Now fully revised and updated, this accessible and astute text provides a full interpretive history of the transatlantic alliance and explores critical developments in U.S.-European relations. The first edition highlighted the dangers that U.S. foreign-policy unilateralism could pose for the relationship, a trend that has only intensified over the past few years. Stanley R. Sloan documents and analyzes the substantial ongoing record of U.S. unilateralism and its consequences as the transatlantic and intra-European debate over Iraq produced deep splits among the allies and seriously eroded European trust in U.S. leadership. Ironically, at the same time, the United States and Europe have made historic choices concerning NATO's future, not only continuing the process of enlarging alliance membership but also expanding the concept of NATO's missions to include peacekeeping and enforcement without geographic limitation. Sloan also enlarges on his ideas for a new Euro-Atlantic pact, a call that has now been echoing in both European and American quarters. Assessing both the good and bad news for the alliance, this book remains a central text for college and university courses on U.S.-European relations and transatlantic security issues and thought-provoking reading for all citizens concerned about future US foreign policy and Europe's role in it.
Stanley R. Sloan is the founding Director of the Atlantic Community Initiative, Visiting Scholar at the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs at Middlebury College, and President of VIC-Vermont, a private consulting firm. He is the author of Permanent Alliance? NATO and the Transatlantic Bargain from Truman to Obama, forthcoming from Continuum Books in July 2010.
Mr. Sloan is available for interviews and presentations in the United States, Canada and abroad. He can be contacted at srs2@wcvt.com.
During the Middlebury College Winter Terms from 2005-2007, and in January 2009, he taught courses on transatlantic relations, and, in January 2008 and 2010, presented a course on "American Power: Use and Abuse."
Stan was educated at the University of Maine (BA), Columbia University's School of International Affairs (MIA), and American University's School of International Service (abd PhD). He is a Distinguished Graduate of the Air Force Officers' Training School and served as a commissioned officer in the United States Air Force. Stan began his more than three decades of public service at the Central Intelligence Agency in 1967, serving as NATO and European Community desk officer, member of the U.S. Delegation to the Negotiations on Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions, and as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Western Europe.
Mr. Sloan is available for presentations and interviews in the United States and abroad. He can be reached at srs2@wcvt.com.
He was employed by the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress in a variety of analytical and research management positions from 1975-1999, including head of the Office of Senior Specialists. In April 1999, he retired from his position as the Senior Specialist in International Security Policy. During 1997-98, Stan was the rapporteur for the North Atlantic Assembly special presidential report on "NATO in the 21st Century."
Mr. Sloan's books and monographs in addition to the forthcoming Permanent Alliance? include: NATO, the European Union and the Atlantic Community: The Transatlantic Bargain Challenged (Rowman and Littlefield, August 2005); The Use of U.S. Power: Implications for U.S. Interests [with Robert Sutter and Casimir Yost] (Georgetown University Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, June 2004); NATO, the European Union and the Atlantic Community: The Transatlantic Bargain Reconsidered (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003); NATO and Transatlantic Relations in the 21st Century: Crisis, Continuity or Change? (Foreign Policy Association, October 2002); The United States and European Defence (Chaillot Paper, Western European Union Institute, April 2000).
Stan has lectured widely on US foreign and security policy and Euro-Atlantic security issues in the United States and abroad. He presents frequently at the NATO College in Rome, where, in September 2005, he was named an "Honorary Ancien" of the College to acknowledge his contributions to the College and the NATO alliance, and has lectured extensively for the U.S. public diplomacy program in many countries, most recently China, Denmark, Norway, Austria, Germany, Russia and Estonia (as a Fulbright Senior Fellow). In May 2009 he served as moderator and rapporteur for an international conference in The Hague on NATO's new strategic concept. In 2002, Stan was selected as a Woodrow Wilson Foundation Visiting Fellow and most recently in that capacity lectured at Hampden-Sydney College in February 2007.
