NATO 1949-2009
A little more than 60 years after its creation, questions about the future of the Alliance emerge at the intersection of three observations. First, the complexity of the world, which makes the Alliance ‘inevitable,' since it is a rare source of stability and solidarity in a world marked by uncertainty. Second, American doubt. If the United States was the global policeman for some simple minds at the start of the 1990s, others see the US as having used up its power in the adventurism of the Bush Administration. The future will wipe out these two caricatures. For members of the Alliance, the US will long continue to be a necessary friend, whose power and possible abandonment are feared. The third observation is, obviously, Europe's incurable ethnocentricity: if Europeans knew how to look at the world and their place in it, they would rapidly give up their mediocre powerlessness. History is moving on elsewhere and raises questions on its chaotic path to which others are replying more quickly. In the years ahead, therefore, the Alliance may lorge ahead without Europe or nearly without it, despite the fact that Europeans' specific know-how could be useful.
The year 1989: 40 years – and victory, without a shot being fired. The Atlantic Alliance stood as the clearest symbol of victory by the West, as the opposing camp split up and unpicked the Warsaw Pact. The Alliance was victorious even though it had no responsibility for victory. It was first in line to take on the gains and risks of victory, including the new image of the West, which suddenly saw itself as the world, along with the danger of Western-centrism that took ten years to dissipate. Given its gains, successes, metaphysical doubts, errors, and failures, debates about the Alliance, albeit somewhat distorted but nevertheless truthful, reflected a West that no longer knew its limits, and that, basking in glory, wondered about its future.
Since 1989, the Atlantic Alliance has displayed great malleability, and an exceptional capacity to adapt itself to the world (it is recalled at the start of this publication that the French are the only ones who like to distinguish both institutionally and politically between the Atlantic Alliance and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – NATO). The skeptics, often but not only French, have been wrong in believing that its bureaucratic torpor would prevent it from keeping up with rapidly changing history. The Alliance has turned into a formidable machine for ‘living together’ during the last 15 years, for obvious reasons, linked to the rejection of the all-too recent Soviet domination, along with other more complex issues that we will leave to future historians. This is undoubtedly its most spectacular success, which is far more unexpected than its considerable military might over the years. Yet, the Alliance’s military effectiveness (assumed though never questioned) also played a decisive role; for the last 20 years, NATO has been the only military coalition that was immediately credible (and it will probably remain thus for a long time to come). For this reason, NATO took over in the Balkans in 1994, only a few years after it had been marginalized there. It is also why NATO is primarily seen as the supreme guarantee of security – inalienable in the strongest meaning of the term – for all its members, old and new.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Background to the Debate
A Vibrant and Flexible Alliance, by Lord Robertson of Port Ellen
NATO from Washington (1949) to Strasbourg/Kehl (2009), by Karl-Heinz Kamp
From an enlarged NATO to a global NATO?
Towards a Security Web, by Zbigniew Brzezinski
The Global NATO Debate, by Michael Clarke
Considerations on NATO's Future Direction, by Christopher S. Chivvis
NATO, Europe and Russia
NATO: A View from Central Europe, by Bogdan Klich
NATO and ESDP: Institutional Complexities and Political Realities, by Jolyon Howorth
NATO and Russia: A View from Moscow, by Sergueï Rogov
NATO-Russia: Is the ‘Russian Question' European?, by Thomas Gomart
France and NATO
France and NATO: An History, by Maurice Vaïsse
France's ‘Return' to NATO: An Inopportune Decision, by Jean-Pierre Chevènement
Reforming NATO?
NATO and Nuclear Weapons, by Ian Anthony
Reforming NATO's Institutions: Pressing Need, Enduring Obstacles, New Opportunities, by Diego A. Ruiz Palmer
Counterpoint, 1964
The Reform of NATO and the Free World's Security Pact, by Eugen Gerstenmaier
Available in:
Regions and themes
ISBN / ISSN
Share
Related centers and programs
Discover our other research centers and programs
Security Studies Center
Heir to a tradition dating back to the founding of Ifri, the Security Studies Center provides public and private decision-makers as well as the general public with the keys to understanding power relations and contemporary modes of conflict as well as those to come. Through its positioning at the juncture of politics and operations, the credibility of its civil-military team and the wide distribution of its publications in French and English, the Center for Security Studies constitutes in the French landscape of think tanks a unique center of research and influence on the national and international defense debate.
Find out more
Discover all our analyses
The Year He Woke
Vikas Swarup, an Indian writer and former diplomat, is the author of four novels, including Q & A (New York: Doubleday, 2005), which has been translated into 47 languages and adapted for the screen under the title Slumdog Millionaire.
Text published in Politique étrangère, Vol. 91, No. 2, 2026.
War and Technology: An Approaching Military Revolution?
Historically, technological change has altered how battles are fought but has not overturned the fundamental principles of war. However, three considerations may now represent an actual revolution: the recourse to tactical nuclear weapons, the development of software for “multi-domain operations,” and the prospect of general artificial intelligence. The organization of militaries and the use of force need to be rethought in this light.
War and Technology: An Approaching Military Revolution?
Historically, technological change has altered how battles are fought but has not overturned the fundamental principles of war. However, three considerations may now represent an actual revolution: the recourse to tactical nuclear weapons, the development of software for “multi-domain operations,” and the prospect of general artificial intelligence. The organization of militaries and the use of force need to be rethought in this light.
The Crises Testing Arms Control
The arms control system built during and after the Cold War is under enormous stress and is fraying at the edges. It once enabled significant improvements in international security but is in danger of not withstanding the resurgence of tensions in recent years. Urgent action is now needed to prevent the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, as well as cluster bombs and anti-personnel mines.