NATO at 75

Modern War Institute

John Amble

Government, News

4.7 • 798 Ratings

🗓️ 4 April 2024

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Seventy-five years ago, on April 4, 1949, representatives of twelve governments came together to sign the North Atlantic Treaty. Much has changed in the intervening period—the Cold War came and went, NATO invoked the Article 5 collective defense clause after the 9/11 attacks, an era of renewed strategic competition has emerged, and large-scale conflict has returned to the continent of Europe. Yet despite all of that change, in both the strategic landscape and the alliance itself, NATO's history is marked by remarkable continuities. That means that an appreciation of its history provides a useful framework within which to understand the challenges and opportunities NATO faces today. To explore that history, this episode features a discussion with Seth Johnston, a US Army officer and author of How NATO Adapts: Strategy and Organization in the Atlantic Alliance since 1950.

Transcript

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0:00.0	75 years ago this week, in Washington, D.C., the representatives of 12 European and North American states came together to sign the North Atlantic Treaty.
0:20.0	Many of today's issues about bird is sharing,
0:23.6	about the credibility of deterrence, about sort of the European versus the transatlantic dimension of the alliance,
0:32.6	all of those challenges and issues today are as old as the alliance itself, and they were
0:39.8	evident as early as the 1950s.
0:43.0	Hey, welcome to another episode of the Modern War Institute podcast.
0:46.5	I'm John Amble, editorial director at MWI, and I'm joined today by Seth Johnston to look
0:51.1	back at the 75-year history of NATO.
0:56.4	Seth is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, and much of his military career has been spent in positions where he has worked closely
1:01.0	with NATO partners. He also has extensive experience studying the alliance. In fact, he wrote a book
1:06.7	about it called How NATO Adapts, strategy and organization in the Atlantic Alliance since
1:11.7	1950. Now, NATO looks very different today than it did when it was founded, and the geopolitical,
1:17.7	strategic, and military landscapes are also very different. But as you'll hear, the alliance's
1:22.9	history is marked by some pretty remarkable continuity. That means an appreciation of its history offers a
1:28.5	really useful framework to understand the challenges and opportunities that NATO faces today and that await
1:33.9	it tomorrow. Before we get to the discussion, a couple notes. First, if you're not yet subscribed to the
1:39.2	MWA podcast, you can find it on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss an episode. And second,
1:43.8	as always, what you hear in this episode are the views of the participants
1:46.8	and don't represent those of West Point, the Army, or any other agency of the U.S. government.
1:52.0	All right, here's my conversation with Seth Johnson. Seth, thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the MWI podcast.
2:10.1	Thank you, John. It's great to be here with you at West Point and MWI once again.
2:15.3	So this week marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of NATO, which I think is an
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