HIS42850

At the end of the Cold War the purpose of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military alliance was unclear. It had been designed for major inter-state conflict, principally with the Soviet Union. US Senator Richard Lugar urged NATO to become more expeditionary and to conduct peace enforcement or stabilisation operations outside Europe – to go “out of area or out of business”. During the subsequent three decades NATO went to war four times, in the Balkans in response to conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo, in Afghanistan and in Libya. The first three operations involved the sustained use of ground forces. This module traces NATO’s involvement in intra-state conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan, from war-fighting to stabilisation to security sector reform. It especially focuses on NATO militaries’ relationships with local political power-brokers, including paramilitaries and militia in the aftermath of initial combat operations. The module draws on literatures on stabilisation, civil wars, insurgencies and paramilitarism, analysing NATO’s successes, failures, and questionable legacies.