NATO: What You Need to Know

What is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)? What role is played by its members and partners? Does the largest military alliance ever to exist serve the cause of peace or the causes of weapons sales and war mongering? Published to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the alliance, this sharp, concise account examines NATO’s origins, structure, and its goals at a time of mounting global tension.

NATO has remade itself repeatedly, as its past purposes have disappeared. In the last 35 years it has been part of wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. It has played a major role in Ukraine, and supported warmaking by Israel. NATO is now expanding rapidly, both in geography and in scope, adding partners from Colombia to Mongolia to Australia, and claiming a role in policing, immigration, economics, public budgeting, scientific research, and environmental protection.

With pointed investigations of how NATO’s decisions are made, the widely misunderstood question of the way it is funded, its relationship to international law, and the available alternatives to it, NATO: What You Need to Know is an indispensable primer on an organization that not only confronts expanding military conflict but, the authors contend, plays an active part in its escalation.

Medea Benjamin is a co-founder of CODEPINK and the fair trade advocacy group Global Exchange. She is the co-author of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, and the author of Drone Warfare, Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.--Saudi Connection and Inside Iran. In 2012, she was awarded the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation’s Peace Prize; she is also recipient of the 2014 Gandhi Peace Award and the 2010 Martin Luther King, Jr. Peace Prize from the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He speaks frequently on the topic of war and peace, and engages in all kinds of nonviolent activism. He is executive director of WorldBeyondWar.org, a global nonviolent movement to end war and establish a just and sustainable peace, and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson’s books include War Is A Lie, Leaving World War II Behind, and War Is Never Just. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and, and hosts Talk World Radio. He is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and U.S. Peace Prize recipient.