U.S.-NATO Relations:

Abstract

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization resiliency in the post-Cold War era has been demonstrated by a long series of interventions implemented to address the unconventional security challenges in the twenty-first century. Since the United States was a founding member of the Atlantic Alliance and possessed powerful diplomatic and military capabilities, its leadership of NATO was unquestioned during the Cold War. Over the last three decades, the U.S. has arguably been the ostensible leader of NATO through its sustained commitments to the Alliance‟s out of area and post-9/11 operations. These have contributed to NATO's survival and preservation the Euro-Atlantic security, as well as the Alliance‟s transformation into security organization in light of the new security contexts. The main concern of this dissertation is to examine NATO‟s most recent intervention in Libya to understand the nature of U.S.-NATO relationship, whether it is equal membership or leadership. Indeed, the findings of the study on the 2011 Operation Unified Protector in Libya confirmed that the U.S.-NATO relation is leadership, with the U.S. direct leadership evolving to a “leading from behind” strategy. The transatlantic success in Libya therefore would serve as a model for NATO future interventions in other conflict zones.