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This article introduces the key tenets of French foreign and security policy during the Cold War, and illustrates the deep challenges to the French consensus raised by the emergence of a unipolar system. There is a growing gap between the rhetoric of French security policy, emphasizing ‘autonomy’ and ‘sovereignty’ out of habit from the Cold War, and the actual security practices showing a gradual embedding within the transatlantic security structures. In the absence of a new transpartisan grand narrative relevant for the contemporary international system, such embedding is easily portrayed in France as a ‘treason’ from a romanticized Gaullist foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how key actors within the US defence policy community realigned their interests to forge a new consensus on the redirection of US defence strategy following the 'peace shock' they faced with the collapse of bipolarity. This consensus centred on the idea that achieving US security in the 'age of uncertainty' demanded overwhelming US military power, which was widely interpreted as necessitating military capabilities to fight multiple major theatre wars simultaneously against regional 'Third World' adversaries. This helped to preserve many of the principal pillars of US Cold War defence policy through deflecting calls for more radical organisational changes and deeper cuts to defence budgets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The failed expedition of Suez in 1956 and France’s subsequent strategic ‘divorce’ from the United Kingdom and the United States lies at the heart of a policy paradigm that has dictated France’s defence posture from de Gaulle’s presidency to the end of the Cold War. Some crucial features of the Gaullist posture remain today enduring references for French presidents in the definition of France’s exceptionalism. While it is so, there have been significant changes since the 1990s when it comes to France’s strategic relations with the United States and the United Kingdom. This article demonstrates the extent and mechanisms of this rapprochement by analysing it through three dimensions of policy change: modes of action, institutional commitments and discourses. The article demonstrates the dimensions’ mutually reinforcing effects and argues that France’s exceptional posture has de facto been reversed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1981 Defence Review undertaken by John Nott as Secretary of State for Defence controversially and dramatically cut the capabilities of the Royal Navy’s surface fleet. Many of those involved in these decisions have emphasised the budgetary and politico-strategic drivers for these reductions in capability, and the first generation of academic analysis has broadly followed this position. However, recently released government and private archival sources demonstrate that Nott’s review was initially much more severe than thought, and that this was due as much to the presumptions and assumptions of the key decision makers as to any strategic or budgetary factors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines France's institutional preferences in the context of its military operations in Africa. It argues that, if France had its multilateral moment in the 1990s and 2000s, it has since become institutionally agnostic. Institutional agnosticism means that France no longer has strong institutional preferences when running military operations; instead, it has over the last six or seven years opted for various frameworks based on a pragmatic analysis of what institutions – the UN, the EU, the G5 Sahel or regional organisations – bring. France is opportunistic as it wants to keep open all options while retaining the right to run unilateral missions. The first part presents the evolution of French military operations over time and how they have become increasingly multilateral after the end of the Cold War. The second part aims to unpack why France has embraced multilateralism, identifying three main issues: multilateralism as burden-sharing, multilateralism as legitimacy provider, and the African continent as a theatre for the operationalisation of the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy. In the third part, the article looks at why France has become institutionally agnostic and why it continues to run national operations as a consequence of institutional agnosticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this introduction we present the justification and the analytical frame of our special issue. More specifically, this issue examines the institutional role of defence ministries in fortifying civilian control and military effectiveness. As we argue, scholarship on this subject is sparse, despite the ministry's importance in enforcing civilian control, enhancing military effectiveness, and conducting the day-to-day affairs of national defense. If defence ministries are to fulfill these obligations, they must be properly positioned, financially and bureaucratically endowed, as well as staffed with knowledgeable civilians with sufficient authority. Not all ministries are up to these standards. To highlight these aspects, our special issue examines the defense ministries of four countries, two of which are older democracies (France and India) and two more recently established ones (Argentina and South Korea). These case studies pay particular attention to organizational design of the ministries, the roles assigned to civilian and military personnel, how much defense expertise civilians and officers can claim, and whether there are mechanisms that allow ministry personnel to convert resources into military strength. We underscore our contribution to the literature and suggest avenues for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing studies of the United Kingdom's purchase of Trident D5 missiles have simplified the Reagan administration's sale. Using previously classified documentation, this article highlights the potential political and financial ramifications of a sale agreement that led to complex deliberations within the Thatcher government up until the final day of negotiations. The White House viewed the sale as a means to strengthen Western nuclear and conventional forces to counter the perceived Soviet threat. However, even within this conducive environment, US officials still drove a hard bargainwith their British counterparts, in order to support US strategic interests. Indeed, the White House utilised the sale to influence British defence policy. In this way, the Trident agreement was not a foregone conclusion but rather a continuation of the friendly, but not preordained, nature of US-UK nuclear relations that has been renegotiated, according to the varying interests of both parties, throughout the partnership's existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A constructive and effective interaction between politicians and their military advisers is an essential element in the successful conduct of strategy. The author draws on his own experience at the political-military interface and the operational level to argue that the political-military relationship is inherently problematic and that it has become increasingly so in the twenty-first century in the United Kingdom, partly due to changes in the character of conflict, but also due to an erosion of trust between political decision-makers and their senior military advisers. The article concludes that certain approaches need to be taken to resolve these challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The build-up of Japan's military apparatus in the 1990s and 2000s has been often regarded by security analysts as indicative of a departure from the country's Cold War strategic posture. Japan appears to be engaged in a process of militarisation that is eroding the foundations of its 'exclusively defence-oriented' policy. In the case of the archipelago's naval strategy, such assessments overlook the longstanding significance of a core feature of its defence policy, namely the surveillance of maritime crossroads delivering the wealth of the country. The paper reassesses the evolution of the Japanese strategy since the Cold War by examining the development of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force's submarine force, one of the key components of the defensive shield for these crossroads. The paper argues that with the changes in the security environment of the 1990s, Japan already fielded a mature force with state-of-the-art submarines, and that the rise of a new naval competitor aiming at controlling key strategic points along Japan's sea lanes reconfirmed the critical importance of submarine operations to Japanese national security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long understood as the key document in Britain's Cold War history, the Duncan Sandys Defence White Paper of 1957 nevertheless has a largely forgotten context: home defence. This article argues that understanding this context allows important new conclusions to be drawn concerning the drafting, presentation and the reception of the document and the deterrent strategy it expounded. It argues that the Paper failed to establish a new doctrine for civil defence which reconciled the policy with the wider deterrent strategy. In doing this, the Paper presented a muddled policy to the public: one which failed to justify the reductions in civil defence provision but which stressed the destructive power of thermonuclear weapons. This had the effect of encouraging the critics of the government's nuclear strategy to flag up the absence of adequate civil defence measures and highlight the 'admission' that there was no defence against the hydrogen bomb. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at the emergence of nuclear planning assumptions within the South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) during the mid-1950s. It does so by examining US strategic concepts for the defence of the treaty area, and the ways these produced major problems for the Australian Government as it switched the emphasis in its defence policy toward a permanent commitment of forces to the South East Asian mainland. At the same time, Britain was struggling to reconcile its membership of SEATO with the need to effect economies in defence spending that would not alarm their Australian Commonwealth partners. As dissatisfaction within SEATO grew, both the US and Britain moved toward a more overt acceptance of nuclear planning assumptions that would reassure their allies without producing a greater call on their resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article delivers the first post-Cold War history of how France – the European power with the largest political-military footprint in the Asia-Pacific – has responded to the national security challenges posed by the rise of China. Based upon a unique body of primary sources (80 interviews conducted in Europe, the Asia-Pacific and the United States; declassified archival documents; and leaked diplomatic cables), it shows that China's growing assertiveness after 2009 (and national policymakers' perceptions thereof) has been the key driver of change in French security policy in the region, pulling France strategically into the Asia-Pacific. Specifically, growing threat perceptions of China's rise – coupled with steadily rising regional economic interests – have led Paris to forge a cohesive policy framework, the Indo-Pacific strategy, and to bolster the political-military dimension of its regional presence. By investigating this key yet neglected dimension of French and European security policies, and by leveraging a unique body of primary written and oral sources, this study fills an important gap in the scholarly literature on both European and Asia-Pacific security dynamics. The findings of this article also shed new light on the political and military assets that France can bring to bear in the formulation of a common EU security policy toward the Asia-Pacific and on the implications thereof for the prospect of a transatlantic strategy vis-à-vis China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By any objective measure, defense institutions in Central and Eastern Europe have all but universally been incapable of producing viable defense plans that are based on objective costing and operational planning data. This situation exists in spite the provision of considerable Western advice and assistance, let alone reporting to and receiving assessments by NATO’s International Staff under Partnership for Peace, as well as via the integrated defense planning and reporting systems. An explanation for this systematic failure across European post-Communist defense institutions can be found in the continued slow development of an over-arching policy framework which directs and approves all activities of the armed forces, as well as the de-centralization of financial decision-making down to capability providers. The essay ends with an examination of the adverse effects of the early introduction of planning programming, budgeting system (PPBS), have had on the development of effective policy and planning capabilities within these defense institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many accounts of the formation of American and British grand strategy during World War II between the fall of France and the Pearl Harbor attacks stress the differences between the two sides' strategic thinking. These accounts argue that while the Americans favored a 'direct' Germany-first approach to defeating the Axis powers, the British preferred the 'indirect' or 'peripheral' method. However, a review of Anglo-American strategic planning in this period shows that before official U.S. wartime entry, both sides largely agreed the British 'peripheral' approach was the wisest grand strategy for winning the war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars focused on NATO nuclear strategy during the Cold War have devoted little attention to the dynamics of how the Alliance would decide to use nuclear weapons. This article aims to fill this gap by examining the internal debates about how a nuclear use decision would be taken, particularly balancing the desire to ensure adequate consultation of the non-nuclear members without undermining the credibility of NATO's nuclear deterrent by giving them a veto. To avoid undermining Alliance cohesion, the nuclear use decision process was kept deliberately vague, despite the problems that would almost certainly have arisen in a war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the size of the community and the constant flow of new issues and potential security challenges, strategic studies can lend itself to surges of interest in particular topics that then fade into irrelevance, speculative investigations that lead nowhere, or intensive research projects that produce banal conclusions. The durability of much of the research may turn out to be short yet there is still enough that is of value, including insights into the behaviour of organisations and states, concepts that help structure thinking on a range of issues, as well as timely and well-judged policy guidance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Iran's 'forward-defence' strategy, in particular its deployment of proxy forces in the Syrian conflict. Iran's expanded presence in regional conflicts is regarded by its adversaries as indication of hegemonic intent, while Tehran posits its regional posture as a defensive response to security threats. We argue that Iran's 'forward-defence' strategy offers practical benefits, shaping strategic realities, and performative benefits, allowing Tehran to propagate a discourse of military fortitude. On balance, however, the strategy has fed suspicions of Iran's intentions and increased hostility towards the Iranian leadership, thus is likely to be counterproductive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lieber and Press argue that during the early Cold War, the US planned an overwhelming preemptive strike on the Soviet Union were they to threaten attack (57-58). While this might be debatable with respect to continental-size nations like the US, Russia, or Canada, it is not when it comes to compact countries like Japan, Great Britain, or the Czech Republic. Neither China nor Russia possess or are seeking to possess a nuclear arsenal that could prevail over the United States, so by pursuing a war-winning strategy the US would be clearly announcing its interest in global primacy. Yet when the possibility of actual war loomed, for example during the Berlin and Cuban crises, the United States made major concessions to the USSR in order to avoid war, despite its massive nuclear superiority at that time. [Extracted from the article]

Why does combat success sometimes fail to produce a stable and durable post-war settlement? In the 1965 war, India successfully defended against a Pakistani invasion, but did not improve the long-term security of Kashmir or establish deterrence against Pakistan. I argue that, to deter rivals after war, states must couple battlefield success with credible signals of resolve, such as retaining captured territory or risking a wider war. In 1965, India used both denial and punishment strategies, but both failed to establish post-war deterrence because it judged the necessary signals of resolve to be too costly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Korea's transition from military-controlled authoritarianism to consolidated civilian-dominated democracy is widely considered a success story. However, civilians' roles within the MND remain severely limited due to the institutional design of the MND. A decentralised structure emerged in the MND, delegating policy decision-making in critical areas to professional soldiers. Data analysis on 1,060 employees in 21 MND departments shows a clear cut between the military domain and the civilian domain within the MND, which enabled the military to thwart 30 years of civilian efforts to reform the military structure without challenging the principle of civilian supremacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

French civil-military relations under the 5th Republic are marked by the imposing figure of the President, because of their role in nuclear deterrence. In that context, the role of the ministry of defence in general, and of its leader (the minister) in particular, is ambiguous: the minister is technically not the highest authority in charge of defence issues (since both the Prime Minister and the President are constitutionally tasked with important responsibilities in the defence realm), but they nevertheless need to find a role between the presidential guidelines and the military demands. In this article, we show that civil-military relations within the French ministry of Defence are therefore characterized by an "unstable equilibrium": the history of the French MoD is rife with regular swings between the primacy of the military or the primacy of civilians. Overall, the French MoD has adopted a model civil-military relations which is structurally unstable, due to the shifting legitimacy of the military elite within the French bureaucracy and the importance of the personality of the political and military actors involved: without fundamentally altering bureaucratic rules and organization, the power balance between civilian and military actors can quickly evolve. To a degree, this shows the plasticity of French civil-military relations and its ability to adapt to the actors involved, especially the President. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses India's Ministry of Defence and its influence on civil-military relations. It argues that, until very recently, the strategic intent of the defence ministry has primarily focused on civilian control over the military. The resultant institutional structure of civilian control compromised the effectiveness of the Indian military. This was due to several features of the country's model of civilian control, including a lack of civilian expertise, bureaucratic procedures underlying civil-military interactions as well as military autonomy. Acknowledging these problems, the government has currently embarked on reforms to maximize military power. It is doing so mainly by infusing military expertise at the ministerial level. However, this may upend the civil-military dynamic in India and the success of this initiative remains to be seen. Conceptually, this article examines a possibly pernicious effect of a civilian dominated ministry and highlights the importance of expertise in enhancing both control and military effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whole-of-government coordination has produced meagre results if measured against declared aims. However, an assessment of such coordination efforts should include also unstated aims. Based on an in-depth study of the primary high-level coordination body for Norway's Afghanistan engagement, this article finds that the body was successful in pursuing symbolic politics. Showcasing was an underlying but non-declared aim of the body in question. These findings are significant because they provide an explanation why governments continue to pursue this kind of coordination efforts despite their apparent lack of success. Improved coordination was achieved mostly in terms of information sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to assess the strength of the normative claim of banning nuclear weapons, expressed by the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The first part shows that, in the Finnemore/Sikkink norm lifecycle, it is likely to be stuck at the first stage (emergence), as it does not meet the conditions for reaching the tipping point and therefore cascading (a critical mass of states; a mass of critical states; the intrinsic characteristics of the norm; how it fits in the existing normative framework). The second part shows that, in the three-part pattern of disarmament campaigns identified by Hanson, it is likely to be stuck at stage two, stigmatising and delegitimising nuclear weapons, but unable to eliminate them for three reasons (the exceptionality of nuclear weapons; the international security environment; and peer pressure). Overall, it will likely stay a forever-emerging norm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses deterrence efforts against the use of chemical weapons in Syria through the framework of rational deterrence theory (RDT). Deterrence succeeds and fails over stages and across time. In Syria, periodic deterrence breakdowns were linked to insufficient (or weakening) US commitment and resolve, which undermined US credibility. More broadly, the Syria case demonstrates the continued relevance of RDT, as well as the difficulties associated with establishing – and maintaining – successful deterrence. Policymakers must approach coercive diplomacy systematically, specifying the purpose of their strategy and weighing the goals of deterrence against alternative and additional political and/or military considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we argue that the composition of coalitions is key to understanding military operations, because it encompasses decisive intra-coalition dynamics such as great power and alliance politics, caveats and institutional constraints. The case study analysis, focused on NATO's war in Libya, relies on content analysis of national and NATO policy documents as well as interviews with policymakers and military officials. We find that, while great powers predictably shape how missions are designed and carried out, their precise influence is affected by factors that are inherent to a coalition's composition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is usually maintained that before 1914 the Royal Navy had abandoned interest in amphibious warfare. This article argues otherwise. It shows that prior to 1914 the Admiralty sought to reconfigure the Royal Marines as an organic maritime strike force. The idea was advanced by junior officers and taken up by the naval leadership, who appointed a high-level committee to elaborate the details. Significant steps had been taken before war broke out, thereby showing that modern British amphibious warfare doctrine pre-dates the ill-fated Gallipoli operation and needs to be understood in a broader context than is currently the case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is about the first attempts of Soviet-French rapprochement in the military sphere in the early 1930s. It is based largely upon unpublished documents from the Soviet foreign policy (AVPRF), military (RGVA) and the communist party (RGASPI) archives in Moscow. It contends that for the top leadership of the USSR the political rapprochement with France did not necessarily lead to making a fully-fledged military alliance. Despite the attitude of Soviet diplomats in Paris, Moscow remained distrustful of the French. It considered military cooperation with them as a way to reinforce the Red Army and strengthen international positions of the USSR without taking excessive obligations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Churchill's defence was aided by the death of his most acute critics, Fisher in 1920 and Corbett in 1922: dead men don't answer back. Churchill was responding to Fisher's publication of a key Baltic memorandum in 1920, and the central role of the Baltic in Corbett's official history. Fisher, who valued Churchill's energy and ability to move the Cabinet, paid lip service to the Borkum concept, to secure the ships he needed, while pages from Corbett's I England in the Seven Year's War i persuaded Lloyd George to open the Treasury's coffers for the largest items. When Prime Minister Asquith failed to settle policy Fisher, inspired by Corbett's study of the Seven Year's War, looked for a statesman like Pitt the Elder to adopt a dynamic national strategy, which Fisher would provide, and impose it on the Army. [Extracted from the article]

This special collection of essays explores how militaries are integrating, adapting and leveraging 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies and examines the varying strategic and operational implications. Its core themes reflect on the position of the 4IR in the context of previous Revolutions in Military Affairs; a comparison between how large resource-rich states and small resource-limited states are adopting and integrating 4IR technologies; the difference between various 4IR innovation and adaptation models; and the operational implications of such technologies in terms of manpower, operational domains force structure and the application of force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia is pursuing select 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies in a drive to rapidly close the capability gaps with rivals. The transformation of warfare these technologies portend could also make Russia more vulnerable. Joining the 'technological race' seems therefore less of a choice than an existential necessity. Constrained by structural problems and lacking the resources of the US and China, however, Russia has so far struggled to leverage its ambitions within the 4IR. Yet it has also shown the ability to experiment with 4IR technologies, including hypersonics and AI, to amplify existing symmetric and asymmetric capabilities, and create interconnected systems that may provide critical advantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Revolution in Military Affairs, its concepts, processes, and debates, have evolved in five 'IT-RMA waves' since the 1980s. None of them, however, have fully achieved their intended outcomes as their ambitious premises have exceeded available technologies, budgetary resources, and operational capabilities of a given era. This paper argues that a new 'artificial intelligence-driven RMA' wave differs in the political, strategic, technological, and operational diffusion paths and patterns. While the AI-RMA may affect select countries and regions disproportionately, its technological advances coupled with an ongoing strategic competition is sufficiently broad to stipulate significant military changes across geopolitical lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the implications of the division of Australia's regional security arrangements between the older 'threat-oriented' alliances such as ANZUS and the FPDA and the newer 'order-oriented' arrangements Australia has signed with Indonesia, China, Japan and others. As Australia does not face a direct military attack in the near to medium term, the adoption of co-operative security is the most appropriate strategy for Australia. While many in the region are supportive of Australia's role and look towards Australia for support, some concern continues to exist as to Australia's own perception of the threats it faces in the region and its preference to secure itself from these latent military threats through its alliance with the United States. In the final section, the debate among the Australian security policy- makers between the effectiveness of bilateral versus multilateral approaches to regional security will be examined. While there is at least nominal bipartisan support for multilateral approaches, this support is usually tempered with caveats about the utility of Australia's bilateral arrangements, especially the alliance with the United States, as insurance should the multilateral approach fail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars and pundits alike continue to portray the U.S.-led regional alliance systems in Europe and East Asia in stark, dichotomous terms. Whereas the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is the standard model of multilateralism, the U.S.-led system of bilateral alliances in East Asia is the archetypal 'hub-and-spokes' structure in which different allies (the spokes) enjoy deep bilateral strategic ties with Washington (the hub) but not with each other. We argue that these common depictions of U.S.-led alliance systems are obsolete. Instead, we show that what we label 'nodal defence' – a hybrid category that combines overlapping bilateral, minilateral and multilateral initiatives – better captures how the U.S.-led alliance systems in Europe and East Asia operate today. Specifically, nodal defence is a hybrid alliance system in which allies are connected through variable geometries of defence cooperation that are organized around specific functional roles so as to tackle different threats. To show how nodal defence is an emerging central feature of the U.S.-led regional alliance systems, we conduct an original cross-regional comparison of how these alliance systems work, drawing on elite interviews, official documents, and secondary literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strategy is action in space and time. It is impossible to conceive of strategic behaviour outside of time, and the management of temporal factors plays a substantial role in determining the path and outcome of conflict. Yet time's role in strategy has been empirically under-studied and theoretically neglected by scholars. This paper addresses this by identifying four constituent concepts of time for strategists: Order, Duration, Significance and Transition. The paper explores how each applies to and can improve our understanding of strategic behaviour. The paper concludes by outlining some of the promising avenues of policy opportunity and scholarly research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the complexity of coalition warfare in the twenty-first century through the prism of the British Army's experiences in Multi-National Division South East (MND SE) and Basra in the Iraq War. Considered as a case study, this range of operations encompasses a range of experiences, from breakdowns in dealing with shifting national interests and aims and linkages to PJHQ, to working within a coalition with the US and Iraq and communicating shifting national interests, to demonstrating a clear understanding of the character of the war in which MND SE was engaged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This articles examines the debate, and sometimes lack of debate, over nuclear issues in NATO from the beginning of the alliance to the mid-1960s and reveals how American officials changed their approach to deal with NATO's nuclear issues. In the 1950s, US officials released only limited information about nuclear weapons that were a part of NATO's war plans. Gradually, they determined that some of NATO's major tensions stemmed from their allies' lack of information about the extent of the US nuclear arsenal and its intended uses. After several halting steps, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara decided that US interests could be best met by offering the allies a nuclear education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have long seen the Harmel Report as a significant moment in NATO's history as the Western allies staked out a role for the Alliance in the pursuit of détente. This article examines how and why the Harmel Report's parallel formula of defence and dialogue endured, focusing on the Alliance's 1984 reappraisal of East-West relations, the Tindemans Initiative. A snapshot of the Alliance's ongoing conversation about détente, the Tindemans Initiative illustrated the degree to which détente remained contested, yet also the enduring value of the Harmel Report's 'double philosophy' as a mechanism to retain sufficient public support for the Alliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An insufficiently understood paradox surrounded the NATO dual-track decision. This paradox was at the core of an almost classical high impact-low probability scenario which became reality with the INF Treaty of 1987, bringing NATO closer to a crisis of to be or not to be. NATO governments (except France) formally decided in 1979 that new long-range missiles in Europe were necessary but lacked political willpower to exclude the zero option, the possibility that NATO's missile deployments may be obviated through arms control. The article analyses why this was the case, clarifies why this mattered, and draws policy implications from this crucial episode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most accounts of NATO enlargement depict it as the implementation of US grand strategy. This article aims to restore agency to the acceding states, specifically the Baltic states who joined the Alliance in 2004. It analyzes the dynamics of competition and cooperation among Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the late 1990s and early 2000s during the process of NATO accession. The article demonstrates that both rivalry and joint efforts among the Baltic states in their reforms and lobbying were crucial factors in shaping the outcome. Unlike their inclusion into the EU, NATO membership for the Baltic states seemed improbable, and thus the paper highlights the demand-driven aspect of NATO expansion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the early NATO discourse to illuminate ideas about a future war with the Soviet Bloc. World War Two provided an important cognitive script for conceptualizing a Third World War, with the impact of the nuclear 'revolution' being less dominant than generally believed. I argue that officials were unable to devise a script in which the Soviet Union could conquer Western Europe and then defeat the United States. Although this inability to achieve "final victory" was believed enough to deter Moscow from aggression, the need to reassure European Allies led NATO to adopt the "forward strategy". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]