NATO. Mockli, Daniel. European Foreign Policy during the Cold War. Heath, Brandt, Pompidou and the Dream of Political Unity, I. B. Tavris, 2009.

The author misses the main point in NATO development. Despite the continuity of the founding documents and structures, politically it lived through three distinct phases. Yet, Mockli's book despite its conceptual flaws even within the smart limitations he himself posed on his master opus--he does not touch a very successful demonstration of unity in the end of the 70s--with respect to the deployment of the INF, is much deeper and better researched than the majority of NATO-related studies.

In the first phase (40s-first half of the 60s) it was a system of American military guarantees to the European countries in the case of Soviet invasion in exchange for the access to their strategic infrastructure: roads, ports, airports and such. The ending of this phase can be dated by 1966? when De Gaulle pulled France out of NATO and declared a strategy of "all-azimuth defense." Nobody seriously thought that France would fight on the Soviet side in the case of any conflict but, with respect to the NATO forces in Europe, French strategy perceived an eventuality in which Americans will unilaterally decide to use French territory and resources to fight wars having nothing to do with the French national interest.

The second phase (1960s-1990s), was characterized by NATO turning into a collective European Army. In fact, by the mid-1970s, not occasionally coinciding with the end of the Vietnam War, the main ground force in the Central Europe was represented by the German and British contingents. The US still provided both strategic and tactical nuclear umbrella for NATO forces in Europe and the naval protection of its flanks but it was clear that in the case of the major conflict, the bulk of the ground armies will be provided by the large NATO countries.

Finally, the third phase, in which we are now is NATO, turning after its enlargement into a Department of the US Colonial Affairs. Nobody in his or her right mind can perceive any security interests of Poland, or Romania sending its nationals to Iraq or Denmark and Norway supporting attack on Libya. These conflicts are a complete invention of the US (or British, in the case of Libya) policy establishments, in which the role of the other NATO members to provide condottieri or, if they would not, to give money either for the "humanitarian aid" or "reconstruction" of the countries ruined by the US invasion, or to support shambolic economies of their Eastern European and Southern allies at the time when they send their kids to fight.

There would be, half-seriously, the fourth phase when the interests of the Eastern Europeans will chain US and EU into futile "crush Russia, get hydrocarbons" policies on the periphery of the US interests. We already see that in senseless Georgian and Ukrainian projects. Neocons thinking that they are smarter than everyone else are for that the most gullible when it comes for substitution of the US national interest with petty conflicts framed by Polish propaganda and Saudi/Qatari money.

P.S. Mockli calls for the efficient EU defensive policy suggesting that without it there would be no independent EU foreign policy. Sounds reasonable, but for now, there is no chance whatsoever that EU is capable to develop independent foreign policy. Euro-Atlanticists (called neocons in the US) proceeded with enlargement in part to create a compact of minion states to contain (and in future, to be used as beachhead to attack) Russia. This sorry predicament does not leave much role for the Western Europe as to be, in the words of G. Orwell, US No.1 runway.

Other references:

D. S. Hamilton (ed.) Transatlantic transformations: equipping NATO for the 21st century, Center for Transatlantic Relationships.
Techno-bubble talk with little depth of inherent political and economic issues. Rob de Wijk's suggestions for armaments do not envision any conflict but the war with Russia.
Herd, G. and J. Kriendlender (eds.) Understanding NATO in the 21st century. Routledge.
Again, purely technocratic talk devoid of any political content and context.
Arne Hoffman. The emergence of detente in Europe: Brandt, Kennedy and the formation of Ostpolitik, 2007.
G. Schmidt (eds.) A history of NATO: the first fifty years, Vols. 1-3. 2001.
S. R. Sloan, NATO, the European Union and the Atlantic Communisty, Roman & Littlefield, 2005.
It offers quite sophisticated view of the trans-Atlantic relationship going far beyond the neocon one-liner of the "defense of democracies." Yet, it was written during the "mission accomplished" period of unabashed US triumphalism with respect to war in Iraq.
W. T. Thies. Why NATO endures.
Primitive neocon-themed piece of NATO propaganda. "Unlike autocracies, in which an entrenched leadership can make the same dumb mistakes more than once, there is a Darwinian quality to policy making in democracies." Ye, ye. Kosovo, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Ukraine...