1Peter Gowan, ‘The NATO Powers and the Balkan Tragedy’, New Left Review, no. I/234 (March–April 1999), 103.
2Sevim Dagdelen, NATO: A Reckoning with the Atlantic Alliance, (LeftWord Books, 2024); Sten Rynning, NATO: From Cold War to Ukraine, a History of the World’s Most Powerful Alliance (Yale University Press, 2024); Grey Anderson, ed., Natopolitanism. The Atlantic Alliance Since the Cold War (London: Verso, 2023).
3For more on the San Francisco Conference, see Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, The New Cold War is Sending Tremors through Northeast Asia, dossier no. 75, May 2024, https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-76-new-cold-war-northeast-asia/.
4‘Review of the World Situation’, Central Intelligence Agency, 17 May 1949, https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/17548-document-03-central-intelligence-agency-review.
5‘Lord Ismay’, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, accessed 16 March 2024, https://www.nato.int/cps/ge/natohq/declassified_137930.htm.
6Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute, United States Department of State, ‘Report by the Policy Planning Staff’, report no. 23, 24 February 1948, in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1948, General; The United Nations, Volume I, Part 2 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1976), https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1948v01p2/d4.
7Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, ‘The US Ministry of Colonies and Its Summit’, red alert no. 14, 25 May 2022, https://thetricontinental.org/red-alert-14-summit-of-the-americas/.
8‘The US Ministry of Colonies and Its Summit’.
9Mascha Neumann, ‘East German Weapons in the Fight Against Fascist Portugal’, Internationale Forschungsstelle DDR, 24 April 2024, https://ifddr.org/en/east-german-weapons-in-the-fight-against-fascist-portugal/.
10‘The Alliance’s New Strategic Concept (1991)’, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, accessed 1 July 2022, https://www.nato.int/cps/fr/natohq/official_texts_23847.htm?selectedLocale=en.
11Madeleine K. Albright, ‘Statement by Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright During the North Atlantic Council Ministerial Meeting’, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, 16 December 1997, https://www.nato.int/docu/speech/1997/s971216aa.htm.
12In 1997, Peter Gowan wrote: ‘By entering Poland, NATO actually increases the insecurity of the Baltics. The conclusion is inescapable, that the first and main basis for the move into Poland is not a Russian threat but Russia’s current extreme weakness. Because of the catastrophic social and economic collapse inside Russia and the fact that its state has, for the moment, been captured by a clan of gangster capitalists around the West’s protégé Boris Yeltsin, the Russian state is in no position at present to resist the enlargement. This Russian weakness will almost certainly be temporary. We must assume the Russian economy and state will revive. It could easily grow ten-fold stronger in resource terms than it is today. NATO is thus exploiting a “window of opportunity” that will not stay open for very long. It is a case, therefore, of establishing a fait accompli against Russia swiftly’. Peter Gowan, ‘The Enlargement of NATO and the EU’, in The Global Gamble: Washington’s Faustian Bid for World Dominance (Verso, 1999), 298–299.
13George Monastiriakos, ‘Invite Ukraine to Join NATO and Win the Peace in Europe’, The Hill, 23 October 2024, https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4947010-ukraine-nato-membership-war-russia/.
14The White House, ‘The National Security Strategy of the United States of America’, September 2002, https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/Organisation/63562.pdf, 39.
15For ‘rogue states’ or ‘backlash states’, see Anthony Lake, ‘Confronting Backlash States’, Foreign Affairs 73, no. 2 (March–April 1994): 45–55. On ‘catastrophic terrorism’, see Ashton Carter, John Deutch, and Philip Zelikow, ‘Catastrophic Terrorism: Tackling the New Danger’, Foreign Affairs 77, no. 6 (November–December 1998): 80–95. When Lake wrote that essay, he was the US National Security Advisor, and Carter was later the US Secretary of Defence (2015–2017). Deutch had been US Deputy Secretary of Defence (1994–1995) and then head of the Central Intelligence Agency (1995–1996), while Zelikow authored Bush’s National Security Strategy in 2002.
16Katharine Q. Seele, ‘Arms Contractors Spend to Promote Expanded NATO’, New York Times, 30 March 1998, https://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/30/world/arms-contractors-spend-to-promote-an-expanded-nato.html.
17Jeff Gerth and Time Weiner, ‘Arms Makers See Bonanza in Selling NATO Expansion’, New York Times, 29 June 1997, https://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/29/world/arms-makers-see-bonanza-in-selling-nato-expansion.html.
18Seele, ‘Arms Contractors’.
19‘Ukraine the World’s Biggest Arms Importer; United States’ Dominance of Global Arms Exports Grows as Russian Exports Continue to Fall’, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 10 March 2025, https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2025/ukraine-worlds-biggest-arms-importer-united-states-dominance-global-arms-exports-grows-russian#:~:text=European%20NATO%20members%20increase%20dependence,19%20(52%20per%20cent); Sylvia Pfeifer, Jana Tauschinski, and Charles Clover, ‘Two-thirds of arms imports to Nato countries in Europe come from US’, Financial Times, 9 March 2025, https://www.ft.com/content/d3214157-639b-4743-ab29-9af662d47ec5.
20European Union, Towards an EU Defence Equipment Policy (Brussels: Commission of the European Communities, 2003), 11.
21Tom Stevenson, Someone Else’s Empire. British Illusions and American Hegemony (Verso Books, 2023), 46–47.
22Ivo H. Daalder and James Goldgeier, ‘Global NATO’, Foreign Affairs 85, no. 5 (September–October 2006): 105–113.
23Renée De Nevers, ‘NATO’s International Security Role in the Terrorist Era’, International Security 31, no. 4 (2007): 34.
24For an assessment of the annexation of the DDR, see Internationale Forschungsstelle DDR and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, Risen from the Ruins: The Economic History of Socialism in the German Democratic Republic, Studies on the DDR no. 1, 20 April 2021, https://thetricontinental.org/studies-1-ddr/; for the controversy about NATO’s expansion eastward, see Mary Elise Sarotte, ‘A Broken Promise? What the West Really Told Moscow About NATO Expansion’, Foreign Policy 93, no. 5 (September–October 2014): 90–97, and her book Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate (Yale University Press, 2021).
25Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, Hyper-Imperialism: A Dangerous Decadent New Stage, Contemporary Dilemmas no. 4, 23 January 2024, https://thetricontinental.org/studies-on-contemporary-dilemmas-4-hyper-imperialism/.
26For a broad understanding of the neoliberal capture of Ukraine’s structures, see Yuliya Yurchenko, Ukraine and the Empire of Capital: from Marketisation to Armed Conflict (Pluto Books, 2017); for an assessment of the context of the war in Ukraine, see John Bellamy Foster, John Ross, Deborah Veneziale, and Vijay Prashad, The United States is Waging a New Cold War: A Socialist Perspective, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, Monthly Review, and No Cold War, September 2022, https://thetricontinental.org/the-united-states-is-waging-a-new-cold-war-a-socialist-perspective/.
27An early summary is available in Karen Busler, NATO Burden Sharing and the Three Percent Commitment (Congressional Research Service, 1985) and a more recent one is Assessing NATO’s Value (Congressional Research Service, 2019). The similarity in tone and argument over thirty-four years and five presidents is stunning.
28‘Nato Countries (Military Service)’, UK Parliament Hansard, 30 May 1952, https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1952-05-30/debates/92c8849d-0446-49e0-91f9-034f3349e3dd/NatoCountries(MilitaryService).
29For more, see British House of Commons Defence Committee, Lessons of Kosovo: Fourteenth Report of the Defence Select Committee (London: UK Parliament, 24 October 2000) https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmdfence/347/34707.htm.
30Helen Caldicott and Craig Eisendrath, War in Heaven. The Arms Race in Outer Space (New York: The New Press, 2007), 31.
31‘Press Briefing by NATO Spokesman After the Meeting of the North Atlantic Council at the Level of Defence Ministers’, NATO Defence Ministers Meetings, 8 June 2006, https://www.nato.int/docu/speech/2006/s060608m.htm.
32Olaf Scholz, ‘Policy Statement by Olaf Scholz, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany and Member of the German Bundestag, 27 February 2022 in Berlin’, Press and Information Office of the Federal Government, 27 February 2022, https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/news/policy-statement-by-olaf-scholz-chancellor-of-the-federal-republic-of-germany-and-member-of-the-german-bundestag-27-february-2022-in-berlin-2008378.
33David McHugh, ‘Germany to Ease Government Debt Limits in Major Step Aimed at Boosting Economy, Defense Spending’, AP News, 5 March 2025, https://apnews.com/article/germany-ukraine-debt-brake-economy-military-spending-74be8e96d8515ddddd53a99a69957651.
34Le Monde with AFP, ‘EU Chief Unveils €800 Billion Plan to “Rearm” Europe’, Le Monde, 4 March 2025, https://www.lemonde.fr/en/european-union/article/2025/03/04/eu-chief-reveals-800-billion-plan-to-rearm-europe_6738782_156.html.
35Janan Ganesh, ‘Europe Must Trim Its Welfare State to Build a Warfare State’, Financial Times, 5 March 2025, https://www.ft.com/content/37053b2b-ccda-4ce3-a25d-f1d0f82e7989.
36Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila, ‘Main Stage I: Defending the UN Charter and the Rules-Based International Order’, panel discussion at the Munich Security Conference, Munich, 18 February 2023, https://securityconference.org/mediathek/asset/main-stage-i-defending-the-un-charter-and-the-rules-based-international-order-20230218-0917/.
37Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, The Churning of the Global Order, dossier no. 72, 23 January 2024, https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-72-the-churning-of-the-global-order/.
38Audronius Ažubalis, NATO and the Global South, (NATO Parliamentary Assembly, 2024), 13, https://www.nato-pa.int/document/2024-nato-and-global-south-report-azubalis-055-pcnp.
39‘Speech by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the Wilson Center Auditorium Followed by Q&A’, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, 17 June 2024, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/226742.htm?selectedLocale=en.
40‘What is R2P’, Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, https://www.globalr2p.org/what-is-r2p/#:~:text=The%20Responsibility%20to%20Protect%20populations,Background%20Briefing%20on%20R2P.
41Vijay Prashad, ‘In Africa They Say, “France, Get Out!”: The Nineteenth Newsletter (2024)’, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, 9 May 2024, https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/the-sahel-seeks-sovereignty/.
42‘Groupes d’Action Rapides – Surveillance et Intervention au Sahel (GARSI)’ [Rapid Action Groups – Surveillance and Intervention in the Sahel (GARSI)], CIVIPOL, 15 June 2021, https://civipol.fr/fr/projets/groupes-daction-rapides-surveillance-et-intervention-au-sahel-garsi.
43Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, Defending Our Sovereignty: US Military Bases and the Future of African Unity, dossier no. 42, 5 July 2021, https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-42-militarisation-africa/, and Antonella Napolitano, Artificial Intelligence: The New Frontier of the EU’s Border Externalisation Strategy (Copenhagen: EuroMed Rights, July 2023).
44‘Cooperation with the African Union’, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, 27 April 2023, https://www.nato.int/cps/fr/natohq/topics_8191.htm?selectedLocale=en.
45Hanna Eid, ‘A New World Born from the Ashes of the Old’, Interventions no. 5, Tricontinental Pan Africa, 8 October 2024, https://thetricontinental.org/pan-africa/eid-interventions-5/.
46‘NATO Delegation Takes Part in Ninth Round of Military-to-Military Staff Talks with the African Union’, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, 28 November 2024, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_230897.htm.
47‘The 601th Meeting of the AU Peace and Security Council on Early Warning and Horizon Scanning’, African Union, 8 June 2016, https://www.peaceau.org/en/article/the-601th-meeting-of-the-au-peace-and-security-council-on-early-warning-and-horizon-scanning.
48Sten Rynning, NATO: From Cold War to Ukraine, a History of the World’s Most Powerful Alliance (Yale University Press, 2024), 275.
49‘London Declaration’, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, 4 December 2019, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_171584.htm; ‘Brussels Summit Communiqué’, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, 14 June 2021, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_185000.htm.
50Luis Simón, ‘NATO’s China and Indo-Pacific Conundrum’, NATO Review, 22 November 2023, https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2023/11/22/natos-china-and-indo-pacific-conundrum/index.html.
51‘Relations with Partners in the Indo-Pacific Region’, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, 24 October 2024, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_183254.htm, and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, The Churning of the Global Order, dossier no. 72, 23 January 2024, https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-72-the-churning-of-the-global-order/.
52‘Shigeru Ishiba on Japan’s New Security Era: The Future of Japan’s Foreign Policy’, Hudson Institute, 25 September 2025, https://www.hudson.org/politics-government/shigeru-ishiba-japans-new-security-era-future-japans-foreign-policy; US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, ‘Chapter 9: Taiwan’, in 2024 Annual Report to Congress (Washington, DC: US Government Publishing Office, November 2024), 443–485, https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/2024-11/Chapter_9–Taiwan.pdf; US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Taiwan Policy Act of 2022 (Washington, DC: US Senate, 2022), https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Taiwan%20Policy%20Act%20One%20Pager%20FINAL.pdf; Clinton Fernandes, Sub-Imperial Power. Australia in the International Arena (Melbourne University Press, 2022); Clinton Fernandes, Island off the Coast of Asia. Instruments of Statecraft in Australian Foreign Policy (Monash University Press, 2018); Brendon Cannon and Kei Hakata, eds., Indo-Pacific Strategies: Navigating Geopolitics at the Dawn of a New Age (London: Routledge, 2021); Nanae Baldauff, Japan’s Defence Engagement in the Indo-Pacific (Springer Nature, 2024).