Opening NATO's door: how the alliance remade itself for a by Ronald D. Asmus

By Ronald D. Asmus

How and why did NATO, a chilly struggle army alliance created in 1949 to counter Stalin's USSR, develop into the cornerstone of recent safety order for post-Cold conflict Europe? Why, rather than chickening out from Europe after communism's cave in, did the U.S. release the best enlargement of the yank dedication to the outdated continent in many years? Written by means of a high-level insider, Opening NATO's Door presents a definitive account of the guidelines, politics, and international relations that went into the ancient selection to extend NATO to important and japanese Europe. Drawing at the still-classified information of the U.S. division of nation, Ronald D. Asmus recounts how and why American policymakers, opposed to ambitious odds at domestic and out of the country, multiplied NATO as a part of a broader technique to triumph over Europe's chilly struggle divide and to modernize the Alliance for a brand new era.

Asmus used to be one of many earliest advocates and highbrow architects of NATO expansion to relevant and jap Europe after the cave in of communism within the early Nineties and therefore served as a most sensible aide to Secretary of kingdom Madeleine Albright and Deputy Secretary Strobe Talbott, answerable for ecu safeguard matters. He used to be inquisitive about the major negotiations that ended in NATO's determination to increase invites to Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, the signing of the NATO-Russia Founding Act, and at last, the U.S. Senate's ratification of enlargement.

Asmus records how the Clinton management sought to boost a purpose for a brand new NATO that may bind the U.S. and Europe jointly as heavily within the post-Cold conflict period as they'd been through the struggle opposed to communism. For the Clinton management, NATO expansion grew to become the center piece of a broader time table to modernize the U.S.-European strategic partnership for the longer term. That method mirrored an American dedication to the unfold of democracy and Western values, the significance hooked up to modernizing Washington's key alliances for an more and more globalized global, and the truth that the Clinton management seemed to Europe as America's usual associate in addressing the demanding situations of the twenty-first century.

As the Alliance weighs its the long run following the September eleven terrorist assaults at the U.S. and prepares for a moment around of expansion, this booklet is needed analyzing concerning the first post-Cold struggle attempt to modernize NATO for a brand new era.

Show description

Read Online or Download Opening NATO's door: how the alliance remade itself for a new era PDF

Best diplomacy books

The BRICS and the Future of Global Order

The transformation of the BRIC acronym from an funding time period right into a loved ones identify of overseas politics and, extra lately, right into a semi-institutionalized political outfit (called BRICS, with a capital ‘S’), is likely one of the defining advancements in overseas politics long ago decade. whereas the idea that is now favourite within the normal public debate and foreign media, there has no longer but been a complete and scholarly research of the background of the BRICS time period.

Fragmented Borders, Interdependence and External Relations: The Israel-Palestine-European Union Triangle

This publication investigates family among Israel, the Palestinian territories and the eu Union by way of contemplating them as interlinked entities, with family among any of the 3 events affecting the opposite aspect. The participants to this edited quantity discover varied elements of Israeli-Palestinian-European Union interconnectedness.

Islamic Law and Transnational Diplomatic Law: A Quest for Complementarity in Divergent Legal Theories

This e-book, in its attempt to formulate compatibility among Islamic legislations and the foundations of foreign diplomatic legislations, argues that the necessity to harmonize the 2 felony structures and feature an intensive cross-cultural figuring out among international locations in most cases in an effort to bettering unfettered diplomatic cooperation can be of paramount precedence.

Summits: Six Meetings That Shaped the Twentieth Century

The chilly battle ruled global historical past for almost part a century, locking superpowers in a world competition that purely ended with the Soviet cave in. the main decisive moments of twentieth-century international relations happened while global leaders met face to face—from the mishandled summit in Munich, 1938, which triggered the second one international warfare, to Ronald Reagan's striking chemistry with Mikhail Gorbachev at Geneva in 1985.

Extra resources for Opening NATO's door: how the alliance remade itself for a new era

Sample text

At the time on European security issues. It was an exciting time: the Berlin Wall would soon fall and much of the conventional wisdom on European security went out the window. S. strategy toward Europe and Russia. The Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary had turned to RAND for assistance in developing new national security strategies. Working with them provided a unique window into their thinking and aspirations to join NATO. Many of our new colleagues and friends were as pro-western and committed to the values NATO was pledged to defend as any of us.

With Clinton’s reelection in November 1996 and the nomination of Madeleine Albright as Secretary of State, that time had arrived. I knew Albright through my former RAND colleague, Jim Steinberg, who was about to become President Clinton’s Deputy National Security Advisor. She was looking for someone to be her point person on NATO enlargement. Talbott and Steinberg convinced her I should be it. I joined the Clinton Administration later that spring as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the State Department’s European Bureau under Assistant Secretary John Kornblum and, subsequently, Marc Grossman.

A second band of newly independent states would now emerge between NATO and Russia. It gave these countries new geopolitical room for maneuver. ”37 At a NATO summit in Rome in November 1991, the Alliance unveiled its own post–Cold War new look by issuing a new strategic concept and by launching the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) to reach out to the countries of the former Soviet bloc. But the collapse of the Soviet Union quickly outpaced these changes as well. The Alliance’s new strategic concept was drawn up for a world in which the USSR still existed and in which one of NATO’s primary roles was to deter a residual Soviet threat.

Download PDF sample

Rated 4.63 of 5 – based on 12 votes