Born from necessity, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has always seemed on the verge of collapse. At this moment of incipient strategic crisis, Timothy A. Sayle offers a sweeping history of the most critical alliance in the post-World War II era.

In Enduring Alliance, Sayle recounts how the Western European powers, along with the United States and Canada, developed a treaty to prevent encroachments by the Soviet Union and to serve as a first defense in any future military conflict.

As the growing and unruly hodgepodge of countries, councils, commands, and committees inflated NATO during the Cold War, Sayle shows that the work of executive leaders, high-level diplomats, and institutional functionaries within NATO kept the alliance alive and strong in the face of changing administrations, various crises, and the flux of geopolitical maneuverings.

As Enduring Alliance deftly shows, the history of NATO is organized around the balance of power, preponderant military forces, and plans for nuclear war. But it is also the history riven by generational change, the introduction of new approaches to conceiving international affairs, and the difficulty of diplomacy for democracies.

The book is published by Cornell University Press.

"A must-read for policymakers seeking to ensure the Pax Atlantic is the indispensable and truly enduring alliance of our times." (Admiral James Stavridis, USN (Ret), supreme allied commander at NATO, 2009-2013)

"Must-read for scholars of history, security studies, and institutions, as well as anyone concerned about the state of NATO today." (Francis J. Gavin, author of Nuclear Statecraft)

"An ambitious, wide-ranging, and much-needed book in the development of inter-alliance politics within NATO." (Matthew Jones, professor of international history, London School of Economics)