BROADCASTS.com

b'Ups and downs in NATO\\u2019s fortunes are nothing new, and predictions of NATO\\u2019s demise are almost as old as the Alliance itself. What is remarkable is not the Alliance\\u2019s decline but its longevity. NATO has outlasted the Warsaw Pact by some three decades. Other Cold War alliances \\u2013 the South East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO) and the Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO) - passed into history in the late 1970s. All of which begs the question: why has NATO persisted when other alliances have fallen by the wayside? There is already some excellent scholarship that addresses this issue. As NATO approaches another milestone \\u2013 the adoption of its fourth post-Cold War Strategic Concept \\u2013 it is worth examining the question once more.'