The transformation of NATO after the Cold War: Threat perception, crisis management and NATO military operations

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which represents the last dimension of the evolution of military alliances, has not experienced entropy (organizational death) despite the disappearance of the perception of threat from the USSR in 1991. The aim of the study is to determine how NATO is undergoing a transformation in order to survive in the post-Cold War period. The transformation of the organization for adaptation has been analyzed on three topics as its political-military institutional structure, identity and geographical area. In addition, the transformation of NATO's crisis management concept, mission, tools and operations is also included in the scope of this thesis. In addition to the absence of a study focusing on the evolution of the organization's institutional structure and crisis management, the lack of a current study on the transformation of its identity and geographical area makes this study important. NATO has organized military operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq in the form of coercion for peace, peacebuilding and conflict management for state building. In addition, it has carried out crisis management operations on various issues and areas such as natural disasters, epidemics such as Covid 19, protection of outdoor activities, protection of the Mediterranean Sea, supporting the African Union, air policing, and combating piracy. The main hypothesis of the study is that the reason for the differences in the decision on crisis management for military intervention in NATO is due to the organizational design of the organization. Due to the fact that NATO has reached the limits of expansion, it has completed its geographical transformation. However, it has been concluded that it has not completed the transformation process in terms of identity, political-military institutional structure and crisis management and that the transformation will continue as the organization continues to exist. Qualitative inductive research method and descriptive analysis technique were used in the study. In addition, comparative in-case analysis of the study was applied in the second part of the study. In the third part of the study, all of the crisis management operations carried out by NATO were discussed and the Most Different Systems Design were applied using the case analysis method limited to only six countries.