Journal Article

NATO: from Kosovo to Kabul

SPERLING, JAMES, WEBBER, MARK

2009

Overview

NATO has throughout its history been the subject of prognostications of crisis and dissolution. Indeed, the alliance has been written off so many times that crisis as normality has come to typify its development. In the twenty-year history of NATO's post-Cold War development, Operation Allied Force stands midway between the existential moment that was the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the current travails being experienced in Afghanistan. A comparison of NATO's experience in the Balkans and in the Afghan theatre suggests that the view of a NATO perched permanently at the edge of collapse is problematic and misleading. This is not to defend alliance actions as such but rather to suggest that the narrative of crisis and collapse makes for poor analysis and underestimates NATO's proclivity for adaptation and endurance.

• Publisher: Blackwell Publishing Ltd,Blackwell Publishing, Ltd,Oxford University Press
• Subject: Adaptation / Afghanistan War / Alliances / Armed conflict / Cold War / Cold wars / Collapse / Comparative analysis / Comparative studies / Crises / Dissolution / East and West / History / International Alliances / International cooperation / International organizations / International relations / Kosovo / Military alliances / Military history / Military Intervention / Military operations / Multinational operations / Narratives / NATO / Normality / Organizational Change / Political campaigns / Post Cold War Period / Post-Cold War / Recent political history / Security Policy / Theater / War / Warfare