In the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, the overwhelming majority of policymakers in the United States opposed the eastward expansion of NATO, on the grounds that such expansion would only poison the emerging relationships between Russia and the West. This book tells the story of the fierce battle that pitted a handful of passionately committed policy activists and intellectuals against the proponents of this conventional wisdom. This book meticulously research, and benefiting from interviews with more than 60 international affairs experts in the US and Europe, traces the battle of NATO expansion from its earliest stages all the way through to the favourable action taken by the Senate on April 30, 1998. The author introduces the key individuals who participated in this five-year drama, even as he makes astute observations on the ever-changing realities of policy-making in the post-cold war era.
