Today’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization, with nearly thirty members and a global reach, differs strikingly from the alliance of twelve, created in 1949 to "keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down." These differences are not simply the result of the Cold War, 9/11, or recent twenty-first-century developments, but represent a more general pattern of adaptability, first seen in the incorporation of Germany as a full member of the alliance in the early 1950s. Unlike other enduring post–World War II institutions, NATO stands out for the boldness and frequency of its transformations over the past seventy years. Johnston will speak about his book How NATO Adapts and illustrate how this ability to change, is once again a defining feature of European and international security.
