NATO: from Kosovo to Kabul
Sperling, James; Webber, Mark
International Aaffairs, Spring 2009, v31, #3, pp491-511
"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."
James Sperling is Professor of Political Science at the University of Akron, Ohio. Mark Webber is Professor of International Politics and Head of the Department of Politics, International Relations and European Studies, Loughborough University.
Go to the article at:
http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/files/13915_85_3sperling_webber.pdf
F10/03-09, posted June 23, 2009
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