Nato: The Ancient Alliance

Abstract

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is both one of the longest-lasting regional security alliances in history, and one of the most important and visible factors in current U.S. foreign policy. This in turn provides continuing insight into the paradoxes, tensions and ironies of the relationships involved. The pact is now almost forty years old. Arguably, however, the principal problems animating Alliance relations have changed very little over the past three decades. The overall strategic balance between the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, may have shifted—at least in sheer military terms—from favouring the former to favouring the latter; the relationships between different Atlantic-area states and the rest of the international system may have changed in various ways; and there has clearly been a diminution in the political influence of Washington on European capitals. This in turn is connected to the shifting economic relations among the Allies as the American hegemony has waned.