NATO expansion

NATO, which stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is a political and military alliance of 30 North American and European countries. The purpose of NATO is to guarantee the security and freedom of its member countries through both political and military means. In terms of politics, NATO strives to promote democratic values and enable its members to consult and cooperate on matters related to defense and security in order to solve problems, build trust, and prevent conflict.

The idea of countries coming together to counter a common threat is not new. It has existed for about as long as there have been nation-states. History is filled with conflicts in which countries come together to protect themselves against what they perceive to be threats to their security, sovereignty, and values. The idea for the creation of NATO came shortly after WWII came to a close. The leaders of Western Europe were growing worried as they observed the Soviet Union asserting their control over the Eastern European countries that they had occupied during the war. They were concerned that the Soviet Union would soon try to impose its ideology on the rest of Europe. At the same time, the countries of Western Europe were dismantling much of their defense capabilities following the brutality of the Second World War.

In January of 1948, British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin suggested the drafting of a treaty that would create a regionally-based military alliance to provide collective security, based on the principles of the UN Charter. The US was willing to lend military support to Western Europe, but only under the condition that Western Europe was united. The European countries of France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom responded to this stipulation by creating what was known as the Western Union, which was designed to strengthen ties between the five countries and provide a mechanism of mutual defense. This Western Union formed the basis for the negotiations that took place in order to establish what became NATO.

For about 40 years, NATO’s main objective was to counter the threat posed by the Soviet Union and its satellite states in Eastern Europe, which were united under what could be described as the communist version of NATO, the Warsaw Pact. But in 1989, communism in Europe was coming to an end. The fall of the Berlin Wall represented the fall of the Iron Curtain that had divided Europe between east and west since the end of WWII. Two years later, the Soviet Union, which led the communist bloc, ceased to exist. Thus, NATO was left without an adversary. Indeed, after the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War, some wondered if NATO could endure in the absence of the threat it was made to counter.

NATO did endure. In fact, it was not during the Cold War that military forces under the banner of NATO became active, but after. In 1995, for example, NATO forces were activated in order to implement the Dayton Peace Accord that ended the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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