"The US expected to close at least eighty military bases in West Germany, a tenth of the number across the country.14"

"the . . . crushing of Lithuania would be a problem.’15"

"Post-war Germany, the allies offered, would never develop nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, while the remaining short-range atomic arms stationed there would be removed entirely."

"some expressed concerns over treating Russia like a ‘defeated nation’."

"Europe. Wörner said NATO had ‘no intention of shifting the balance in Europe to the detriment of the Soviet Union’.18"

"‘NATO is a force for peace and European security, in cooperation with the Soviet Union.’"

"‘The point of nuclear weapons in particular is to deter, and indeed they have been very satisfactory in that respect,’ Thatcher told the conference,"

"on 2 August 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.27"

"NATO’s involvement in the war in the desert would be minimal. But without decades of NATO planning, little of the upcoming Operation DESERT STORM would have been possible."

"‘REFORGER in reverse’,"

"On 12 September the victors of World War Two – Britain, France, the US and the Soviet Union – signed away their rights in Germany, first established at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945."

"take no new members from Eastern Europe until the mid-1990s,"

"Moscow could be pardoned for feeling paranoid,’"

"‘The role of NATO will have to change,’ said Sir James Eberle, a former senior Royal Naval officer now running London’s Royal Institute of International Affairs. ‘Unless it makes itself useful, it will wither and die.’35"

"On 12 January, three days before the UN deadline for Saddam to withdraw from Kuwait, a column of Soviet tanks smashed through a crowd and parked cars to seize the main Lithuanian TV station."

"Lithuania’s pro-independence government found an unexpected ally: Boris Yeltsin,"

"17 January coalition forces launched Operation DESERT STORM;"

"on 20 January Soviet troops smashed their way into a Latvian government ministry, killing at least five."

"the Iraqi and the Baltic situation were driving new East–West disagreements."

"On 11 February Iceland – NATO’s smallest member, and the one place that had seen protests against joining in 1949 – became the first country to publicly recognise Lithuania."

"On 24 February 1991, coalition troops moved forward into Iraq and Kuwait to launch their long-awaited ground offensive."

"The same day, Warsaw Pact states agreed to dissolve their thirty-six-year-old military alliance by 31 March."

"On 25 February the New York Times quoted US officials saying for the first time that NATO might indeed expand to the former Eastern bloc.47"

"The high-tech military machine the Pentagon and its NATO allies had built to fight Russia in Europe had triumphed in the desert"

"Germany and France were preparing the 1992 Maastricht Treaty that would turn the European Community into the modern European Union."

"On 29 April 1991, the CIA reported ‘all ingredients are now present’ for a Kremlin regime change"

"Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria"

"publicly expressed hopes of joining the alliance."

"and US officials suggested for the first time that NATO might need to involve itself in the Balkans.55"

"On 31 July, Bush and Gorbachev signed the bilateral Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, START 1,"

"In Crimea on vacation, Gorbachev found himself under house arrest."

"multiple Soviet republics, including Ukraine and Georgia, declared independence."

"NATO looked outpaced by events"

"Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian delegations were visiting Wörner"

"at NATO headquarters,"

"Western support were dependent on Ukraine giving gave up its atomic arms,"

"Boris Yeltsin"

"‘long-term aim’ of joining NATO."

"ambassador Afansyevsky had returned from taking a telephone call from Moscow to tell the foreign ministers that the Soviet Union would cease to exist entirely before the year was out,"

"what a whirlwind we are in.’73" 

17. Into the Balkans (1992–1994)

NATO’s first combat operations in Bosnia (1992–95) marked its shift from collective defense to crisis management. The alliance’s air campaigns and peacekeeping missions set precedents for future interventions.

"Russia and multiple other Soviet states, the economy was collapsing,"

"fears over the vast atomic arsenal."

"Polish officers warned that without it they might develop their own nuclear weapons."

"NATO operation – renamed from MARITIME MONITOR to MARITIME GUARD – received authorisation to fire warning shots and board non-compliant ships. NATO forces had never been authorised to take such action before,"

"February 1993 the new Clinton administration began publicly considering humanitarian aid drops."

"‘If Russia again adopts an aggressive foreign policy, that aggression will be directed towards Ukraine and Poland,’ said Lech Wałęsa."

"NATO membership as ‘the ultimate carrot’ to promote democracy"

"‘ensure Ukrainian"

"denuclearisation’.29"

"In October a secret Yeltsin letter to Clinton, new British Prime Minister John Major, Mitterrand and Kohl became public knowledge, expressing diplomatic but firm Russian opposition to any eastward NATO moves."

"Germany felt exposed – and keen to have further NATO nations on its eastern flank."

"NATO’s forty-fifth year of existence, 1994, would be a defining one for the alliance."

"set a course firmly towards expansion to the east,"

"Mutual distrust was growing once again."

"Russia had resumed its Cold War-era biological weapons"

"to reduce the risk of airstrikes.51 Then,"

"reduce the risk of airstrikes.51 Then, on 28 February, the Bosnian Serbs finally tested alliance and Western patience beyond its breaking point"

"Secretary General Wörner’s death"

"Willy Claes, was appointed in October"

"On 5 December 1994, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in the Bucharest agreement also signed by Russia, Britain, France and Germany."

"Less than a week later Russia’s military began its first offensive"

"against separatists in Chechnya." 

18. Where Angels Fear to Tread (1995–1998)

The Dayton Accords (1995) ended the Bosnian War, but NATO’s role in Kosovo (1999) tested its unity. The U.S. led a 78-day bombing campaign against Serbia without UN approval, sparking debates over legality and sovereignty.

"On 25 May NATO jets finally made their first strikes of the year,"

"On 6 July the Bosnian Serbs began their assault on Srebrenica.20"

"US aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt steamed more than 900 miles in twenty-four hours, joining the French carrier Foch and aircraft from across the alliance in NATO’s first true shot at coordinated military action.34"

"On 1 November, all the major players in Bosnia gathered at the massive Wright-Patterson Air Force Base at Dayton, Ohio,"

"Enforcing the Dayton Agreement would be down to a new Implementation Force: IFOR, NATO’s first-ever operational ground mission, 60,000 strong and scheduled to be deployed by Christmas."

"Javier Solana"

"signed off by the NAC in December 1996.50"

"the first admissions would be limited to potentially Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic,"

"concessions from the US, including the admission of Russia to the G7 – making it the G8"

"‘NATO–Russia Founding Act’"

"NATO called a ‘voice but not a veto’ on key NATO decisions."

"July 1997 Madrid summit, proclaimed Secretary General Solana – with its formal issuing of invitations to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic to join"

"On 16 January 1998 the Clinton administration and three Baltic states finally signed a formal charter explicitly supporting Estonian, Latvian and"

"Lithuanian membership of NATO,"

"policemen in February 1998, Milošević ordered a police crackdown."

"On 23 September, with hundreds dead and almost a quarter of a million Kosovans displaced, the UN Security Council passed resolution 1199, condemning Yugoslavia’s actions in Kosovo and calling on Belgrade ‘to order the withdrawal of security units used for civilian repression’."

"in March 1999, Putin would be sworn in as Yeltsin’s security council director." 

19. Kosovo (1999)

NATO’s intervention in Kosovo demonstrated its willingness to act outside its traditional defense mandate. The campaign succeeded in halting Serbian aggression but strained relations with Russia and some European allies.

"As March 1999 began it felt as though NATO’s history in Bosnia was repeating itself in Kosovo."

"On 12 March, Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary signed their accession to the North Atlantic Treaty."

"Neither of the three militaries was truly up to NATO standard,"

"Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Slovenia and Romania, that NATO would consider any military action against them ‘unacceptable’,"

"NATO’s rudimentary website was also gaining more attention, its number of daily hits rising to 90,000 by early April, three times its pre-war average. It was out of action for several days as unidentified attackers flooded it with emails and a Directed"

"Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, perhaps the first ‘cyber attack’ of its kind in modern warfare.24"

"‘Airpower works best when it is used decisively,’ USAF General Richard Hawley said. ‘Clearly, because of the constraints in this operation, we haven’t seen that at this point.’"

"The problem of civilian casualties kept growing."

"‘If we do not achieve our goals in Kosovo,’ he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, ‘NATO is finished as an alliance.’35

On"

"On 21 April, cruise missiles hit downtown Belgrade,"

"By the end of April the factors that would ultimately end the war – the intensifying NATO bombardment, growing economic pressure, mounting threat of ground troops and simultaneous Russian-backed negotiations – were all in place."

"on 7 May, when"

"US bombs struck the Chinese embassy in downtown Belgrade,"

"Kosovan refugees"

"– life was becoming increasingly miserable."

"On 27 May, US Defense Secretary William Cohen met secretly with his British, French, German and Italian counterparts for six and a half hours in Cologne, concluding they must decide within days whether to assemble ground troops."

"Russian officials said they would join the Kosovo mission, but not under NATO command. NATO had ruled out a ‘separate sector’ for Russian forces."

"in the early hours of 11 June, a Russian light armoured column, comprised of peacekeepers theoretically attached to the NATO-run SFOR in Bosnia, crossed into Serbia,"

"‘What followed was a crazy seventy-two hours of zigzags, lies, high-level confusion and confrontation,’"

"last-minute amendments before the Russians signed.61"

"NATO troops would enter Kosovo in the early hours of 12 June – meaning that by the time they got to Pristina the Russians would be there.63"

"On arriving at the airport on the evening of 11 June the bunker was the first thing Russian troops secured.64"

"Then, at 5 a.m., Clark ordered Jackson to reach the airport as quickly as possible and ‘co-occupy’ it with the Russians.66"

"‘Mike, do you understand that as a NATO commander I’m giving you a legal order, and if you don’t accept that you will have to resign your position and get out of the chain of command?’ asked Clark. Jackson replied that he did. ‘OK, I’m giving you an order to block the runways at Pristina airport,’ said Clark. ‘I want it done. Is that clear?’"

"in March 1999, Vladimir Putin was appointed chair of Russia’s National Security Council.78" 

20. Into a New Century (1999–2001)

"By 20 June 1999, NATO forces had control of every major city in the province"

"the town of Mitrovica, in southern Kosovo, declaring their neighbourhood a ‘Serbian zone’."

"In June 1999 Solana was appointed as the next secretary general of the EU council,"

"Taking his place at NATO would be British Defence Secretary George Robertson."

"Jackson’s"

"Jackson’s successor as commander KFOR was also a popular choice: German General Klaus Reinhardt."

"Among NATO forces on the ground, distrust of the Russians remained significant."

"Russia was also on the offensive again in Chechnya"

"NATO was in a potentially ‘lose-lose’ position. ‘If NATO gets tough, then Milošević can say the Serbs are victims,’ he said. ‘If NATO shrinks from doing anything, the situation gets worse.’17"

"As George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore faced off in a US election too close to call, pollsters noted a growing divide between US and European opinion on a range of topics, apparently exacerbated by the war in Kosovo."

"Momcilo"

"Krajisnik."

"International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague to be charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws of war."

"election, Milošević became the first twenty-first-century leader forced from power"

"Montenegro seceding as an independent nation."

"Macedonian government against the rebels"

"In June the Macedonian government allowed a small NATO team into the country."

"The Baltic states continued to push for rapid NATO membership, with the Bush administration openly supportive."

"When Bush met Putin for the first time in Slovenia in June 2001 the Russian leader warned him not to act unilaterally on missile defence or NATO expansion."

"authorise Operation ESSENTIAL HARVEST,"

"This was not a UN-mandated mission – NATO was only there at the invitation of the Macedonian government,"

"‘Here is a situation where the Europeans have the will and the"

"capability.’" 

Post-Cold War NATO struggled to define its role. The 9/11 attacks (2001) triggered Article 5 for the first time, uniting members against terrorism and leading to the invasion of Afghanistan.

21. 9/11 and Its Aftermath (2001)

NATO’s invocation of Article 5 after 9/11 symbolized its solidarity with the U.S. The alliance deployed forces to Afghanistan, but the mission became protracted and divisive, exposing gaps in military capabilities and political will.

"It was 3.03 p.m. in Brussels when the second plane hit the World Trade Center."

"President Bush was reading to second graders at an elementary school in Florida when White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card told him about the second plane. ‘They have declared war on us,’"

"whom? In Brussels, Robertson was determined that if the US was going to fight, NATO should do so too."

"More than two decades later NATO’s decision to trigger Article 5 is frequently portrayed as a critical point in both its history, and in the relationship between Europe and the United States."

"while the US was glad to have the ‘political consensus’ of the Article 5 declaration, the alliance ‘offers little militarily’."

"two leaders in particular – Blair and Putin – were embracing Bush."

"Clandestine CIA operators and a handful of special forces would supercharge the estimated 20,000 irregular Afghan fighters of the anti-Taliban ‘Northern Alliance’.31 At the end of September the CIA team on the ground – codenamed JAWBREAKER – showed the Northern Alliance classified maps and gave them $1 million in cash.32"

"Alliance’.31 At the end of September the CIA"

"by 13 November, exactly nine weeks after 9/11, Taliban fighters appeared to abandon Kabul altogether,"

"Kabul, US ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns"

"alliance. The top priority, he said, remained the Balkans –"

"The second was a ‘new relationship’ with Russia,"

"expand NATO to consolidate democracy eastward and southward."

"On 5 December the Bonn agreement –"

"delivered an Afghan government under Karzai,"

"growing clash between Rumsfeld and Powell over how to handle US foreign policy."

"the United States –"

"it opened a prison camp at its military base at Cuba’s Guantánamo Bay," 

22. The Schisms of Iraq (2002–2005)

The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq (2003) split NATO, with France and Germany opposing the war. The episode highlighted transatlantic rifts but also led to reforms, such as the NATO Response Force (2003).

"Stanley McChrystal,"

"ENDURING"

"ENDURING FREEDOM counterterrorism operation"

"the launch of the European single currency."

"link the Kyiv government to the secret sale of a radar system to Saddam Hussein."

"The November 2002 NATO leaders summit in Prague would be used to showcase both NATO expansion and Ukraine’s new isolation."

"NATO’s new additions – now confirmed as the Baltic three, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia"

"anti-Americanism is extremely high,’"

"French, German and Belgian veto saw the NAC fail to agree military assistance for the protection of Turkey,"

"Secretary General Robertson"

"announcing he would stand down by the end of the year."

"Germany, France and Belgium joined with Russia in issuing a statement calling to intensify weapons inspections as an alternative to war."

"Moscow–Paris–Berlin diplomatic axis – a moment Putin would repeatedly try to recreate in the decades to come."

"that while Iraq had almost broken NATO, it could find unity on Afghanistan"

"The US launched its first strikes against Iraq in the early hours of 19 March,"

"Polish special forces were among the first into action, seizing key oil platforms in the Persian Gulf alongside US Navy SEALs.31"

"The US Afghan operation ENDURING FREEDOM would remain a separate US command even as NATO took over ISAF in Kabul."

"NATO’s formal assumption of the ISAF mission on 11 August 2003"

"‘NATO found itself pulled into Afghanistan because no one else was able to take charge in Kabul,’"

"Robertson"

"‘We will not always agree with Russia politically,’ he said in his final speech, ‘[but] not even the most imaginative Hollywood screenwriter can daydream up a scenario which would plausibly pit NATO and Russia at each other’s throats in the old-fashioned Cold War style.’43"

"In February 2004, NATO agreed to support Greece with security arrangements for the Olympic Games,"

"the US and Norwegian NATO delegations agreed to host their first ever summit on human trafficking, suggesting the alliance might develop some vaguely defined role in combating cross-border criminality.48"

"On 11 March, days before Spain’s general election, bombs"

"ripped through crowded commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 and wounding more than 1,800.49"

"Bush welcomed the leaders of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria,"

"Romania,"

"Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia to Washington on 29 March 2004,"

"Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania"

"request NATO fighters to defend their airspace. The resulting mission was described as ‘air policing’,"

"Georgian ‘Rose Revolution’ in November 2003, saw former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze ousted by pro-Western opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili, who stormed a parliamentary session after days of protests, red roses in his hand."

"In July 2004, President Leonid Kuchma shocked Ukrainians by announcing his government had dropped its aspirations to join both NATO and the European Union"

"Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, widely expected to win the October 2004 election, was seen as even more in Russia’s pocket. Then, in September, opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko fell ill, doctors eventually diagnosing poisoning with dioxin.61"

"2005 ‘Tulip Revolution’ in Kyrgyzstan." 

23. Afghanistan: NATO’s Longest War (2006–2010)

NATO’s Afghanistan mission became a test of endurance. Despite initial successes, insurgent resurgence and allied fatigue undermined the campaign, culminating in a chaotic withdrawal in 2021.

"rivalry and confusion"

"but Afghanistan would take it to new levels."

"then-Brigadier David Richards,"

"would report directly to NATO’s civilian and military leadership, with the US continuing to lead its own separate ENDURING FREEDOM counterterrorism operation in parallel."

"SACEUR US Marine General James Jones told Richards the secretary general was very ‘angry’ about a Guardian interview that talked of ‘anarchy’ in Afghanistan."

"As 2006"

"Afghanistan did indeed remain relatively peaceful,"

"NATO now had some 20,000 non-US troops in Afghanistan,"

"US had another 21,000 personnel, some part of the NATO force, others reporting directly to US commanders."

"aim. In March 2007, ISAF launched its largest ever offensive"

"Conflict was also spreading across the country."

"‘You may have"

"the watches, but we have the time.’"

"Churchill"

"‘Time in this area is measured in decades, not months or years.’39"

"By summer 2008 NATO’s next commander, US General David McKiernan, had 65,000 troops from thirty-nine nations under his command – but the war appeared to be going even worse.40"

"In September 2008, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen told Congress: ‘I’m not sure we’re winning.’ The same month, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced his forces would pull out of Kandahar by September 2011,"

"2009 brought a new US president, Barack Obama,"

"by General Stan McChrystal."

"a legend"

"NATO"

"summit in Strasbourg in April 2009."

"but we are all looking to get out.’61"

"NATO’s 2010 southern Afghanistan offensive, Operation MOSHTARAK"

"in summer 2010, ‘Team America’ inadvertently ended its own service."

"by journalist Michael Hastings"

"McChrystal were quoted being remarkably critical and disrespectful of other US officials, all quoted verbatim in Rolling Stone magazine."

"days McChrystal was out, replaced by David Petraeus,"

"Petraeus," 

RENEWED CONFRONTATION

24. Putin, Pirates, Cyber Attacks, and Georgia (2007–2011)

Russia’s 2008 war with Georgia and cyber attacks on Estonia signaled a return to great-power competition. NATO responded by enhancing cyber defenses and reinforcing Eastern Europe.

"Munich Security Conference in February 2007"

"Putin hijacked the summit agenda"

"rail against NATO expansion and missile defence,"

"NATO foreign ministers met in Oslo on 26 April 2007,"

"Russia would suspend its compliance"

"violence erupted in the Estonian capital"

"desecrating war memorials"

"‘cyber warfare’.11"

"Bush was keen to get alliance agreement in Bucharest on both missile defence of Eastern Europe and membership for Ukraine and Georgia."

"Putin described any future NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia as a ‘direct threat’ to Russia and again cast doubt on the sovereignty of Ukraine, suggesting many Ukrainians – particularly in Crimea – were actually ‘Russians’.17"

"South Ossetia and Abkhazia"

"7 August,"

"opening of the 2008 Olympics."

"‘Russia has successfully burnt Georgia’s NATO card.’23"

"Two days before NATO defence ministers came together in London on 17 September 2008, the Bush administration decided to allow Wall Street bank Lehman Brothers to go bankrupt,"

"Iceland announced it was talking to Russia about a potential bailout."

"blocked Iceland’s Landsbanki from repatriating assets out of the UK"

"By 12 October, Iceland had been forced to open International Monetary Fund negotiations"

"By November 2008 it was clear a Russian bailout would not happen."

"Bush administration officials suggested both Georgia and Ukraine"

"should join quickly."

"Following events in Georgia, officials from Eastern and Central Europe were more aggressive in their warnings about Russia."

"major ZAPAD exercises in its western military region and Belarus in late 2009."

"described the alliance response as weak.36"

"2010s, former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen,"

"‘I am here as a reformer,’"

"Rasmussen appointed former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to lead a group of twelve experts to build NATO’s first new strategic concept"

"to both layout alliance priorities and showcase NATO in the world,"

"keeping Russia as a partner rather than potential foe."

"Obma and Medvedev signed a new nuclear arms control agreement in April 2010,"

"From August 2009, NATO warships in the Indian Ocean also commenced operation OCEAN SHIELD, which would become a seven-year mission to protect civilian shipping from Somali pirates.42"

"In June 2010, the FBI broke up what it described as a significant Kremlin-controlled espionage ring operating on US soil."

"and a commitment to allow more Afghan supplies to pass through Russian territory.52"

"plane crash in Russia earlier that year that killed President Lech Kaczyński," 

25. Unexpected Revolutions (2011–2013)

The Arab Spring and Libya intervention (2011) showed NATO’s adaptability but also its limits. The mission in Libya succeeded in toppling Gaddafi but left a power vacuum, while Syria’s civil war exposed the alliance’s reluctance to intervene without clear objectives.

"Afghanistan, Iraq and now the counter-piracy mission were already consuming more resources than many allies wished."

"protests in Libya against Muammar Gaddafi were producing violence on a completely different scale."

"On 26 February the Italian government announced it was suspending a 2008 treaty with Libya in which the Tripoli government had agreed to limit migration across the Mediterranean in return for a ‘non-aggression pact’ with Rome."

"UN Security Council authorised ‘all necessary measures’ to protect civilians"

"Putin"

"was worried Western intervention to topple autocratic rulers might become a habit"

"to nip it in the bud."

"Officially, Russia’s defence ministry said only 10,000 troops had been mobilised for ZAPAD 2013, but external analysts estimated more than seven times that number"

"STEADFAST JAZZ – the largest post-Cold War NATO drill to date, commencing at the start of November 2013 and involving 6,000 troops – was to test the NATO Response Force’s ability to respond to a crisis anywhere in the world." 

26. The Return of War to Europe (2012–2015)

Russia’s annexation of Crimea (2014) and support for separatists in Eastern Ukraine forced NATO to refocus on collective defense. The alliance deployed battle groups to the Baltics and Poland, marking a return to Cold War-era deterrence.

"rights. Armenia, Moldova and Ukraine,"

"agreed to sign multiple deals with EU"

"the Kremlin would prove determined to prevent it."

"Yanukovych might try to split the country between the predominantly pro-European west and Russian-speaking east.5"

"On the night of 21 February 2014,"

"Russian military forces were sent to ‘rescue’ Yanukovych and bring him into Russia. Secondly, military actions would be undertaken to bring Crimea directly under Kremlin control.6"

"‘Crimea came out of a clear blue sky,’ said British General Richard Shirreff, Deputy SACEUR at the time, describing the Russian takeover as a ‘hugely professional operation’. ‘There was no intelligence warning.’8"

"Putin. On 16 March, Crimean authorities held a referendum in which more than 80 per cent of respondents were said to have voted to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation."

"forces of ISIS had been on their own offensive across the Middle East, seizing whole swathes of Iraq and Syria. It inevitably pulled US attention"

"4 September 2014, NATO leaders gathered in Newport, Wales, to discuss the longer-term response and welcome Jens Stoltenberg as the new secretary general."

"enough, a demographically weakened Russia might collapse in any case, undermined by its ageing population, low birth rate and limited economic prospects beyond energy."

"STEADFAST JAVELIN 2 – began in the Baltic states. In total 2,000 soldiers from nine countries carried out drills across the Baltic states, Poland and Germany.28"

"NATO is a beast that is very good at"

"responding to an overt military act . . . – but is not so good at dealing with a whole variety of other ways that Russia can bring pressure’."

"At the end of September, Russian aircraft and warships began missile strikes in support of the Assad government."

"‘It is clear that the European Union can no longer adequately respond to Russia’s demonstrations of power, so it’s comforting that at least the United States is finally stepping up,’" 

27. Enter Donald Trump (2016–2019)

President Trump’s criticism of NATO as "obsolete" and demands for increased defense spending strained transatlantic relations. Despite his rhetoric, NATO adapted by increasing burden-sharing and expanding its presence in Eastern Europe.

"‘strong UK in a strong Europe’"

"the US might abandon some allies altogether if they had not ‘paid their bills’.11"

"‘Solidarity among allies is a key value for NATO. Two world wars have shown that peace in Europe is also important for the security of the United States.’12"

"From summer 2015 onwards, the US National Security Agency detected signs of Russian ‘digital intrusions’ that appeared to access voter registration rolls."

"the US was taking a disproportionate amount of the weight of defending the alliance, however, nobody could deny – the US made up 70 per cent of alliance military spending."

"arms purchases by the Baltic states had doubled in the three years since 2014"

"Defense Secretary, former US Marine General Jim Mattis, like Stoltenberg, told the president that he was right to push European nations to spend more on defence."

"also told him the alliance was vital,"

"the only time Article 5 had been triggered was when Trump’s own hometown of New York was attacked"

"‘Pay up or be . . . [expletive].’24"

"War with Russia, a speculative novel written by British Lieutenant General Richard Shirreff, who had retired as Deputy SACEUR in March 2014, worried that NATO was unprepared to properly defend its eastern flank."

"the NATO LOCKED SHIELDS cyber exercise in Estonia run by the new NATO cyber centre there – received worldwide coverage."

"In Lithuania, false rumours that a German soldier had raped a local schoolgirl also appeared to have been deliberately spread. ‘This was a clear example of information manipulation with a sense of weaponisation,’"

"Trump’s first visit to Europe for the opening of the new NATO HQ in April 2017,"

"In late July, US troops joined twenty-four partner nations in the annual SABRE GUARDIAN drills across Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria, involving 35,000 troops in total."

"At the start of August 2017, Russia kicked off even larger military exercises than in previous years. While the Kremlin said only 13,000 troops participated, some NATO officials estimated almost eight times that figure were involved."

"March, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson"

"discovered via a Twitter post that he had been fired by Trump and replaced with CIA director Mike Pompeo."

"Eight NATO nations were now spending more than 2 per cent of GDP on defence, twice the number from when Trump took office. The US was putting more military resources into Europe, requesting $6.5 billion for European activity in the 2019 budget, twice that of the Obama administration in 2016.45"

"October 2018 saw yet another ‘largest NATO exercise since the end of the Cold War’, this time in northern Europe and involving 50,000 personnel, 10,000 vehicles, 250 aircraft and 65 ships. More than any drill so far, TRIDENT JUNCTURE was designed to show the alliance’s ability to get forces fast to vulnerable areas near Russia.50"

"NATO demonstrated for the first time that it had good enough relations with both Sweden and Finland"

"In December 2018, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned,"

"Trump had privately told officials several times that he wanted to pull out of the alliance altogether."

"January 2019, the US pulled out of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty,"

"‘The relationship with the secretary general has been outstanding,’ said Trump as Stoltenberg visited Washington in April 2019,"

"in November, France’s Emmanuel Macron delivered his own criticism of the alliance,"

"brough immediate and unusual criticism from Angela Merkel."

"Trump told reporters Macron’s comments had been ‘very insulting’."

28. The World Crisis of the 2020s

Just three days into January 2020, President Trump ordered a drone strike that killed Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander Qasem Soleimani as his convoy passed through Baghdad International Airport. The assassination marked a dramatic escalation in tensions, but it was far from the only challenge facing the U.S. and its allies. By then, America’s longest war—the conflict in Afghanistan—had stretched on for eighteen years. Soldiers who had been born after 9/11 now found themselves deployed in the same war as their fathers. Since 2001, the U.S. had spent over $132 billion on reconstruction in Afghanistan—more than the cost of rebuilding Europe after World War II.

In early February, the U.S. began its largest troop deployment to Europe since the Cold War-era REFORGER exercises, with plans to send 20,000 personnel alongside tanks and vehicles. But as the movement of forces got underway, international health officials issued stark warnings: the Covid-19 outbreak—then described as an "influenza" raging in Wuhan, China—threatened to become a global pandemic. The crisis hit NATO directly. On March 7, a U.S. Navy sailor based in Naples tested positive, the first confirmed case among American service members. The Pentagon responded by canceling or scaling back major exercises, including DEFENDER Europe 20—a move that underscored the pandemic’s immediate impact on military readiness. By March 18, NATO ambassadors gathered in a nearly empty chamber to address the unfolding crisis. The next day, Belgium, France, Spain, and Italy imposed total lockdowns, bringing Europe to a standstill.

Amid the chaos, Russian military convoys rolled through Italy, emblazoned with the slogan "From Russia with Love." The spectacle sent a chilling message. As one NATO diplomat admitted, "This is a big success story for Putin." The pandemic’s devastation became undeniable. By the end of 2020, the World Health Organization estimated over three million deaths worldwide. A later analysis revised that number upward, suggesting nearly 15 million excess deaths in 2020 and 2021—though the exact toll, whether from the virus itself or the consequences of lockdowns, remains uncertain. Economically, the European Union’s GDP plummeted by over 6%, a sharper decline than during the 2008 financial crisis.

Within days of NATO’s March 2021 ministerial meeting, Russia launched its first major military mobilization along Ukraine’s borders. Eastern and Central European nations viewed the move as a deliberate provocation—a test of the new Biden administration’s resolve. When Biden and Putin met in Geneva that June, the summit was notably subdued. The two leaders delivered brief remarks before retiring for closed-door talks, emerging only to hold separate press conferences—a reflection of the frosty relations between Washington and Moscow.

On August 15, 2021, Taliban forces reached the outskirts of Kabul. The U.S. acting ambassador ordered the evacuation of the American mission, signaling the imminent collapse of Afghanistan’s government. Within days, chaos engulfed the city. Over two decades of war, NATO allies had lost 3,812 personnel in Afghanistan, including 2,461 Americans. In the final, frantic days, 13 U.S. soldiers were killed in a suicide bombing at Kabul’s airport. Then, in the early hours of August 30, the last U.S. flight departed, ending America’s longest war—but leaving behind a propaganda victory for the Taliban and a dangerous precedent. To adversaries like Taiwan and Ukraine, the message was clear: American commitments were not guaranteed.

As the year drew to a close, tensions with Russia escalated further. Moscow placed its nuclear deterrence forces on high alert and conducted large-scale ZAPAD military drills, a show of force that alarmed NATO. Some analysts warned that Russia might even withdraw from the Cold War-era "nuclear sharing" agreement, which allowed U.S. atomic weapons to be stored in NATO states for collective defense—a system established under President Eisenhower and SACEUR Lauris Norstad.

2024: THE ROAD TO 2049

29. From Vilnius to Washington (2023–2024)

The 2023 NATO Vilnius Summit marked a pivotal moment for the alliance, addressing two critical issues: Ukraine’s potential membership and the need for long-term deterrence against Russia. The summit also highlighted the challenges ahead, particularly the delicate balance between U.S. and European strategic priorities. NATO introduced three new regional defense plans, each led by a dedicated command:

1. The High North and Atlantic, coordinated by NATO’s Joint Force Command in Norfolk, Virginia.
2. The Baltic to the Alps, overseen by Allied Joint Force Command Brunssum in the Netherlands (currently under Italian leadership). This region is considered the most likely flashpoint in any potential crisis.
3. Southeastern Europe, from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, commanded by the headquarters in Naples.

Notably, the northern and Mediterranean plans were supervised by senior U.S. naval officers, reflecting a return to Cold War-era command structures. The alliance continues to adapt to modern threats across its five domains of warfare: land, sea, air, space, and cyber. As Military Committee Chairman Admiral Rob Bauer emphasized, the focus remains on preventing escalation—a sentiment echoed by former U.S. President Donald Trump, who once vowed to "finish the process of fundamentally re-evaluating NATO’s purpose and mission."

NATO’s eastern members took unprecedented steps to bolster security. For the first time, countries on the alliance’s eastern flank engaged in bilateral negotiations with major European states and Canada to secure troop deployments—a departure from traditional NATO procedures. 

Key developments included:

• Germany’s commitment to permanently station up to 4,000 troops in Lithuania, announced jointly by the Vilnius and Berlin governments.
• Canada’s expansion of its leadership role in the enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) battlegroup in Latvia.

These moves came amid growing concerns over Russian aggression, including:

1. The threat of a land corridor from Belarus to Kaliningrad, which would encircle the Suwałki Gap—a critical NATO vulnerability.
2. Lithuania’s GRIFFIN STORM military exercises, designed to enhance readiness against potential incursions.
3. Reports of the Wagner Group coercing recruits into signing contracts to fight in Poland and Lithuania, should orders be given.

Tensions intensified as Russian officials warned that any Ukrainian advance into territory Moscow considers Russian would leave "no other way out" but nuclear retaliation. Meanwhile, attacks crept closer to NATO’s borders, raising fears of direct confrontation. 

30. Surviving the NATO Century (2024–2049)

Three potential reasons for not celebrating its 100th anniversary: 

1. NATO has collapsed.
2. It has been superseded by something else.
3. It has finally failed to stop a catastrophic war.

En 2023, un informe del Congreso de Estados Unidos advirtió que el país se enfrenta a un punto de inflexión histórico: por primera vez, podría tener dos adversarios nucleares con capacidad de igual a igual —Rusia y China—, ambos dispuestos a alterar el orden internacional mediante el uso de la fuerza si fuera necesario. Este contexto ha impulsado a las potencias occidentales a revisar sus estrategias de defensa y disuasión. En el verano de 2023, la Armada de EE.UU. llevó a cabo su mayor simulación global de conflicto en décadas, un ejercicio que abarcó escenarios hipotéticos en el Atlántico, el Pacífico, el Mediterráneo y el Ártico. Este tipo de simulaciones refleja la preocupación por un posible conflicto a gran escala que involucre a Rusia y China. Por su parte, la OTAN realizó en octubre de 2023 el ejercicio STEADFAST JUPITER, el mayor de su tipo en décadas. Los planificadores reconocieron que el escenario tuvo que actualizarse repetidamente para mantenerse al día con los eventos reales, como la invasión de Ucrania, la guerra en Gaza y la creciente tensión en el Indo-Pacífico. Además, se confirmó el regreso de armas nucleares estadounidenses a Reino Unido tras su salida en el año 2000. Francia, por su parte, desplegó simultáneamente tres de sus cuatro submarinos de misiles balísticos para demostrar su capacidad de respuesta en tiempos de guerra. 

El debate estratégico actual enfrenta una falsa dicotomía: por un lado, la apuesta por tecnologías avanzadas, como drones operados por inteligencia artificial; por otro, la necesidad de mantener capacidades tradicionales, como artillería, tanques y tropas. Iniciativas como DIANA (Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic) buscan acelerar la innovación, pero sin descuidar la importancia de las fuerzas convencionales. La alianza ha ampliado su alcance estratégico. En 2021, su cumbre incluyó una cláusula que considera un ataque a la infraestructura espacial de un miembro como posible detonante del Artículo 5. Además, países como Suecia y Finlandia, recién incorporados, se encuentran entre los mejor preparados para enfrentar los desafíos actuales. Sin embargo, la relación entre Moscú y Pekín sigue siendo impredecible. Mientras Rusia sufre pérdidas en Ucrania —que deberá reponer en el futuro—, China observa de cerca el desarrollo de los conflictos, especialmente en el Indo-Pacífico. Algunos analistas, como el general Mick Ryan de Australia, destacan que "más allá de Europa, nuestros adversarios están atentos". 

La historia de la OTAN ha sido siempre impredecible. En sus primeros años, figuras como el general Dwight D. Eisenhower —primer Comandante Supremo Aliado en Europa (SACEUR)— y el secretario general Hastings Ismay impulsaron informes y análisis para entender tanto los éxitos como los fracasos de la alianza. Documentos como "NATO: The First Five Years" (1954), elaborado en parte por Eve Curie, hija de Marie Curie, ofrecen perspectivas valiosas sobre su evolución. Hoy, con escenarios que van desde la frontera oriental de Estonia —donde la ciudad de Narva simboliza la tensión histórica entre Rusia y Occidente— hasta la posible guerra por Taiwán (con estimaciones que varían entre 2025 y 2027), la OTAN enfrenta un futuro lleno de incertidumbres. Como señalaba Eisenhower, "incluso si fallamos, debemos entender por qué".