“Deterring Armageddon is far from a dry historical record. A Reuters foreign correspondent and specialist Army Reservist, the author combines the detailed research and insight of an historian with the vivid prose of a professional journalist, the access of a high ranking diplomat and the practicality of a soldier.” – Luke Turrell reviews Peter Apps‘ Deterring Armageddon: A Biography of NATO.
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A HISTORY IN SAFE HANDS
TITLE: Deterring Armageddon: A Biography of NATO
AUTHOR: Peter Apps
REVIEWER: Major Luke Turrell, Executive Officer, CHACR
NATO was described as “not a perfect marriage” by the US Ambassador to the UN in 1984, however, a marriage is not a great analogy for the Alliance; in Peter Apps’ words it’s more like a “polyamorous commune with multiple overlapping relationships and nuclear weapons”. And yet in its 75th year it has become the longest running international alliance in history, eclipsing the Delian League, a 74-year long Athenian-led group of city states formed in 478 BC. And, even before taking into account newcomer Sweden, NATO includes 955 million people, covers 25 million kilometres squared and if it were a single country would be both the richest and geographically largest in the world, surpassing, for the first time, the total area of the USSR at its height.
However, despite its success in preventing a catastrophic conflict in Europe, there was nothing certain about the creation or longevity of NATO. Commenting on the NATO Treaty, US diplomat Lucius Battle made the point that “there was by no means universal agreement that it was the right way to go”. On becoming Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Eisenhower brought Lieutenant Colonel Roy Lamson, an official historian during World War Two, out of retirement to record the process of establishing NATO’s military command structure with the words “even if it fails, we should know the reason why”. Apps’ book is the modern inheritor of that responsibility to commit resources to capture history “so that the lessons from the past do not get forgotten”.
Deterring Armageddon, however, is far from a dry historical record. A Reuters foreign correspondent and specialist Army Reservist, the author combines the detailed research and insight of an historian with the vivid prose of a professional journalist, the access of a high ranking diplomat and the practicality of a soldier. As a result, the book is both fascinating and easy to read, aided by appropriate and charming doses of humour. Apps points out that when the longest serving Secretary General Joseph Luns was asked how many people worked at NATO he replied “about half”.
The book charts the origins and development of the NATO treaty, a document designed to be understood by an ‘Omaha milkman’. It’s peppered with rare, insightful and fascinating anecdotes about totemic figures such as Eisenhower, De Gaulle and Montgomery. It delves into the unilateral actions of the US following the building of the Berlin Wall, the fact NATO found out about the Cuban Missile Crisis at the same time as the world’s press and the now infamous refusal by General Mike Jackson to follow Supreme Allied Commander Europe’s orders in Kosovo.
In Apps’ hands the history of NATO becomes not only a history of the relationship between the ‘West’ and Russia but draws out NATO’s character; built on consensus and designed to prevent an isolationist America, NATO has ridden successive internal and external crises but been anchored around a core task to protect and defend fellow Alliance members. Soviet, Russian and Taliban leaders have expected the seemingly fragile alliance to fracture, only to be disappointed. As Apps astutely points out “consensus isn’t everyone saying yes. It’s nobody saying no”.
The wording of the all-important ‘self-defence clause’ Article 5 is quotable by many… ‘if a NATO ally is attacked, each and every other member of the Alliance will consider this an armed attack against all members’. Apps highlights the less familiar final part of the Article: “[NATO] will take the actions it deems necessary to assist.” Hardly the most binding obligation to commit to war in defence of others. And yet Apps suggests Article 5 is the reason European counties have been able to unilaterally arm Ukraine; the fear of collective NATO punishment has been enough to deter Russian retaliation on individual states. Moreover, NATO relies on momentum and “a lot of momentum is generated by a sense of threat and fear”.
It is clear, despite its imperfections, NATO is more relevant and necessary than ever. However, if the Alliance is to succeed following the arrival of new members, understanding its evolution is critical to understanding both its character and its future. As Shakespeare’s Tempest reminds us “what’s past is prologue”.
Published by Headline, Hardback, £25, ISBN-13: 9781035405756
