The North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Creation of NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a regional defense alliance created by the North Atlantic Treaty. NATO's purpose is to improve the strength, well being, and freedom of its members through a system of collective security. Members of the alliance agree to defend one another from attack by other nations or by terrorist groups. NATO has its head office in Brussels, Belgium."The North Atlantic Treaty was signed on April 4, 1949, at the beginning of the Cold War." (www.encarta.com) The original purpose of NATO was to defend Western Europe against possible attack by Communist nations, led by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

The original signers of the treaty were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Greece and Turkey were admitted to the alliance in 1952, West Germany in 1955, and Spain in 1982. In 1990 the newly united Germany replaced West Germany as a NATO member. "In 1955 West Germany was accepted under complicated arrangement whereby Germany would not be allowed to manufacture nuclear and biological weapons." (www.encarta.com)

Over the years the endurance of NATO has led to closer ties among its members and to a growing community of interests. The treaty itself has provided a model for other collective security agreements. NATO activities are no longer small only to Europe. In

2003, for the first time in its history, NATO took up peacekeeping activities outside of Europe by deploying troops in Afghanistan. "The North Atlantic treaty is a short document which expresses the practical resolutions and the idealism of the nations." (Ismay 12)

The Warsaw Pact became the Soviet response to the formation of NATO. Usually speaking, the Warsaw Pact was a treaty between 7 eastern European countries, namely Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Russia (USSR) which fixed the member countries duty of joint defense in regards to one another in the event of a war between them and the Western bloc nations. Like NATO, the Warsaw Pact would have its dominant member, and this member was clearly Russia as she had installed puppet communist regimes in all of these nations prior to the signing of the Warsaw Pact. In fact, Soviet troops already occupied most of the regions defined by the Warsaw Pact nations, and so the signing is interpreted as simply a recognition of the existing state of relationships However, it did serve some purpose, as the end of the Austrian Treaty threatened troop placements in Eastern Europe, which was previously done under the deception of guarding lines of communication, as it ended the agreement through which Russia had previously stationed troops in this area. Thus, one of the most important conditions of the Warsaw Pact was the ability of Russia to occupy the member countries of the Warsaw Pact in the name of self-defense and the defense of the other

Member states. This, in effect, made sure Russia's power in the region. Finally, the act can also be seen as the result of the presence of and outside threat and the need for a Soviet sponsored security system to deal with it. The final result of this pact, though, beyond the immediate military implications for Eastern Europe, was to create an equivalent for NATO; a foe towards which the