THE NATO QUESTION

The alliance that kept Europe safe for seventy years is facing its hardest test - from within and without.

NATO was born in 1949 to contain Soviet expansion. It won the Cold War without firing a shot. And for three decades, it seemed to have no purpose beyond crisis management in distant Balkan mountains. Then Russia invaded Ukraine - and everything changed.

In The NATO Question, Nicholas Holt examines the alliance at its most consequential moment since the fall of the Berlin Wall. From the Article 5 promise that keeps Europe secure to the eastern flank's new frontline in Poland and the Baltics, from Germany's reluctant rearmament to Turkey's strategic blackmail, from France's dreams of European autonomy to the American electorate's growing impatience with European defence free-riding, Holt traces the fractures that could either transform NATO or destroy it.

Inside, you will discover:

• The Ukraine test: how Russia's invasion revived NATO - and revealed its every weakness
• Germany's awakening: from pacifism to rearmament, and why the transformation is incomplete
• Turkey's blackmail: how Erdoğan exploits NATO's unanimity rule to advance his own agenda
• The American question: will the next US administration stay or go? And what happens if it goes?
• NATO's Indo-Pacific pivot: why Japan and South Korea are joining the alliance's strategic conversations

Three futures for NATO:

1. Relevance: A reformed alliance that shares burdens and deters aggression
2. Reform: A leaner, more flexible security architecture that includes but transcends NATO
3. Retirement: A transatlantic divorce that leaves Europe exposed and America isolated

The NATO question is not an academic debate. It is the question of whether the West can survive the twenty-first century. This book provides the answer.