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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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 NATO treaty had been ratified by the US Senate, the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb at a test range in Kazakhstan."

"US B–29 bombers training alongside British, French, Belgian and Dutch aircraft, tanks and troops."

"By 1950 the Soviet Union still had some four million troops under arms, and was able to call on a further 800,000 from across the Eastern bloc. The entire US military strength was now down to less than 1.5 million, spread across the globe, barely 10 per cent of that in 1945."

"On 9 May 1950, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman proposed a ‘European Coal and Steel Community’,"

"At 4 a.m. local time on the morning of 25 June 1950, North Korean artillery began a devastating barrage as its army poured into South Korea, supported by up to 200 Russian-supplied aircraft."

"abandoned.17 ‘If South Korea falls,’ US broadcaster Ed Murrow told his listeners, ‘it is only reasonable to expect . . . that there will be other and bolder ventures.’18"

"‘The Korean War did not so much change NATO as give urgency to ideas"

"Leading the first permanent US delegation was Charles ‘Chuck’ Spofford, a New York lawyer soon elected to chair the NAC itself, with Achilles as his deputy."

"The speed of events in Korea continued to bring mounting shock."

"If a Soviet offensive came to Europe, the war would be lost or won in West Germany, not yet part of the alliance."

"Chancellor Conrad Adenauer."

"‘The fate of the world will not be decided in Korea but in the heart of Europe,’"

"On 1 October, as UN forces crossed into North Korea, Kim Il Sung requested China intervene with force – and fast. On 25 October the Chinese offensive began. As commander on the ground, General Douglas MacArthur openly called for the use of US nuclear weapons, only to be publicly rebuffed by Truman."

"On Monday 23 October 1950 Dwight D. Eisenhower – a civilian since stepping down as head of the US Army in February 1948 and now president of New York’s Columbia University – received"

"a"

"message to phone the White House. He was immediately put through to Truman, who, Eisenhower later related in his diary, said, ‘He should like to have me come to Washington for a conversation, to talk in general terms about an assignment for me involving a command for the Atlantic pact defensive forces.’"

"The official decision on a NATO supreme commander came from the North Atlantic Council meeting in Brussels on 18 December 1950."

"By the next day, Colonel Robert Brown – who had built Eisenhower’s World War Two HQ before D-Day – was on the ground at the Hôtel Astoria"

"in Paris"

"several truckloads of US troops driving down from Heidelberg to lift boxes, furniture and equipment.34"

"For Churchill, Bevin was a ‘valiant spirit’ and ‘wartime comrade’, while Truman called him ‘the embodiment of rugged honesty and the ancient English virtues’." 

The Eisenhower Spiral (1951–1952) Eisenhower’s tenure as SACEUR was marked by efforts to strengthen NATO’s military capabilities while maintaining political cohesion. The alliance’s adopted a strategy of "massive retaliation," which relied on nuclear weapons to offset the Soviet Union’s conventional superiority. This approach was controversial, particularly in Europe, where many saw it as too risky. The return of West Germany to sovereignty and its eventual integration into NATO in 1955 was a major achievement, but it also deepened divisions within the alliance. France, in particular, was wary of German rearmament and sought to maintain its own independent defense posture. The alliance expanded to include Greece and Turkey, and having a border with the USSR. Eisenhower’s leadership helped NATO weather these early storms, setting the stage for its evolution into a more cohesive and capable organization.

"Eisenhower sketched out to Montgomery his battle plan in the event of any Soviet assault:"

"In Paris, what would become the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) was receiving its first senior staff, the vast majority American. Many had served with Eisenhower since the middle of the Second World War – and would guide NATO through much of its first decade."

"Western Europe had a population of around 350 million people, enormous industrial capability and a highly skilled workforce – they simply should not be afraid of 190 million ‘backward’ Soviets. The reason that they were, he said, was that there was disunity in the West, while the Soviets were united.11 It was a conviction Eisenhower would hold throughout his presidency and life, noting repeatedly in his diary12"

"a rise in demand for ‘neutralism’,"

"‘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.’13"

"‘NATO needs an eloquent and inspired Moses as much as it needs planes, tanks, guns and ships.’15"

"‘Our problem,’ he told Army Chief of Staff Joseph Collins, ‘is one of selling and inspiring.’"

"John F. Kennedy,"

"first time that"

"argument had been made on Capitol Hill – that the US needed to add conditions to its defence of Europe, or consider pulling out."

"For the first half of 1951 NATO’s home in Paris remained the Hôtel Astoria on the Champs-Élysées,"

"final site at Rocquencourt, in forests 25 kilometres west of Paris on the presidential shooting estate."

"forces.24 As Eisenhower declared SHAPE operational at the start of April, Monty sat in the front row of senior commanders in his trademark beret, the two military leaders who had"

"liberated Western Europe beside each other once again."

"Senator Robert Taft,"

"refusing to commit himself to supporting NATO."

"Herbert Hoover,"

"‘American Gibraltar’,"

"US avoided overseas entanglements and relied on its nuclear arsenal to keep it separate from the outside world."

"Eisenhower felt he did not wish to see another Democratic victory."

"particularly what he saw as wasteful and addictive New Deal-style spending."

"Eisenhower had confided to his diary for the first time his worries over the skyrocketing costs of modern arms.32"

"We can only say that properly balanced strength will promote the possibility of avoiding war."

"national security and national solvency are mutually dependent, and that permanent maintenance of a crushing weight of military power would eventually produce dictatorship,"

"Turkish and Greek accession was agreed in October 1951, and would be signed in Lisbon in February 1952.39"

"eastwards, giving it a border with the Soviet Union for the first time."

"right: if Western democracy was to be defended but not bankrupted, a balance must be struck."

"in October 1951 Eisenhower had finally secretly conceded his Republican allegiance and pledged to resign his commission if offered the nomination." 

Massive Retaliation, Massive Divisions (1952–1958) The U.S. adopted a strategy of "massive retaliation". The deployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, and the growing divide between the U.S. and its European allies. While the U.S. saw nuclear deterrence as the most cost-effective way to counter the Soviet threat, European nations were increasingly concerned about the risks of escalation and the lack of control over American nuclear forces. The Suez Crisis (1956), which exposed rifts between NATO members, particularly between the U.S. and its European allies (Britain and France). The crisis underscored the limits of NATO’s unity when national interests diverged. Despite these tensions, the alliance continued to expand, with the admission of West Germany in 1955 and the development of a more integrated military command structure.

"In barely a year, Eisenhower had built a genuine NATO military organisation and command structure"

"NATO’s total strength to ninety-eight divisions of ground forces by 1954, all capable of mobilising within ninety days"

"NATO planning session on the use of atomic weapons, commander of NATO air forces Lauris Norstad later recalled his planners making the assumption that US forces in Europe might only have fifteen atomic bombs available"

"Nuclear war, national leaders and their populations came to realise, might produce almost instantaneous extinction."

"Lord Hastings Ismay,"

"NATO needed another superstar."

"Ismay and his team established NATO’s International Secretariat, initially using a prefabricated annexe next to the Palais de Chaillot,"

"known as ‘Papa OTAN’ (‘Father NATO’), Ismay prided himself on keeping the initial structure lean – by July 1954 the total number of civilian staff, including interpreters and translators, was still only 189.10"

"The Ismay era would see NATO take on many of the features, functions and activities that would last for generations."

"‘Practically everything accomplished through an international organisation is accomplished not in meetings but in the delegates’ lounge over coffee, tea, martinis, whiskey or vodka,’ Achilles later noted.12"

"Britain must build its own nuclear device – ‘Whatever it costs,’"

"On 3 October 1952, as Churchill’s new Conservative government approached its second year in office, the resulting device was detonated off Australia.17"

"On 15 April 1952 the first prototype B–52 bomber made its maiden flight,"

"The same month, the US Army allocated the codename ‘Redstone’ to its first nuclear-capable ballistic missile – a direct descendant of Nazi Germany’s V2, designed by the same creator, Wernher von Braun."

"Eisenhower’s new Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles"

"In June 1953 construction workers in East Berlin downed tools to protest over pay and conditions and call for democratic rights."

"immediately, Russian tanks poured into East Berlin."

"than 250 men and women were killed,"

"1,000 were imprisoned."

"On 27 July 1953 an armistice ended fighting along the Korean peninsula in positions close to their pre-war starting points."

"the US, defence and diplomatic voices"

"believed that only through explicitly threatening the use of massive nuclear force in the face of even a conventional attack could NATO keep the peace."

"Soviet propaganda"

"of a ‘Europe for the Europeans’,"

"Europeans’,"

"and Al Gruenther, Chief of Staff since Eisenhower had arrived in 1951, became supreme commander."

"‘human IBM machine, the perfect staff officer, the smartest man in the US Army, the most factual man of his times’.36"

"to admit West Germany to NATO,"

"Treaty. As 1955 began,"

"NATO’s purpose was ‘to keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down’."

"in"

"May 1955. Clearly inspired by the Atlantic alliance, the ‘Warsaw Pact’ tied together the Communist governments of the Soviet Union, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Albania and East Germany, potentially in perpetuity."

"Soviet ‘peace propaganda’ was becoming ‘dangerous’. A new word was now emerging: ‘détente’,"

"‘relaxation of relations’,"

"used to refer to Kremlin efforts to improve relations,"

"French Indochina (shortly to be known as Vietnam),"

"In May 1954 the Russian and Chinese-backed Vietcong under Ho Chi Minh"

"mid-1956, Nasser"

"the Anglo-French"

"Suez Canal"

"he announced it would be nationalised.43"

"Europe.52 On 29 October, Israel struck in Egypt,"

"Anglo-French airstrikes and an airborne assault."

"Hungary’.54"

"the alliance found itself effectively a bystander to both Hungary and Suez,"

"for the coming decades."

"NATO would discuss how to make itself either more effective at decision-making or more responsive to its smaller members."

"decision-making or more responsive to its smaller members. The real power, however, would remain with the US and"

"The real power, however, would remain with"

"the larger states, with the secretary general in the middle."

"it was not as bad as Suez." 

Sputnik, Nukes, and Charles de Gaulle (1957–1960) The launch of Sputnik in 1957 and the subsequent space race intensified Cold War tensions and raised questions about NATO’s reliance on U.S. nuclear guarantees. French President Charles de Gaulle pursued an independent nuclear deterrent and criticized U.S. dominance within the alliance. France’s development of its own nuclear arsenal strained transatlantic relations.

"In May 1957, Ismay stood down as NATO secretary general after five years in office, to be replaced by Belgium’s Paul-Henri Spaak,"

"NATO had survived the Suez crisis."

"In January 1957, Eisenhower met Harold Macmillan – who had succeeded a fatally damaged Eden as prime minister"

"NATO now had its fourth SACEUR,"

"Lauris Norstad"

"Norstad would be the last of the ‘Eisenhower dynasty’"

"America’s Thor and Jupiter land-based missiles were about to enter service, capable of hurling an atomic warhead up to 1,700 miles."

"Regulus cruise missiles"

"In October 1957, Russia launched the world’s first ever satellite – ‘Sputnik’"

"The December 1957 leaders’ summit, the first in NATO history, would come to represent a significant step towards the modern pattern of NATO life"

"Eisenhower’s presence, the suggestion of ‘nuclear sharing’"

"The alliance would enter the 1960s with US-built missiles deployed in Britain, Italy and Turkey"

"Dulles met de Gaulle in Paris on 5 July,"

"Berlin depended.23 On 14 November, Soviet troops stopped US trucks heading along the 110-kilometre autobahn from the West German border to Berlin,"

"Berlin was not strictly NATO territory – and the US, French and British troops there were not under the direct command of NATO."

"De Gaulle was clearly angry with the alliance, viewing it as potentially infringing French sovereignty by controlling French forces in time of war – but he also wanted the alliance to do more globally to support French ambitions including in its colonies."

"‘not interested’ in cooperating with NATO on infrastructure, nuclear weapons or anything else"

"early 1959"

"Eisenhower invited Khrushchev to the White House."

"on 1 May, a US U2 spy plane operated by the CIA was shot down deep within Russian airspace and pilot Gary Powers was swiftly taken prisoner."

"The summit in Paris broke up early, Eisenhower’s"

"Eisenhower’s invitation to visit Russia rudely cancelled.43"

"‘We sent our divisions there to help them in an emergency,’ Eisenhower complained to Norstad in August 1959. ‘Now if we talk about taking out one division, they claim we are deserting them.’45" 

Testing Kennedy in Berlin (1961) The Berlin Crisis of 1961, which culminated in the construction of the Berlin Wall, was a critical test for NATO. President John F. Kennedy’s firm response to Soviet provocations reassured European allies but also highlighted the risks of miscalculation. The crisis demonstrated NATO’s ability to stand united in the face of Soviet aggression, even as internal disagreements over strategy persisted.

"The Eisenhower–Kennedy transition marked a major shift for NATO."

"the White House in January 1961 ‘JFK’ and those around him were more acutely aware of the risks of imminent atomic war than any administration before or since. The first US military Single Integrated Operational Plan, SIOP-62, drafted the previous year, allocated 3,200 nuclear warheads to target Russia, China and other Communist nations in the event of war, and was predicted to kill between 360 and 450 million people.5"

"Dirk Stikker became the next NATO civilian chief."

"On 6 January 1961, Khrushchev gave a bullish speech in which he backed ‘wars of liberation’"

"Kennedy, Rusk and new Defense Secretary Robert McNamara believed, was a more ‘flexible response’,"

"At their first meeting in Austria on 4 June, Khrushchev threatened Russia might recognise East Germany as a separate state and end the 1945 Potsdam deal that allowed Anglo–French–American occupation of West Berlin."

"Kennedy warned, ‘If that’s to be the case, there will be war, Mr Chairman.’23"

"With tensions rising US Defense Secretary McNamara and SACEUR Norstad lobbied Kennedy for an increase of US forces in Europe."

"By February 1961,"

"On 12 August, East Germany announced it was closing all but thirteen of the 120 Berlin crossing points,"

"As the ‘Berlin Wall’ became a reality, two Soviet divisions surrounded the city in a show of force"

"White House announced that Vice President Johnson and retired General Lucius Clay – commandant in Berlin during the original Berlin airlift in 1948, and hugely popular within the city – would fly into Berlin."

"‘Checkpoint Charlie’ Friedrichstrasse crossing point."

"‘our allies outside the [LIVE OAK] four are becoming increasingly concerned over the dangers of the situation and restive under a system which they feel does not respect their desire for adequate consultation’."

"Soviet and East German border guards would continue to allow Allied military personnel into East Berlin for the remainder of the Cold War. No one was happy with the situation. ‘It’s not a very nice solution,’ Kennedy noted privately, ‘but a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.’44"

"McNamara believed major combat operations might be possible across swathes of Germany without a nuclear exchange, while Norstad believed such a conflict would be nuclear almost from the start."

"The allies,"

"Rusk wrote to Kennedy, ‘now understand . . . our reasons for seeking alternatives between surrender and incineration’.54" 

Cuba (1962) The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest the world came to nuclear war, and it had profound implications for NATO. The alliance supported the U.S. during the standoff, even as European members worried about being drawn into a conflict they had little control over. The crisis reinforced the importance of transatlantic consultation and led to the creation of the Nuclear Planning Group, which gave European allies a greater say in NATO’s nuclear strategy.

"the eternal NATO paradox – the Europeans often claimed to want greater engagement, but did not always want to be implicated in the decision-making or diplomatic fallout, let alone any further military spending."

"in April 1962,"

"‘I think the immediate crisis in Berlin . . . is over and that we have won this round,’ he said, describing economic and cultural vitality returning to West Berlin and supplies continuing through the East German and Soviet cordon.3"

"allies explicitly agreed to maintain West Berlin as a US–Anglo–French pocket deep within East Germany,"

"Norstad felt his own relationship with the White House deteriorating. In July he would finally offer Kennedy his resignation,"

"its first major internal spy scandal. At the end of 1961,"

"For the growing number of senior officials in the know, the depth of Soviet penetration into Europe, particularly France, Germany, Britain and Sweden, was acutely embarrassing."

"By mid-October 1962 there were, in fact, already 162 Soviet warheads on Cuba, including ninety tactical devices.16"

"In Washington, officials suggested a US attack on Cuba might prompt a Russian seizure of West Berlin."

"concluded that a blockade was the best option on the table, and that it must be briefed to European and Canadian allies. Airstrikes and an invasion would also be prepared.21"

"On 21 October, he gave explicit instructions – making a point to ensure the recorders were switched on – that orders be sent to the Jupiter crews there that, no matter what happened in the coming days, no missile was to be unleashed without his personal authorisation."

"Except for the Jupiters in Turkey, which Kennedy had specifically restricted, SAC commanders – including of fast jets based at Incirlik, also within Turkey – had authority to launch their nuclear weapons if they had ‘unambiguous’ evidence of war."

"‘As this situation has developed, I have given much thought to the impacts upon NATO and your task as SACEUR,’ Kennedy wrote in a cable on 22 October. ‘I have regretted the inability to widen the circle of discussion during this period and particularly to enlist the support of NATO governments . . . While I know that our action creates a difficult situation for you . . . I have every confidence in your leadership and experience to help us over this critical period.’28"

"the Kennedy administration judged the role of NATO allies as ‘very marginal’ in times of trouble,"

"From beginning to end, US forces earmarked and assigned to NATO had operated largely or effectively independently under direct US command"

"the US expressed its frustrations over Europe’s limited commitment to its own defence. ‘My impression is that other [European] ministers are getting seriously concerned, partly because they sense that US patience is running out,’"

"‘Whether this will result in effective action [to build Europe’s own defences] remains to be seen.’65"

"On 5 November, barely a week after the Cuba crisis ended, Acheson visited the US Military Academy at West Point to talk about the lessons learned for NATO."

"NATO,"

"was approaching the fourteenth anniversary of its birth. ‘Like a youth of the same age,’ he said, ‘it is growing out of its clothes.’67"

"‘In the 1940s and 1950s, the threats to NATO were really external. In the 1960s and ’70s, the threats were all internal.’" 

DÉTENTE, DISAGREEMENTS AND REAGAN

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" 

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." 

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

The COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine tested NATO’s resilience. The alliance united to support Ukraine and reinforce its eastern flank, proving its continued relevance in an era of renewed great-power rivalry.

"Three days into January, Trump ordered a drone strike on Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander Qasem Soleimani as his convoy passed through Baghdad International Airport,"

"America and NATO’s longest war was eighteen years old – soldiers entering service born after 9/11 were now serving in the same conflict as their fathers. Since 2001 the US had spent more than $132 billion"

"higher than that to rebuild Europe after World War Two."

"With February came the first tanks, vehicles and personnel of a planned US deployment of 20,000 for America’s largest show of force on the continent since REFORGER in the 1980s."

"international health officials warned that the Covid-19 ‘influenza’ already raging in the Chinese city of Wuhan might go global."

"On 7 March a US Navy sailor based in Naples became the first US service member to test positive, with US authorities promising a thorough investigation to limit further spread.12"

"The Pentagon announced that multiple exercises, including DEFENDER, were now being cancelled or significantly scaled back,14"

"On Wednesday 18 March, NAC ambassadors met to discuss the crisis in an otherwise largely empty chamber."

"The next day, Belgium joined France, Spain and Italy in declaring a total lockdown."

"The spectacle of Russian military vehicles thundering through Italy adorned with the slogan ‘From Russia with Love’ took NATO closer to its own ‘abyss’. ‘This is a big success story for Putin,’ said one diplomat within the alliance."

"announced. ‘The mindset is: Americans are leaving,’"

"‘The Taliban are coming today or tomorrow. Everybody is trying to align somehow with them.’40"

"By the end of 2020, the World Health Organisation estimated more than three million had died worldwide because of the pandemic.46 Another analysis a year later significantly increased that estimate, suggesting nearly 15 million excess deaths over 2020 and 2021, although how many were directly due to Covid – or, indeed, to lockdown-related causes – remains impossible to know.47 Across the European Union, GDP fell by more than 6 per cent, a larger slump than during the global financial crisis.48"

"Within days of the March 2021 ministerial meeting, Russia commenced its first dramatic military mobilisation along the borders of Ukraine. Among Eastern and Central European nations, it was seen as a classic Kremlin ploy to test the new Biden administration"

"The Biden–Putin Geneva meeting itself was unshowy in the extreme, the two leaders addressing the press briefly before their discussions and holding separate press conferences afterwards."

"On 15 August, Taliban elements reached the outskirts of the city, and the acting US ambassador ordered the closure of the US mission."

"allies had lost 3,812 personnel in Afghanistan over two decades, thirteen of them US soldiers killed in a bomb blast on the airport perimeter in the final days. Of those, 2,461 were American,"

"In the early hours of 30 August 2021, the last US flight left Kabul."

"a propaganda victory, a chance to signal to both Taiwan and"

"Ukraine that they too would ultimately be abandoned."

"Kremlin’s autumn 2021 ZAPAD military drills had not been removed."

"Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces on high alert.74"

"withdrawing from the ‘nuclear sharing’ agreement created by SACEUR Lauris Norstad under the Eisenhower administration that stored US atomic bombs in multiple NATO states for their forces to use in time of war.75" 

THE ROAD TO 2049

29. From Vilnius to Washington (2023–2024)

NATO’s 2023 Vilnius Summit addressed Ukraine’s potential membership and the need for long-term deterrence against Russia. The chapter explores the alliance’s future challenges, including balancing U.S. and European priorities.

"The first covered the High North and Atlantic, coordinated by NATO’s new Joint Force Command in Norfolk, Virginia. The second covered the Baltic to the Alps, led by NATO’s Allied Joint Force Command from Brunssum in the"

"Netherlands – currently under an Italian general – and regarded as the most likely flashpoint in any crisis. The third covered the south-east of the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, commanded as usual by the HQ in Naples. Both the northern and Mediterranean plans were overseen by the senior US naval officers in those regions, in many ways a return to the former Cold War structures."

"NATO’s five ‘domains’ of warfare – land, sea, air, space and cyber"

"Military Committee Chairman Admiral Bauer,"

"‘Preventing World War Three’, Trump pledged to ‘finish the process we began . . . of fundamentally re-evaluating NATO’s purpose and NATO’s mission’.19"

"NATO members on the eastern flank were bilaterally negotiating with major European states and Canada for troops in a way the alliance had never really seen before."

"from Belarus to link up with the Russian enclave in Kaliningrad,"

"‘Suwałki Gap’."

"Lithuania’s GRIFFIN STORM military drills."

"The Vilnius and Berlin governments announced that Germany would base up to 4,000 soldiers permanently in Lithuania."

"Canada announced a similar deal to enlarge the Canadian-led eFP battle group in Latvia."

"if Kyiv began taking territory considered Russian there would be ‘no other way out’ beyond launching atomic arms.44"

"attacks were getting closer to NATO’s borders."

"Wagner Group forcing new recruits to sign a contract agreeing to fight in Poland and Lithuania if ordered.50" 

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.

"2023 congressional report on the US global strategic posture. ‘Today the United States is on the cusp of having not one, but two nuclear peer adversaries each with ambitions to change the international status quo by force if necessary:"

Summer 2023 saw the US Navy holding its largest global conflict simulation in decades, putting commanders and forces in the field through a hypothetical conflict ranging from the Atlantic to the Pacific, Mediterranean and Arctic. 

"strategic shock – first Covid-19, then the collapse in Afghanistan, Ukraine invasion and finally the Gaza war."

"Australian Major General Mick Ryan, one of the leading voices in the study of contemporary conflict,"

"command post exercise in recent decades, STEADFAST JUPITER, kicked off in October 2023, its planners acknowledged the scenario required repeated updating to keep track of real-world events.11"

"a much larger war involving Russia and China"

"in September 2022, roughly six months into the invasion, the alliance took the unusual step of publicly highlighting its annual STEADFAST NOON atomic drills.19"

"the return of US nuclear weapons to Britain for the first time since the 2000s.21 In 2022, France made a point of sending three of its four ballistic missile submarines to sea simultaneously to demonstrate their wartime preparedness and resilience.22"

"‘nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war.’23"

"‘Every loss Russia suffers in Ukraine is one which it will have to replace after the war,’"

"Moscow’s ever-evolving relationship with Beijing is also difficult to predict,"

"‘Beyond Europe, we know that our allies and – perhaps most importantly – our adversaries and competitors are watching,’"

"of US Air Mobility Command warned of war over Taiwan as soon as 2025, while other Taiwanese and US officials talked of 2027 as a more likely date.40"

"‘false choice’ between high-tech new systems like artificial intelligence-operated drones and the old-fashioned military ‘mass’ of artillery, machine guns, tanks and personnel."

"DIANA: the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic,"

"NATO’s 2021 summit communiqué included a clause noting that an attack on the space infrastructure or resources of a member nation might be considered enough to trigger Article 5 in the future.47"

"Ironically, among the most prepared NATO nations for this kind of challenge are those joining it most recently: specifically, Sweden and Finland."

"Estonia’s eastern border city Narva,"

"with two ancient Russian and Danish-built fortresses facing each other across a gorge and river."

"The history of NATO has never been predictable – and there is still everything to play for in the years to come."

"One of Eisenhower’s first actions on appointment as SACEUR was to recall to military service US Army Lieutenant Colonel Roy Lamson, a history professor who had served as an official military historian during World War Two. If NATO’s new military command structure worked as intended, Eisenhower told him, it would be a model for future cooperation, adding: ‘Even if it fails, we should know the reasons why.’1"

"Lamson oversaw the initial classified history of SHAPE and NATO’s entire military structure, written annually until 1956 and now declassified in full. NATO’s first Secretary General Hastings Ismay put his name to another invaluable report, ‘NATO: The First Five Years’, published in 1954 and in fact put together mostly by Eve Curie, daughter of the scientist Marie.2 Jack Hickerson and Theodore Achilles also left their own extensive accounts of NATO’s creation in the Truman presidential oral history archive, in the case of Achilles supplemented by his own small but detailed personally published memoir."