NATO’s Transformation into a Global Actor in the Age of Great Power Politics

Abstract

Founded as a collective defense alliance in the early years of the ColdWar era and then transforming itself by acquiring new missions duringthe U.S.-led unipolar period between 1991 and 2008, NATO is once againtrying to redefine its core rationale amid growing geopolitical confrontations among key global actors, such as the U.S., China, Russia and the EU.This article mainly seeks to answer to what extent the resurgence of greatpower rivalries might pave the way for NATO’s transformation into a credible global security organization in the emerging century. Although thechasm between the U.S. and its European allies has continued to widen inrecent years, cohesion among NATO members with respect to the emergingmultipolar world order and how Russia and China should be handled isnow more vital than ever to the persistence of NATO as a credible globalsecurity actor. NATO’s future will also be informed by how Russia andChina view the existing liberal international order in general and NATO inparticular. This article contends that NATO’s transformation in the coming years will be increasingly informed by the evolving dynamics of greatpower politics.