This book explores the crisis in transatlantic relations through an investigation of NATO's evolution from a reactive defensive alliance, to a proactive security manager in the 1990s. This book offers a unified theory of cooperation in the new security paradigm to explain the toxic state of transatlantic relations and NATO's inability to adequately transform itself into a security institution for the 21st century. Unlike during the Cold War where NATO confronted ''‚¬~knowable' threats (tanks, bombers, missiles), today the Alliance must confront more opaque and ambiguous issues that are not as easy to deter. International terrorism, rogue and failing states and international crime are not spatially or temporally defined, and cannot be easily quantified. Although they pose a danger to national security, they are not strictly speaking a direct threat that can be deterred, making the Alliance's task very difficult. While the organization has sought to adapt, outlining new missions in updated Strategic Concepts, the Alliance is caught in a dilemma. On the one hand, if NATO fails to adapt it will become irrelevant. But, on the other, in attempting to adapt, the Alliance may be fighting against the nature of the Risk Society where permanent alliances find themselves less suited than more ad hoc groupings.

The empirical focus of this book is the West's preoccupation with security risks and how this affects transatlantic security cooperation. The hypothesis is that the current international security environment favours ad hoc ''‚¬~coalitions of the willing' over fixed alliances, and thus NATO is disadvantaged in its attempts to reform and evolve. Attempts to evolve will be hampered by diverging various US and European views of security risks.This book presents an original application of the theories of Risk Society with insights from the literature on strategic culture, and will of much interest to students of NATO, Risk Society, International Security, and IR in general.