In 1951-52, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization established the
Southern Flank, a strategy for the defense of the eastern
Mediterranean in the Cold War involving Italy, Greece, and Turkey.
Among its many aims, the Southern Flank sought to mobilize these
countries as allies and integrate them into the Western defense
system. Throughout the 1950s, the alliance developed the Southern
Flank and in 1959 it was finally stabilized as fractious
Greek-Turkish relations were improved by the temporary settlement
over Cyprus. The Southern Flank of NATO, 1951-1959: Military
Strategy or Political Stabilization examines, among other things,
the initial negotiations of 1951-52, the Southern Flank's structure
and function and relative value in NATO's overall policy, and the
alliance's response to the challenges in the eastern Mediterranean
in the early Cold War. It explores not only the military aspects of
the Southern Flank, but also the more controversial political
aspects: the admission of Greece and Turkey to NATO, the
short-lived military cooperation between these states and
Yugoslavia during 1953-55 and the effects of the deterioration in
Greek-Turkish relations from 1955 due to Cyprus. It also focuses on
the part played by other major members of the alliance, principally
the United States and Britain, in Southern Flank politics and
strategy. Thus, it considers how the United States and the U.K.
viewed the power balance between the three Southern Flank members
and how the Americans sought to influence affairs through
financial, military and technical assistance, including the
construction of U.S. bases in Italy, Greece, and Turkey. The book
also assesses the threat posed to the Southern Flank at various
points by rising tensions in the Middle East. More generally, the
book illuminates the complexities of intra-alliance dynamics in a
region full of Cold War tensions. However, in its Middle
Eastern/Eastern Mediterranean neighborhood, it was not only the
Cold War that provided tensions, since the Arab-Israeli dispute and
the tensions of decolonization further complicated the picture.
Thus, the study of the Southern Flank is a test case of a Cold War
theater which was subjected to additional historical pressures,
creating a nexus of problems which the Western Alliance needed to
address within its effort to respond to the various challenges of
the Cold War.
General
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