NATO and the Middle East: The Making of a Partnership

This is a book on NATO and the Arabs. The author has been Deputy Secretary General of NATO from 2001 to the end of 2007, and at present is the founder and President of the NATO Defense College Foundation in Rome. In those years he was tasked by the North Atlantic Council to launch possible partnerships with the Arabs of the Mediterranean, of the Gulf, and Israel. NATO wished to compensate for the disaster in Iraq, but we never had before any kind of relationship with the Arab world, traditionally very suspicious of NATO. The narrative of the book is about that policy and the objective to reach out to the Arabs. In the end it was considered to be a success story. Putting the basis for two existing partnerships and a long term relationship. The book came out in Italy in 2013. As the relationship with the Arabs has recently become so dramatically relevant and the transatlantic bond so strained, the book has been updated and translated into English.

“This is a personal account of Minuto-Rizzo’s work to effect a dramatic, qualitative upgrading of the Mediterranean Dialogue, and to create a partnership with the Gulf countries, in the challenging aftermath of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, which had caused great strains within the Alliance and in relations with the Arab world.”

—Eric R. Terzuolo, NATO Manfred Woerner Fellow 2003-2004 and author of NATO and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Regional Alliance, Global Threats (Routledge 2006).

“This is an indispensable account of NATO's ground-breaking partnership initiatives with the Arab countries and Israel after 9\11, written by the man who was primarily responsible for building those new relationships. My role aside, I remain convinced that NATO's partnership efforts in the Middle East have paid off and should be strengthened, since, in the present political climate, they are more relevant than ever. More people should be aware of them. I am hoping this book will help accomplish that.”

—Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Secretary General of Nato, 2004-2009, and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands.