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This book analyses the evolution of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its policies from the Cold War until today. NATO's future cannot be fully understood without analysing its past: the origins of its structure and goals, and their transformation over time. By exploring NATO's geopolitical and military role at crucial points throughout history, this edited volume considers the challenges and threats which have faced the alliance, as well as its strengths and weaknesses. It covers highly-debated and unresolved issues such as budgetary burden-sharing and the military transatlantic gap, the enlargement process, and the role of Asia in influencing NATO's policies. Combining a historical approach with international perspectives, this book is an interdisciplinary read that will appeal to scholars of diplomatic history and international relations.Chapters 1 and 2 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com

This book analyses the evolution of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its policies from the Cold War until today. NATOs future cannot be fully understood without analysing its past: the origins of its structure and goals, and their transformation over time. By exploring NATOs geopolitical and military role at crucial points throughout history, this edited volume considers the challenges and threats which have faced the alliance, as well as its strengths and weaknesses. It covers highly-debated and unresolved issues such as budgetary burden-sharing and the military transatlantic gap, the enlargement process, and the role of Asia in influencing NATOs policies. Combining a historical approach with international perspectives, this book is an interdisciplinary read that will appeal to scholars of diplomatic history and international relations. Chapters 1 and 2 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com. Massimo de Leonardis is Professor Emeritus of History of Treaties and International Politics at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy, President of the International Commission of Military History and Editor of the Quaderni di Scienze Politiche. He has written and edited 27 books, and sits on the boards of various Italian and international journals and institutions.

This historical survey maintains that European countries have no faults to be forgiven by Is-lam. Muhammad was the only founder of a religion being also a military leader and Islam was a perma-nent threat to Europe from the IX century to the XVII century. In contemporary age the religious factor was no longer relevant for Europe (no longer Christianity) in its relations with the Ottoman Empire. Nowadays a secularized Europe opening the doors to Islamic immigration is courting disaster.

The Great War started as a classical conflict of power politics. Secret war diplomacy clearly reveals the belligerents' imperialistic ambitions while an ideological confrontation between authoritarianism and democracy was impossible, being Tsarist Russia a pillar of the Triple Entente. Everybody expected a short war; the prolongation of the hostilities, the fall of the Tsar, the intervention of the United States and other factors transformed the character of the war, which according to Triple Entente's propaganda became an ideological struggle to promote democracy and nationality. In this respect 1917 was a key year. Pope Benedict XV's note of 1st August 1917 proposed ideas for a new international system quite similar to those of Wilson, but envisaged a compromise peace while the American president wanted to destroy the German Empire. In 1914 the Old Continent was the «proud tower» at the top of world power: this ended with «the suicide of civilian Europe», as the Pope labelled the war already in 1916.