Risk, threat, and security institutions 1

The post-Cold War world presents challenges for both policy and theory in international relations. One important challenge to international relations theory is the anomaly of NATO’s continuity after the Cold War. Inspired by the Soviet threat, created under American leadership, designed to bolster the security of its members against the Soviet Union by aggregating defence capabilities, NATO ought to be either collapsing or withering away: dying with a bang or a whimper. Indeed, since the end of the Cold War theorists working in the realist tradition have clearly and forcefully predicted NATO’s demise, if not in “days” then in “years.” ²