Transformation Of NATO And Its Impacts On NATO's Organizing Capacity

The transformation of NATO is the most noticeable and significant international political issue in the post-Cold War Era. As the strongest military-political organization in the world, NATO's orientation will influence the international power structure and world peace and security significantly. Scholars at home and abroad have very different viewpoints on how the transformation will influence alliance's development. This thesis holds that it is possible to get a panorama through comparative studying on changes of organizing capacities before and after its transformation, through judging of transformation's impact on its organizing capacity. It would benefit our assessment of transformation's aftereffects. The thesis consists of three parts.The first part mainly reviews the history of NATO being established as a pillar in Western European security by building Western European defense system and adjusting military strategy during the Cold War. Then, this part also outlines characters, organizing structure, and efforts to build an integrative military force of NATO. Based on all of above, this part also evaluates NATO's organizing capacity during the last period the Cold War generally.The second part addresses the transforming process of NATO. At the beginning, the author considers US new global strategy, changes of Europe's security situation, and NATO's demand for its own survival as the main causes for NATO's transformation. Later, the author tries to describe a skeleton of transformation and distinguish 'changes' from 'non-changes' in transforming process through unscrambling some important political documents passed in several summits of NATO.The third part emphasizes three points: first, NATO has been losing its flexibility and adaptability that it had during the Cold War and isn't fit to current international political structure through studying on changes of national security conception, stubborn militaristic nature of NATO, and aftereffects of three military operations NATO involved in. Second, NATO has been becoming loose in structure and is reducing its reliability after its transformation because there are contradictions on orientation, leadership, and basic function between the US and main European countries. It is a reflection on different national interest demands and power game among NATO main members. Third, the thesis mainly expatiates on the impacts of transformation of NATO on its organizing capacity from four aspects, including aim, military expenditure, collective action capacity and membership standard.Finally, the thesis gets a short conclusion: During its transforming process at the post- Cold War era, NATO's organizing capacity has been weakening. It would bring negative influence to its long-term development if NATO can't study and resolve this problem seriously.