The Expansion of NATO Over Past Decades - Annotated Bibliography Example

The expansion of NATO over the Last Twenty Years s affiliation The expansion of NATO over the Last Twenty Years The formation of military alliance by the representatives from the United States and a group of European nations presented well understood intentions. The intention being to ensure that their mutual solidarity against the threat of the Soviet communism, thus, a clear indicator that NATO began not with a theory or a crisis, but driven by common interest. It is without doubt that the last twenty years has seen a more active NATO as opposed to the preceding four decades. Amongst other achievements, NATO has been able to expand into the former territory of the Warsaw Pact and most importantly developed deeper relationships both with institutions in the European Union and Russia. This study seeks to analyze the expansion of NATO over the last twenty years. Annotated Bibliography Ivanov, I. D. (2011). Transforming NATO: New allies, missions, and capabilities. Lanham, Md: Lexington Books. The book examines NATO’s various dimensions and organization’s transformation ever since the Cold war came to an end towards the end of the 1980’s. This publication looks at the constant recruitment of new allies into the organization, the organization’s undertakings of new missions like crisis response, peacekeeping, stabilization and the constant improvements of new capabilities in the implementation of these missions. This book attempts to these events via the concept of complementarities as well as club goods theory. NATO is viewed as a diverse, mixed grouping of nations that provide a collective defense mechanism to the organization’s member states who ,through the signed treaties bring together their military resources in a manner that optimizes the organization’s collective capabilities that are needed for its international operations. The book makes several theoretical contributions. It offers a new approach in understanding how heterogeneous clubs normally operate. It also introduces a concept of complementarities. The book also critically looks at the relevance of the organization in the studying of international security operations. The book also acts as a useful resource in understanding alliance politics, transatlantic relations as well as international coalitions and partnerships. Carpenter, T. G., & Conry, B. (1998). NATO enlargement: Illusions and reality. Washington, DC: Cato Inst. This book looks at NATO’s decisions since the collapse of the Berlin wall to continually expand eastwards towards the Russian border while absorbing the former soviet republics of Lithuania, Slovakia, and Slovenia etc. The book has a critical tone about this move by the military Alliance to encircle the Russian Federation. It views this decision to expand into Eastern Europe as a fateful venture that to the surprise of many has been accorded very minimal public attention. Many of the proponents of this expansion process are of the view that the move will promote corporation, stability and act to consolidate the ideals of democracy in the European continent. The main contributors to this publication however have come to the conclusion that an enlarged NATO is a potentially disastrous move for the Alliance and Europe as a whole. They argue that this move risks re opening the wounds that came about during the Cold war era and has the potential to create new divisions in Europe by undermining the good will that existed between the East and the West immediately after the collapse of the Berlin wall. In terms of financial implications, it is bound to establish dangerous, unsustainable and expensive security obligations for the main financer which is the United States. Barany, Z. (2003). The future of NATO expansion: four case studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barany in this 2003 book offers a closer analysis of the steps that Bulgaria , Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania took and how prepared they were to join NATO membership. These four Eastern European case studies have previously received very little or even no attention in several major scholarly literatures over the past one decade. The author of the book takes a critical look at these countries examining their economic, military and political situations and comes to the conclusion that they actually do not satisfy the alliance’s own strict criteria for country membership. The author fronts an argument that while the military alliance should continue pursuing an open door policy meaning that its membership is open for any qualified countries to join in its ranks, the organization should not water down its own military strength by taking on board new countries that will end up being exclusively consumers of the organization’s capabilities rather than valuable contributors that will add to the strength and security offered to all its member countries. European security since the fall of the Berlin Wall. (2011). Toronto ; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press. Since the fall of the Berlin wall, there have been numerous changes in the security landscape of Europe over the past two decades. This book on European Security since the fall of the Berlin wall takes a collective stock of how the security issues and their approaches have changes dramatically on the European continent both in theory and in practice ever since the demise of the iron curtain and the coming to an end of the Cold War. The book is organized into three broad sections. It begins with the examining of the far reaching changes in Europe’s security arrangement that relates to issues like the increasing importance of energy security as well as Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. The second part deals with the various adaptations of the Continent’s institutional framework which includes the rapid transformation of the military organization and the changes in the European military forces over the two decades. The concluding part of the book looks to examine the various regional security situations with the Balkans, Russia and the Middle East being the most covered regions. The book covers a wide spectrum of approaches. It is also authored in an engaging as well as clear style of writing. The book greatly illuminates the European security debates for the foreseeable future. Kay, S., Papacosma, S. V., & Rubin, M. R. (2001). NATO after fifty years. Wilmington, Del: Scholarly Resources. The landscape of world politics as well as NATO has changed dramatically since the inception of the Alliance after the Second World War. The book examines the from a wide range of diverse perspectives the present, past as well as future of the military alliance that is now in the midst of one of its most unpredictable periods of its existence. The authors of this book bring on board a diverse and wide range of that make the book a very valuable resource in learning about the United States military defense policy, military in politics, aspects of arms control, war and peace, international alliances, the aspect of international conflict as well as politics and government in the European continent. Kanet, R. E. (2005). The new security environment: The impact on Russia, Central and Eastern Europe. Burlington, Vt. [u.a.: Ashgate. The book looks at the changing global security situation in general and Europe in particular. Roger Kanet looks at the impacts of these new changes on the relationships with Russia, and former soviet republics in Eastern and central Europe. It is divided into three broad parts . The first part deals with the role played by the United states and Russia in global and regional security. This looks at the security operations of these two countries in various parts of the globes with the role of NATO being of particular keen interest to the author. The second part deals with the security in Eastern and Central Europe. These countries have been very unstable ever since the fall of the Soviet Union due to their unstable governments and shrinking economies in the early nineties. There are also brief readings on Yugoslavia and the role NATO played in stabilizing the security situation when the country was disintegrating. The third part deals with the regional security challenges that Russia is faced with. There is particularly keen interest on Russia’s flashpoints in the southern regions of the countries mainly Chechnya and Dagestan. NATO Advanced Research Workshop on NATO, the Fight against International Terrorism in Afghanistan and the Security Situation in Central Asia since 9/11, Tanrisever, O. F., & IOS Press. (2013). Afghanistan and Central Asia: NATOs role in regional security since 9/11. Amsterdam: IOS Press. The political and security instability in Afghanistan has had a major effect on regional security in the central Asia region surrounding the country. This has particularly been more significant especially after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. This has inevitably led to a tremendous increase in NATO’s contribution and importance in the area since those events. The book offers a detailed analysis of these events and highlights the key areas where the countries in the region could channel most of their security contributions to ensure the stability of Afghanistan via increased cooperation with the military Alliance. The book offers revised and the latest versions of presentations made during the NATO Advance Research Workshop (ARW), “NATO, the Fight against International Terrorism in Afghanistan and Security Situation in Central Asia since 9/11” which took place in the Turkish city of Ankara in April 2011. The workshop had been supported by the military alliance’s Science for Peace and Security Programme. This publication takes an in-depth approach to Central Asia’s security complex through emphasizing the energy and socio-political as well as the human security dimensions in addition to the more conventional traditional military dimension of the struggle against the international terrorism’s roots in Afghanistan. The book’s findings enhance the reader’s understanding of the main causes of terrorism and the most effective ways of dealing with the security situation in the region. The author has divided the book into five key parts that are;- NATO’s contributions to long lasting security in the central Asian nation; The responses of the central Asian countries to Organized crime, international terrorism as well as political instability in Afghanistan; The important issue of energy security in the region; The ongoing international competition and co-operation over central Asia and Afghanistan and lastly the Struggle against International Terrorism in Afghanistan by Regional Security Organizations. Gheciu, A. (2005). NATO in the "new Europe": The politics of international socialization after the Cold War. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press. The question of post-cold war NATO in relation to previously communist countries has been cause for a lot of International debate in recent years. The book “NATO in the new Europe” makes a contribution to these debates by promoting the argument that contrary to many conventional assumptions about the role of the various international security organizations, this military alliance has been constantly involved in the processes of constructing liberal democracies in the post-soviet nations of Eastern and Central Europe. The book also contributes to the gradual construction of an international political sociology of socialization. Gheciu draws on various arguments that have been developed by sociologists, social psychologists as well as political theorists in order to closely examine the implications and dynamics of socialization practices that are conducted by several international Institutions. Cohen, S. F. (2009). Soviet fates and lost alternatives: From Stalinism to the new Cold War. New York: Columbia University Press. Stephen Cohen aims at challenging the conventional wisdom on the post-soviet as well as the soviet history in this book Soviet fates and lost alternatives: From Stalinism to the new Cold War. He reexamines soviet leaders like Nikolai Bukhrain, Nikita Khrushchev, Mikhail Gorbachev as well as Yegor Ligachev. The author is of the point of view that their ‘failed’ policies were actually very viable and useful alternatives and that these fates played a crucial role in shaping Russia today as well as the Soviet Union back then. The author argues that the ideology of Stalinism was not the automatic outcome of the Communist Revolution. He claims that the USSR was in fact a reform-able entity and its breaking up was very much avoidable. Cohen claims that the engineered breaking of the union squandered the west’s relationship with Moscow and that this was done in Washington. The book can be seen as a revisionist history that compels readers to critically reexamine the events of the late twentieth and early 21st century in order to try and come up with the possibilities that lie ahead. Wolchik, S. L., & Curry, J. L. (2011). Central and East European politics: From communism to democracy. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book is a useful reference book and text that helps in serving the areas of political sociology. The authors have done a good assessment on the steady progress that the region has been making in its quest towards being a liberal democratic region as well as a free market economy over the past twenty years. The books most positive attribute is in its style of casting the process in terms of returning to Europe. It therefore pays crucial attention to the key developments in domestic politics as well as the role played by significant international actors. The authors have also included essays that seek to address crucial issues internationally as well as each country individually thus making it a useful resource to students that are interested in the regional politics and the various interactions between global economic and political sources and the various domestic issues. It offers a direct overview of the different paths that were taken by former soviet states in East and Central European nations. The book provides a much clearer picture of the important and complex region after the collapse of the iron curtain. The authors explore Europe’s forgotten half and future member of the European Union together with the potential as well as problems that they would bring onboard the EU and NATO as well as the greater international community. The book offers a number of comparative country case studies with thematic areas that touch on significant issues like the NATO expansion, European Union, the economic transition as well as its social impacts the issues of nationalisms and ethnicity as well as political reform in the young countries. The book also has a separate chapter that deals with the Albanian case. Transatlantic Policy Consortium. & Dębski, S. (2007). Transatlantic perspectives on security imperatives. Berlin: Lit. This is the third volume of this series and is made up of papers that were prepared by participants of the Transatlantic Policy Consortium (TPC) that represented European and American institutions and Universities. The publication consists of 13 papers that touch mainly on NATO’s future, the possibility of transatlantic corporation to tackle the Middle East question as well as the future challenges to human security. This collection provides an illustration of the level of debate on security issues in the transatlantic alliance. Its contents offer a valuable insight on studies of international security that are pursued by European and American Institutions of higher learning. Hunter, R. E., Rogov, S. M., Oliker, O., Working Group on NATO-Russia Relations., & Rand Corporation. (2002). NATO and Russia: Bridge-building for the 21st century: report of the Working Group on NATO-Russia Relations. Santa Monica (CA: RAND. Former adversaries, Russia and NATO have been developing a new relationship that is seen as a significant way of integrating Moscow into the West. The alliance’s members and Russia have regular meetings in a NATO-Russia conference in order to come up with the appropriate and suitable action plan. The report’s authors have an extensive senior government as well as academic experience in both the U.S.A and Russia and are of the opinion that what the two sides do together is much more significant than the architecture of the of the new council that is tasked with charting the way forward. The reports states that there have been considerable differences from either party like the ongoing NATO expansion which Moscow is opposed to but the authors are of the opinion that these relations should be strengthened so as to promote much more long term stability, while taking into account the other European countries’ interests, promoting a joint decision making mechanism as well as pursuing a common agenda in Europe as well as beyond. References Barany, Z. (2003). The future of NATO expansion: four case studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carpenter, T. G., & Conry, B. (1998). NATO enlargement: Illusions and reality. Washington, DC: Cato Inst. Cohen, S. F. (2009). Soviet fates and lost alternatives: From Stalinism to the new Cold War. New York: Columbia University Press. European security since the fall of the Berlin Wall. (2011). Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press. Gheciu, A. (2005). NATO in the "new Europe": The politics of international socialization after the Cold War. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press. Hunter, R. E., Rogov, S. M., Oliker, O., Working Group on NATO-Russia Relations., & Rand Corporation. (2002). NATO and Russia: Bridge-building for the 21st century: report of the Working Group on NATO-Russia Relations. Santa Monica (CA: RAND. Ivanov, I. D. (2011). Transforming NATO: New allies, missions, and capabilities. Lanham, Md: Lexington Books. Kay, S., Papacosma, S. V., & Rubin, M. R. (2001). NATO after fifty years. Wilmington, Del: Scholarly Resources. Kanet, R. E. (2005). The new security environment: The impact on Russia, Central and Eastern Europe. Burlington, Vt. [u.a.: Ashgate. NATO Advanced Research Workshop on NATO, the Fight against International Terrorism in Afghanistan and the Security Situation in Central Asia since 9/11, Tanrisever, O. F., & IOS Press. (2013). Afghanistan and Central Asia: NATOs role in regional security since 9/11. Amsterdam: IOS Press. Transatlantic Policy Consortium. & Dębski, S. (2007). Transatlantic perspectives on security imperatives. Berlin: Lit. Wolchik, S. L., & Curry, J. L. (2011). Central and East European politics: From communism to democracy. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Read More