Description
Despite fifteen years of concerted effort to remake NATO, the much heralded alliance is in decline. The states that established NATO in 1949 confronted a common threat to their survival. The Alliance has endeavored to identify a new raison d’être since 1991, but no unifying set of priorities has surfaced. Though dangers to Western security have emerged–the rise of Al Qaeda arguably the most significant–these threats have not unified NATO. In the absence of a menace to their vital interests, and with fundamental policy differences dividing North America and Europe, NATO is succumbing to the pressure of the times.
Richard Rupp is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Purdue University Calumet. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara and has taught at Wichita State University and the Varna University of Economics in Bulgaria. Rupp’s research and teaching interests center on post-Cold War armed conflicts and international institutions. Rupp has published scholarly articles in a range of publications, including Cambridge Review of International Affairs, The Journal of Strategic Studies, the UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs, and East European Quarterly.
“NATO after 9/11: An Alliance in Continuing Decline is the most important book on the transatlantic relationship to appear in the past decade. Richard Rupp builds a compelling case that the expanded version of NATO, focused on missions outside of Europe, exhibits only superficial health. The underlying reality is an alliance that lacks cohesion and increasingly lacks the capability to act effectively even when there is general agreement on a policy initiative. This meticulously researched, clearly written book is must reading for anyone interested in the future of NATO.”
–Ted Galen Carpenter, Vice President, Defense and Foreign Policy Studies, Cato Institute
“Since the end of the Cold War, endless editorials and journal articles have superficially fuelled the ‘NATO is dead’ thesis. With Rupp’s important work, we finally have a scholarly and densely argued book which submits that thesis to a rigorous scrutiny. Rupp’s analysis is searching and sophisticated, comprehensive and coherent. This is not the loaded logic of the isolationist, the pacifist or the neo-conservative. Nor is it an autopsy. It is the honest and reluctant, but nevertheless categorical, conclusion of a NATO insider who does not balk at making an unwelcome case: put simply, that NATO is increasingly peripheral to the security requirements of its member states. For all those interested in transatlantic relations, international security and Alliance transformation, Rupp’s book must be required reading.”
