During NATO's formative years, its leadership tried to develop an economic, social, and political role for the organization in an effort to transform it into a community of nations. Using material from Canadian, American, French, and British archives, John Milloy analyses these unsuccessful attempts to develop NATO's non-military potential.

Milloy challenges the view that creating greater alliance unity has usually been only a Canadian preoccupation - other members, notably the United States and Britain, displayed a sincere interest as well - and further suggests that Canadian actions sometimes acted as an impediment. He argues that the idea failed partly because the lack of an agreed-upon definition for NATO's non-military potential hampered focused discussion. With NATO facing a post-9/11 relevancy crisis, Milloy shows that there are parallels to the inter-alliance struggles of the 1950s and that many of the early frustrations and obstacles are still present.