scholarly journals The Reconstruction of NATO in the Post Trump Era

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 10-17
Author(s):  
Ige Kehinde Moses
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Leadership Roles ◽  
Member States ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Collective Defense ◽  
Analytical Approaches ◽  
Proper Solutions

The complexities inherent in the process of reconstruction is one that cannot be overemphasized, most importantly, the need to reconstruct NATO in the post Trump era. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was established in 1949 with the aim of providing collective security against threats and ideological conflicts posed by the Soviet Union. The United States of America has since then played strategic, pivotal and leadership roles for the sustainability of NATO. The organization's essential purpose is to safeguard the liberty and security of all its members by both political and military endeavors. Collective defense and security heart is the alliance, as well as the need to foster unity, solidarity and cohesion amongst member states. This paper, hinged on historical and analytical approaches, examines the essence of NATO from a historical perspective, and proper solutions as regards the reconstruction of NATO in the post Trump era. Evidently, realities on ground show the need to reconcile alongside member states, the vision and purpose of NATO in the 21st Century.

scholarly journals Military Security in Central and Eastern Europe – from overarching principles to current NATO perspectives

2019 ◽  
Vol 193 (3) ◽  
pp. 547-557
Author(s):  
Sławomir Wojciechowski
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Collective Defense ◽  
Military Security ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Adaptation Processes

This year, NATO is celebrating its 70th anniversary and the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty. The Alliance was founded in the early days of the Cold War, but found itself in a new geopolitical situation after the col-lapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the bipolar world. The organi-zation has been transforming ever since and over time this transfor-mation has included both expansion and adaptation to new circum-stances. With the return of Russian neo-imperial ambitions in the re-cent years, NATO has been given new impetus. Emerging threats and challenges, which are mainly of a military nature, have been addressed by NATO through further recent adaptation processes which were based on the return to the core role of the Alliance, namely collective defense and deterrence. This, in turn, has created a boost of NATO ac-tivity on the ground, which means that improvement with regard to interoperability and integration is now in high demand.

Shaping the postwar balance of power: multilateralism in NATO

1992 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 633-680 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Weber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The North Atlantic ◽  
Multilateral Organization ◽  
John Ruggie

At the end of the 1940s, the United States and several West European states allied to defend themselves against invasion by the Soviet Union. Balance-ofpower theory predicts the recurrent formation of such balances among states. But it says little about the precise nature of the balance, the principles on which it will be constructed, or its institutional manifestations. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been a peculiar mix. As a formal institution, NATO has through most of its history been distinctly nonmultilateral, with the United States commanding most decision-making power and responsibility. At the same time, NATO provided security to its member states in a way that strongly reflected multilateral principles. Within NATO, security was indivisible. It was based on a general organizing principle, the principle that the external boundaries of alliance territory were completely inviolable and that an attack on any border was an attack on all. Diffuse reciprocity was the norm. In the terms set out by John Ruggie, NATO has generally scored low as a multilateral organization but high as an institution of multilateralism.

Conflict and Cooperation in Intra-Alliance Nuclear Politics: Western Europe, the United States, and the Genesis of NATO's Dual-Track Decision, 1977–1979

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Spohr Readman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Conflict And Cooperation ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Missiles ◽  
East West

On the basis of recently released archival sources from several member-states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), this article revisits the making of NATO's landmark 1979 dual-track decision. The article examines the intersecting processes of personal, bureaucratic, national, and alliance high politics in the broader Cold War context of increasingly adversarial East-West relations. The discussion sheds new light on how NATO tried to augment its deterrent capability via the deployment of long-range theater nuclear missiles and why ultimately an arms control proposal to the Soviet Union was included as an equal strand. The 1979 decision owed most to West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's political thought and initiative. Intra-alliance decision-making, marked by transatlantic conflict and cooperation, benefitted from the creativity and agency of West German, British, and Norwegian officials. Contrary to popular impressions, the United States did not truly lead the process.

From Helsinki to “Mars”

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 34-94
Author(s):  
Douglas Selvage
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Eastern Bloc ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The One ◽  
East West

Abstract After the signing of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) at Helsinki on 1 August 1975, the Soviet Union sought to compel the West to accept its vision for détente. This meant, on the one hand, the acceptance of the political and social status quo within the Soviet bloc and, on the other hand, the “completion” of the existing political détente with “military détente”—namely, East-West arms control agreements that preserved or augmented existing Warsaw Pact advantages. To this end, the KGB and its Soviet-bloc partners undertook two parallel campaigns of active measures, “Synonym” and “Mars.” Despite tactical successes, both campaigns failed to achieve their goals. The United States, supported by other Western governments, continued to pressure the Eastern-bloc governments on human rights violations, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) continued to modernize its forces in Europe, most importantly with the stationing of U.S. Euromissiles in 1983 in accordance with NATO's dual-track decision of December 1979.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

1959 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 482-484 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
North Atlantic Treaty Organization ◽  
The United States ◽  
The North ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Press ◽  
Geneva Conference ◽  
Foreign Ministers

The Permanent Council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) met in Paris early in May 1959 to consider the proposals of the United States, France, and the United Kingdom for presentation to the Soviet Union at the forthcoming conference of foreign ministers. According to the press, the proposals won a favorable reception from the Council. No formal action of approval was required, but agreement was reached on the principle of a permanent liaison between the western ministers and the Council during the Geneva conference, scheduled to begin on May 11.

NATO-US Relations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Colbourn
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Leadership Role ◽  
European Continent ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The North Atlantic

On April 4, 1949, twelve nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty: the United States, Canada, Iceland, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Portugal, Italy, Norway, and Denmark. For the United States, the North Atlantic Treaty signaled a major shift in foreign policy. Gone was the traditional aversion to “entangling alliances,” dating back to George Washington’s farewell address. The United States had entered into a collective security arrangement designed to preserve peace in Europe. With the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the United States took on a clear leadership role on the European continent. Allied defense depended on US military power, most notably the nuclear umbrella. Reliance on the United States unsurprisingly created problems. Doubts about the strength of the transatlantic partnership and rumors of a NATO in shambles were (and are) commonplace, as were anxieties about the West’s strength in comparison to NATO’s Eastern counterpart, the Warsaw Pact. NATO, it turned out, was more than a Cold War institution. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Alliance remained vital to US foreign policy objectives. The only invocation of Article V, the North Atlantic Treaty’s collective defense clause, came in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Over the last seven decades, NATO has symbolized both US power and its challenges.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

1953 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 609-611
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Federal Republic ◽  
North Atlantic ◽  
North Atlantic Treaty Organization ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
German Federal Republic ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Military

During the summer of 1953, two questions of political importance to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization were raised. According to press reports, some NATO members felt that the Council should discuss the questions of Germany and of the policy which the west should adopt if the Soviet Union proposed full withdrawal of all foreign troops from Germany as a prelude to reunification. The eventual agreement, if any were reached, was not made known, but press reports indicated that there were several obstacles to such a discussion: 1) the German Federal Republic was not a member of NATO; 2) the United States did not want to consider publicly alternatives to the European Defense Community; 3) France opposed direct entrance of the German Federal Republic into NATO; and 4)other NATO members felt that the work of the organization should be first in the military, and eventually in the economic social and cultural fields but not in the political-diplomatic field.

The continuing threat of nuclear war

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Cirincione
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
The North ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
Nuclear Winter

The American poet Robert Frost famously mused on whether the world will end in fire or in ice. Nuclear weapons can deliver both. The fire is obvious: modern hydrogen bombs duplicate on the surface of the earth the enormous thermonuclear energies of the Sun, with catastrophic consequences. But it might be a nuclear cold that kills the planet. A nuclear war with as few as 100 hundred weapons exploded in urban cores could blanket the Earth in smoke, ushering in a years-long nuclear winter, with global droughts and massive crop failures. The nuclear age is now entering its seventh decade. For most of these years, citizens and officials lived with the constant fear that long-range bombers and ballistic missiles would bring instant, total destruction to the United States, the Soviet Union, many other nations, and, perhaps, the entire planet. Fifty years ago, Nevil Shute’s best-selling novel, On the Beach, portrayed the terror of survivors as they awaited the radioactive clouds drifting to Australia from a northern hemisphere nuclear war. There were then some 7000 nuclear weapons in the world, with the United States outnumbering the Soviet Union 10 to 1. By the 1980s, the nuclear danger had grown to grotesque proportions. When Jonathan Schell’s chilling book, The Fate of the Earth, was published in 1982, there were then almost 60,000 nuclear weapons stockpiled with a destructive force equal to roughly 20,000 megatons (20 billion tons) of TNT, or over 1 million times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. President Ronald Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ anti-missile system was supposed to defeat a first-wave attack of some 5000 Soviet SS-18 and SS-19 missile warheads streaking over the North Pole. ‘These bombs’, Schell wrote, ‘were built as “weapons” for “war”, but their significance greatly transcends war and all its causes and outcomes. They grew out of history, yet they threaten to end history. They were made by men, yet they threaten to annihilate man’.

14. US foreign policy in Russia

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Rutland ◽  
Gregory Dubinsky
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Bill Clinton ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Vladimir Putin

This chapter examines U.S. foreign policy in Russia. The end of the Cold War lifted the threat of nuclear annihilation and transformed the international security landscape. The United States interpreted the collapse of the Soviet Union as evidence that it had ‘won’ the Cold War, and that its values and interests would prevail in the future world order. The chapter first provides an overview of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 before discussing U.S.–Russian relations under Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin, respectively. It then turns to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its enlargement, the Kosovo crisis, and the ‘Great Game’ in Eurasia. It also analyses the rise of Vladimir Putin as president of Russia and the deterioration of U.S.–Russian relations and concludes with an assessment of the cautious partnership between the two countries.

14. US foreign policy in Russia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Rutland
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Bill Clinton ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
The North ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Vladimir Putin

This chapter examines US foreign policy in Russia. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 raised a number of questions that have profound implications for American foreign policy; for example, whether the Russian Federation, which inherited half the population and 70 per cent of the territory of the former Soviet Union, would become a friend and partner of the United States, a full and equal member of the community of democratic nations, or whether it would return to a hostile, expansionary communist or nationalist power. The chapter considers US–Russia relations at various times under Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin, George W. Bush, Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama, Dmitry Medvedev, and Donald Trump. It also discusses a host of issues affecting the US–Russia relations, including the enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the crisis in Kosovo and Ukraine, and the civil war in Syria.

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