The Nature And Practice Of Flexible Response: Nato Strategy And Theater Nuclear Forces Since 1967
Events of the last two years have all but ended NATO's nuclear predicament-how to frighten Soviet leaders enough without scaring its own citizens too much-and so the time is ripe for taking stock. Daalder's richly documented and cleanly written history will stand as definitive until more documents are released. He breaks some new ground-about, for instance, the "mininukes" debate of the early 1970s-brings together strands of the story told in parts elsewhere, and does it all with a lucid understanding of the strategic differences that drove alliance members apart and the political stakes that pushed them together.
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Long the bulwark of the transatlantic security relationship, NATO now faces a threat from within Europe itself. The proposed EU constitution makes clear that the new Europe seeks to balance rather than complement U.S. power-making European political integration the greatest challenge to U.S. influence in Europe since World War II. Washington must begin to adapt accordingly.
The West has triumphed over its adversaries, but all is not well in the realm. Its voters are unhappy, its politics adrift. Now is not the time to pursue ambitious plans that would simultaneously deepen and broaden existing institutions. The West must lock in and eventually extend the greatest achievement of the past century: the creation of a community of democratic states among which war is unthinkable. The mechanism would be a transatlantic union committed to a single market and collective security.
Expanding NATO east is unwise. It will not promote democracy or capitalism, and it is premature to assume Russian belligerence.
