April 11, 2024

Looking Back at 75 Years of NATO

In this panel discussion, three experts discuss how NATO morphed into a global linchpin of instability and a failed vehicle of US power projection.

Katrina vanden Heuvel

On April 4, 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded in Washington, DC. To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the world’s largest military alliance, the American Committee for US-Russia Accord and The Nation’s publisher, Katrina vanden Heuvel, convened a panel with Kyoto University’s Neutrality Studies featuring three reputable thinkers on international relations: Jack Matlock, the last US ambassador to the Soviet Union; professor John Mearsheimer, one of the world’s preeminent realist thinkers; and Anatol Lieven,renowned journalist and senior fellow of the Quincy Institute.

Katrina vanden Heuvel

Katrina vanden Heuvel is editor and publisher of The Nation, America’s leading source of progressive politics and culture. An expert on international affairs and US politics, she is an award-winning columnist and frequent contributor to The Guardian. Vanden Heuvel is the author of several books, including The Change I Believe In: Fighting for Progress in The Age of Obama, and co-author (with Stephen F. Cohen) of Voices of Glasnost: Interviews with Gorbachev’s Reformers.

More from The Nation

How the Theatrics of Mamdani’s Trump Meeting Backfired

How the Theatrics of Mamdani’s Trump Meeting Backfired How the Theatrics of Mamdani’s Trump Meeting Backfired

By pandering to the president’s vanity, the New York mayor reinforced Trump’s image as a strongman commanding deference—an especially bad look on the eve of Trump’s war with Iran

D.D. Guttenplan

Men watch from a hillside as a plume of smoke rises after an explosion on March 2, 2026, in Tehran, Iran.

The Iran War Is Also a Climate War The Iran War Is Also a Climate War

Climate change is not a peripheral part of what we’re seeing in Iran—it’s structurally embedded in modern warfare.

Mark Hertsgaard and Giles Trendle

The Cinema of Societal Collapse

The Cinema of Societal Collapse The Cinema of Societal Collapse

This year’s Oscar-nominated international feature films—especially The Secret Agent and Sirāt—tackle what it means to live and die under tyranny.

Books & the Arts

Volunteers with New York Common Pantry help to prepare food packages on October 30, 2025, in New York City.

Students in New York Are Going Hungry. How Can Mamdani Help? Students in New York Are Going Hungry. How Can Mamdani Help?

With plans for city-owned grocery stores and a focus on affordability, the new mayoral administration offers fresh hopes of successfully confronting the food crisis among students...

StudentNation / Nikole Rajgor

Anthropic touts its alliance with the American imperium in happier times for the company.

Garbage In, Carnage Out Garbage In, Carnage Out

The harrowing lessons of the Pentagon’s recently dissolved partnership with Anthropic.

David Futrelle

US President Donald Trump welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to his Mar-a-Lago club on December 29, 2025.

The Iran War Could Be Catastrophic for the US-Israel Alliance. Good. The Iran War Could Be Catastrophic for the US-Israel Alliance. Good.

As Israel’s role in pushing the war with Iran comes into ever sharper focus, it’s up to us to turn outrage into change.

Jack Mirkinson