Enduring Alliance A History of NATO and the Postwar Global Order Timothy Andrews Sayle
Born from necessity, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has always seemed on the verge of collapse. Even now, some seventy years after its inception, some consider its foundation uncertain and its structure weak. At this moment of incipient strategic crisis, Timothy A. Sayle offers a sweeping history of the most critical alliance in the post-World War II era. In Enduring Alliance, Sayle recounts how the western European powers, along with the United States and Canada, developed a treaty to prevent encroachments by the Soviet Union and to serve as a first defense in any future military conflict. As the growing and unruly hodgepodge of countries, councils, commands, and committees inflated NATO during the Cold War, Sayle shows that the work of executive leaders, high-level diplomats, and institutional functionaries within NATO kept the alliance alive and strong in the face of changing administrations, various crises, and the flux of geopolitical maneuverings. Resilience and flexibility have been the true hallmarks of NATO. As Enduring Alliance deftly shows, the history of NATO is organized around the balance of power, preponderant military forces, and plans for nuclear war. But it is also the history riven by generational change, the introduction of new approaches to conceiving international affairs, and the difficulty of diplomacy for democracies. As NATO celebrates its seventieth anniversary, the alliance once again faces challenges to its very existence even as it maintains its place firmly at the center of western hemisphere and global affairs. Timothy A. Sayle is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Toronto and a fellow of the Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History and the Southern Methodist University’s Center for Presidential History.
$34.95 hardcover 978-1-5017-3550-9 360 pages, 6 x 9, 10 b&w halftones, 2 maps
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“Sayle provides an in-depth analysis. . . [as] he contextualizes the personal perspectives of the alliance’s political, military, and diplomatic leadership. . . . Sayle persuasively makes the point that the primary fear among these leaders was not the Red Army crossing Germany’s Fulda Gap but rather the “problem of democracy” itself.”—Literary Review of Canada “The logic, history, and analysis of Enduring Alliance are impeccable, and Timothy Andrews Sayle’s account is particularly useful at this moment when the Atlantic partnership is on unsteady ground. A must-read for policymakers seeking to ensure the Pax Atlantic is the indispensable and truly enduring alliance of our times.”—Admiral James Stavridis, USN (Ret), Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, 2009-2013 “Sayle offers new insights, exposes various myths, and explores the complexities and challenges of this unique, oft-troubled, but resilient alliance. Must-read for scholars of history, security studies, and institutions, as well as anyone concerned about the state of NATO today.”—Francis J. Gavin, author ofNuclear Statecraft