Nationale Aussen- und Bündnispolitk der NATO-Mitgliedstaaten (review)

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), founded in April 1949, is the only major U.S. alliance to survive the Cold War. Other American-led alliances such as the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, the Central Treaty Organization, and the Rio Pact did not make it through the 1970s. NATO has not only survived but has expanded and continues to grow even with the defeat and dissolution of its main adversaries, the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact.

NATO represented a significant break in U.S. diplomatic practice and its traditional aversion to "entangling alliances" as well as a fundamental transformation of the European security system. Nationale Aussen- und Bündnispolitk der NATO-Mitgliedstaaten looks at the origins of this unique alliance from the perspective of the sixteen original member-states during the period from the end of the Second World War through 1956. The book provides a comparative perspective on such common formative events as the coup in Prague in February 1948, the Korean war, the Suez crisis, and the Hungarian revolution. The Korean War was decisive in ensuring that NATO would become an integrated military alliance focused on a substantial U.S. military presence in Europe. After Suez and Hungary in 1956, the postwar European order was stabilized until the end of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The book is intended to fill a gap in historical research on what the editors call, "Atlantic politics," treating NATO history in the same manner as that of European integration. The editors argue that NATO is more than a traditional military alliance and is rather like the European Union (EU), a political and economic community of states sharing liberal democratic values. The nature of this new type of association could be seen in its formative years when a variety of national interests and political cultures of small, medium, and large states were brought together to create this new form of alliance.

The chapters in the book, written by historians from each of the countries involved, examine the domestic politics and strategic cultures of the sixteen states and demonstrate how remarkable it was that a transatlantic consensus could emerge. The volume is part of a series commissioned by the the German Bundeswehr's Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt (MGFA), the military historical research institute based in Potsdam, and makes good use of archival materials, many of which have only recently been made available to researchers, including documents released by NATO to the MGFA. The volume is a good example of comparative contemporary history.

The elements of continuity in this history are remarkable. The preference for NATO over a European defense force, as was made clear with the defeat of the proposed European Defense Community in the mid-1950s, seems to persist in the post– Cold War era. The interests and motives of decision-makers in the 1940s and 1950s remain familiar in the twenty-first century. Alcide De Gasperi 's desire for Italy's equal status with the other European powers after World War II was the same motive behind many of Silvio Berlusconi's policies.in 2001–2006 France's preference for a European alternative, and its insistence on being part of a small leading directorate of powers in any transatlantic structure that might be set up, long preceded Charles de Gaulle and the Fifth Republic. Britain's overriding wish to keep the United States engaged in European security in order to offset Soviet power and contain Germany's desire for both security and a recovery of its status and sovereignty was a consistent theme no matter who was in power. The desire of smaller states such as Norway, Denmark, Belgium, and the Netherlands to enjoy the protection of a distant great power in order to compensate for their own lack of military strength still exists today.

The splits that emerged over the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003have raised fundamental questions about the viability of NATO. Does the alliance have a convincing rationale after...