Out-of-area: NATO perceptions of the Third World, 1957–1967

This article discusses the reports of the NATO study groups on the situation in the Third World, from the aftermath of the Suez crisis until the 1967 reorganization of the alliance through the Harmel Report. These were the infamous ‘out-of-area’ issues which caused significant disagreements within the alliance. NATO analysis was dominated by the primacy of the Cold War: its major subject was ‘Soviet penetration’ of the periphery, rather than the problems of the global South as such. Arguably, this Cold War perspective prevented the NATO analysts from fully evaluating the dangers of the situation in the Third World.