My goal in this book is to look at some old and familiar problems in a new and different way, beginning with the curious relationship that has developed within the Atlantic Alliance, commonly known as NATO, since its creation in 1949.

By almost any measure, NATO has been an overwhelming success, yet analyses of what it does and why it persists have been preoccupied with crisis and impending collapse. Relations between the United States and its European allies have had their ups and downs, but one constant in the history of NATO is the propensity of participants and observers alike to proclaim it “in crisis” and even on the brink of collapse.

Claims that NATO is once again in crisis have been made so often and by so many different writers that the contention might seem little more than a harmless cliché. On the contrary, I argue in Chapter 1 that this fascination with crisis and conflict has proven to be an intellectual dead end. The frequency with which these so-called NATO crises have occurred and the speed with which they have disappeared from public view has meant that observers have often resorted to inflated language to persuade their readers that this time NATO's troubles are real. Students of NATO have been quick to label disputes within it a “profound crisis,” a “deepening crisis,” a “general crisis,” and the like. Terms such as these, however, have been bandied about in a remarkably casual fashion.