Grey Anderson: NATO’s Hegemonic Fix

The Moynihan Institute’s Center for European Studies presents historian Grey Anderson.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) can claim with justification to be the most successful military alliance in history. No other pact has marshalled such awesome destructive powers, and few have proved so enduring. But what is NATO? For its partisans, the alliance ensures collective defense, upholds values, and links Europe and North America in a common, trans-Atlantic community. Yet these are not NATO’s only, or even primary functions.

From its inception in the aftermath of the Second World War to the first decades of the 21^st century, the Atlantic Alliance has variously served as guarantor of member states’ internal order, instrument for asserting U.S. hegemony overseas, and platform for expeditionary warfare. A review of this history illuminates the balance of change and continuity over time and helps to contextualize the role of NATO in the outbreak and conduct of the ongoing war in Ukraine. 

Grey Anderson holds a Ph.D. in history from Yale University. He is an editor at Verso and New Left Review.