The contributors to this book set out to show that NATO's post-Cold War troubles are largely self-generated and almost exclusively "eastern". They focus in particular on the issue of what to do with the former Yugoslavia.

Despite having been active in the region since the mid-1990s, the role of NATO in the Middle East has attracted particular attention since the events of 11th September 2001. This book analyses the limits of NATO’s role in the Middle East region and examines whether or not the Alliance is able to help in improving the fragile regional security environment through cooperative links with select Middle Eastern partners. The author reviews the strategic importance of the region from a Western perspective and why it has become a source of instability in world politics, looks at US and international initiatives to counteract this instability, and charts the development of NATO in this context. He also examines NATO’s role with regard to two pressing Middle Eastern crises, Iraq and Darfur, assessing whether or not this role has been consistent with, if not an expression of, US strategic interests. A comprehensive examination of the impacts of 9-11 events on world security and the development of NATO’s role in the Middle East, this book will be an important addition to the existing literature on security and strategic affairs, US foreign policy, Middle Eastern politics, European politics, and terrorism studies.

NATO's Eastern agenda faces several challenges, including consolidating the democratic transitions in Central and Eastern Europe, ensuring the security of the Baltic states, developing a post-NATO-enlargement strategy for Ukraine, deepening the Russia-NATO partnership, and engaging the Caucasus and Central Asia. The author also considers NATO's broader transformation.

In this new Brookings Marshall Paper, Michael O'Hanlon argues that now is the time for Western nations to negotiate a new security architecture for neutral countries in eastern Europe to stabilize the region and reduce the risks of war with Russia. He believes NATO expansion has gone far enough. The core concept of this new security architecture would be one of permanent neutrality. The countries in question collectively make a broken-up arc, from Europe's far north to its south: Finland and Sweden; Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus; Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan; and finally Cyprus plus Serbia, as well as possibly several other Balkan states. Discussion on the new framework should begin within NATO, followed by deliberation with the neutral countries themselves, and then formal negotiations with Russia. The new security architecture would require that Russia, like NATO, commit to help uphold the security of Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and other states in the region. Russia would have to withdraw its troops from those countries in a verifiable manner; after that, corresponding sanctions on Russia would be lifted. The neutral countries would retain their rights to participate in multilateral security operations on a scale comparable to what has been the case in the past, including even those operations that might be led by NATO. They could think of and describe themselves as Western states (or anything else, for that matter). If the European Union and they so wished in the future, they could join the EU. They would have complete sovereignty and self-determination in every sense of the word. But NATO would decide not to invite them into the alliance as members. Ideally, these nations would endorse and promote this concept themselves as a more practical way to ensure their security than the current situation or any other plausible alternative.

Despite the consensus that economic diplomacy played a crucial role in ending the Cold War, very little research has been done on the economic diplomacy during the crucial decades of the 1970s and 1980s. This book fills the gap by exploring the complex interweaving of East–West political and economic diplomacies in the pursuit of détente. The focus on German chancellor Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik reveals how its success was rooted in the usage of energy trade and high tech exchanges with the Soviet Union. His policies and visions are contrasted with those of U.S. President Richard Nixon and the Realpolitik of Henry Kissinger. The ultimate failure to coordinate these rivaling détente policies, and the resulting divide on how to deal with the Soviet Union, left NATO with an energy dilemma between American and European partners—one that has resurfaced in the 21st century with Russia’s politicization of energy trade. This book is essential for anyone interested in exploring the interface of international diplomacy, economic interest, and alliance cohesion.