NATO Transformed: The Alliance's New Roles in International Security
Reviewed by Stanley Hoffmann
Written before nato's intervention in Kosovo, this book provides a comprehensive and serious review of NATO's historical evolution to its new post-Cold War roles. Yost analyzes NATO's often contradictory relations with its former adversaries as it lurched from the Partnership for Peace to enlargement and hovered between inclusiveness and effectiveness. A long chapter examines the chances for European autonomy within NATO and the alliance's involvement in the Yugoslav wars, arguing that allied consensus on future collective security and intervention, whether or not through the U.N. Security Council or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, does not yet exist. Tragically, Kosovo is only the most recent and dramatic example. Yost's warnings about the tension between traditional collective defense and recent domestic interventions, and the difficulty of preserving unity without a clear enemy (or with too many enemies) are timely and judicious.
