Barry Posen, Ford International Professor of Political Science and a member of the Center’s Security Studies Program, was featured on a panel discussing the future of NATO and its signifance in American security.
The panel focuses on NATO’s future and asks why the alliance has remained so central to American security and the West’s sense of collective identity. An artifact of the Cold War, NATO’s establishment reflected the sensibilities of the bipolar order. In the aftermath of the demise of the Soviet Union, however, not only did the alliance not disband, but it pivoted to find new raison d’etres in Europe — resulting in a series of expansions into former Iron Curtain territory that culminated in the quest to extend into Ukraine and in Russia’s military action against Kyiv to halt that effort.