Fernando Carbajal

5A

World History Pre-AP

Ms. Bartley

Word Count: 2351

Formation of NATO (Final Draft)

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization known as (NATO) has helped so many countries

find peace in between each other. It is also a safe alliance between 28 countries, NATO's

fundamental goal is to safeguard the Allies' freedom and security by political and military means.

NATO remains the principal security instrument of the transatlantic community and expression

of its common democratic values. It is the practical means through which the security of North

America and Europe are permanently tied together. NATO enlargement has furthered the U.S.

goal of a Europe whole, free, and at peace.

In April, 1949 the alliance of NATO was formed to prevent further expansion of the

communist party to other countries that were getting taken over by the Soviet Union. When it

was formed by the main countries in North America and through Europe, the Soviet Union had

found out they finally had a rival against their powerful alliance. The discussions between the

Western nations concluded on April 4, 1949, when the foreign ministers of 12 countries in North

America and Western Europe gathered in Washington, D.C., to sign the North Atlantic Treaty. It

was primarily a security pact, with Article 5 stating that a military attack against any of the

signatories would be considered an attack against them all. When U.S. Secretary of State Dean
Acheson put his signature on the document, it reflected an important change in American foreign

policy. For the first time since the 1700s, the U.S. had formally tied its security to that of nations

in Europe the continent that had served as the flash point for both world wars. NATO formed the

backbone of the West’s military bulwark against the USSR and its allies for the next 40 years,

with its membership growing larger over the course of the Cold War era.

In the Mid 1950’s the formation of Warsaw Pact in some of the ways of the creation of

NATO, but didn’t happen till 6 years after the Western alliance came into being. It was more

directly inspired by the rearming of West Germany and its admission into NATO in 1955. In the

aftermath of World War I and World War II, Soviet leaders felt very apprehensive about Germany

once again becoming a military power–a concern that was shared by many European nations on

both sides of the Cold War divide. However, the U.S. and a number of other NATO members

began to advocate making West Germany part of the alliance and allowing it to form an army

under tight restrictions. The Soviets warned that such a provocative action would force them to

make new security arrangements in their own sphere of influence, and they were true to their

word. But mainly the goal of the Warsaw Pact focused on the objective of creating a coordinated

defense among its member nations in order to deter an enemy attack. European political

integration took its first hesitant steps. In reaction to West Germany’s NATO accession, the

Soviet Union and its Eastern European client states formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955. Europe

settled into an uneasy stand-off, symbolised by the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961. The

Berlin Wall was built between West and East Berlin its official purpose was to keep Western

“fascists” from entering East Germany and undermining the socialist state, but it primarily

served the objective of stemming mass defections from East to West.

 In the Mid 1960’s through 1970’s this uneasy but stable status quo began to change, Cold

War tensions reignited as Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and US President John F. Kennedy

narrowly avoided conflict in Cuba, and as American involvement in Vietnam escalated. Despite

this unpropitious start, by decade’s end what had been primarily a defence-based organisation

came to embody a new phenomenon: détente, a relaxation of tensions between the Western and

Eastern blocs driven by a grudging acceptance of the status quo. During this decade, NATO and

shape unexpectedly moved to a new home. In March 1966, France announced its intention to

withdraw from NATO integrated military command structure and requested the removal of all

Allied headquarters from French territory. A new SHAPE Headquarters was established in

Casteau, Belgium in March 1967, and NATO HQ moved to Brussels in October of the same year.

Significantly, France remained within the Alliance and consistently emphasised its intention to

stand together with its Allies in the event of hostilities. France also proved to be among the

Alliance’s most valuable force contributors during later peacekeeping operations. Flexibility was

always key to NATO’s success, and the French withdrawal from NATO’s integrated military

command structure demonstrated that NATO, unlike the Warsaw Pact, could tolerate differing

viewpoints between its members. As a reminder of this point, in August 1968, the Soviet Union

led an invasion of Czechoslovakia that put an end to a period of political liberalisation in that

country known as the Prague Spring. Also Detente had many faces. West German Chancellor

Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik sought to encourage European stability through closer relations

between Eastern and Western Europe. US President John F. Kennedy’s strategy of “Flexible

Response” sought to replace Massive Retaliation absolute dichotomy of peace or total nuclear

war. Adopted in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Flexible Response enhanced NATO’s
conventional defence posture by offering military responses short of a full nuclear exchange in

the event of conflict. Also during this time, a report entitled “The Future Tasks of the Alliance”,

delivered in December 1967 to the North Atlantic Council by Belgian Foreign Minister Pierre

Harmel, recommended that NATO should have a political track promoting dialogue and détente

between NATO and Warsaw Pact countries. The role of NATO had become not merely to

preserve the status quo, but to help change it. The Harlem Report helped to lay foundation on the

convening of the Conference of Security and Cooperation in Europe in 1973. The 1979 Soviet

invasion of Afghanistan and the Soviet deployment of SS-20 Saber ballistic missiles in Europe

led to the suspension of détente.

In the Mid 1980’s, to counter the Soviet deployment, Allies made the “dual track”

decision to deploy nuclear-capable Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles in Western

Europe while continuing negotiations with the Soviets. The deployment was not scheduled to

begin until 1983. In the meantime, the Allies hoped to achieve an arms control agreement that

would eliminate the need for the weapons.Lacking the hoped-for agreement with the Soviets,

NATO members suffered internal discord when deployment began in 1983. Following the ascent

of Mikhail Gorbachev as Soviet Premier in 1985, the United States and the Soviet Union signed

the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 1987, eliminating all nuclear and ground-

launched ballistic and cruise missiles with intermediate ranges. This is now regarded as an initial

indication that the Cold War was coming to an end. The 1980s also saw the accession of NATO’s

first new member since 1955. In 1982, a newly democratic Spain joined the transatlantic

Alliance. Most international observers believed that Soviet Communism had lost the intellectual

battle with the West. Dissidents had dismantled the ideological supports of Communist regimes,
a process aided in retrospect by the Soviet Union’s own ostensible adherence to human rights

principles outlined by the Helsinki Final Act. The communist government of Poland found itself

forced to negotiate with the formerly repressed independent trade union “Solidarity” and its

leader, Lech Wałęsa. Soon other democratic activists in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union

itself would begin to demand those very rights. By this time, command economies in the Warsaw

Pact were disintegrating. The Soviet Union was spending three times as much as the United

States on defence with an economy that was one-third the size. Mikhail Gorbachev came to

power with the intention of fundamentally reforming the communist system. When the East

German regime began to collapse in 1989, the Soviet Union did not intervene, reversing the

Brezhnev Doctrine. This time, the Soviets chose long-run reform over a short-run control that

was increasingly beyond their capabilities, setting in motion a train of events that led to the

breakup of the Warsaw Pact.

By the 1990’s, the last decade of the century opens with events no less astounding than

those of the previous year. Change follows change in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Gorbachev, a popular figure in the West but a mistrusted one in his own country, announces that

political pluralism will be introduced and the domination of the Soviet Communist Party ended.

Also leading to the discussions of fixing the once divided Germany, East German citizens vote

massively for "Alliance for Germany" and their government translates their decision into action

by declaring itself in favour of unification and membership of the whole of Germany in the

NATO Alliance.

As time passes by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), has still been

managing a whole lot of problems that are still trying to be solved. Especially now due to
Russia's military buildup, which NATO is trying to avoid aggression to deploy from the spread of

other European countries. But right now they are also trying to maintain peace due to many

controversial things that have builded up between the United States and also North Korea that

hasn’t been able to be solved and has been a constant warnings between each other. But NATO’s

primary purpose was to defend member nations against troops in pro-communist countries. The

United States also wanted to maintain a presence in Europe. It sought to prevent a resurgence of

aggressive nationalism and foster political union.

Timeline:

1949- Twelve States including, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Britain, Iceland,

Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and the U.S. sign the North Atlantic

Treaty in Washington D.C.

1950’s - U.S. General Dwight Eisenhower appointed supreme NATO commander, Greece

and Turkey join the alliance, West Germany joins NATO, and the Soviet Union respond by

creating Warsaw Pact

1960’s- French President Charles de Gaulle announces France’s intention to withdraw

from NATO’s military structure in protest at the dominance of the U.S commanders, New

headquarters for NATO’s office in Brussels

1982- Spain joins the alliance in NATO

 1990’s- NATo and Warsaw Pact states sign the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe

treaty (CFE) and publish a joint declaration on non-aggression.

Annotated Bibliographies:

Allied Control Council . 1945.North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Web. 18 January 2016.

This photograph from 1945 was used as a way to illustrate the conditions in the mid1900’s and

allows us to understand more about what was happening in that time period.This photograph is

actually from the time period and was found on the official NATO website, allowing us to trust

in its credibility. This photo shows us a snapshot of what was happening just before NATO began

and the conditions that NATO eventually had to face.

Ballard, Francis. Personal Interview. 19 January 2016.

Francis Ballard was part of NATO’s military force and allowed us to have a better

understanding of the purpose of NATO and its military. His first hand experience leads us to

believe that what he says is credible and was a well informed source of information when it

comes to how NATO functions. Understanding his experiences in NATO allowed us to give a

much better explanation of activities NATO is associated with.

Churchill, Winston. “The Sinews of Peace.” Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri. 5 March

1946. Speech.

Winston Churchill’s speech about the Iron Curtain definitely gave us a different

viewpoint from that time period and gave us a better understanding of how situations like the

spread of communism were dealt with at the time. Churchill has first hand experience with

dealing with the Soviet Union which has informed us of the problems that NATO had

encountered during these times.

End of Berlin blockade. May 1949. North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Web. 18 January 2016.

This photograph captures the feelings of the people experiencing the Berlin blockade which was

another difficult situation in which NATO worked towards countering. This photo was taken

during the time the blockade was ending which allows for an accurate representation of what was

happening at the time.

Japan Surrenders. 1945.North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Web. 18 January 2016.

The feelings visible through this photograph give us an interesting perspective of the

surrender of Japan. Because this photo was taken during the time period in which people

found out about Japan’s surrender, it allows us to

truly understand the feelings going through those involved with this war.

Kratzke, William. “Planes Strike The Twin Towers.” Photograph. New York Guides.N.p. N.d.

Web. 19 January 2016.

The dramatic and somber mood captured in this photograph exhibits a first-hand view of the

struggle and tragedy of this day in history. This was also the day that NATO was forced to invoke

Article 5 of their treaty, making this a memorable day for NATO as well. Lugar, Richard.

Council of Foreign Regulations, Washington, D.C., Maryland. 4 March 2002. Prepared Remarks.

These remarks by the U.S. Senator at the time shows us his opinions on what NATO is and could

be for the world. He gives sufficient reasoning for why he believes that NATO could keep avoid

any type of problems that countries might have with one another.

Lugar, Richard. Council of Foreign Regulations, Washington, D.C., Maryland. 4 March

2002.Prepared Remarks.These remarks by the U.S. Senator at the time shows us his opinions on
what NATO is and could be for the world. He gives sufficient reasoning for why he believes that

NATO could be an asset for the world.

“Meeting between NATO Secretary General and the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Finland and

Sweden.” Photograph.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

. N.p. 1 December 2015. Web.18 January 2016.

Not only does this photograph show communication within NATO, it allows us to understand

that the members of NATO are able to build good relationships through the organization. This

photograph was taken at the actual meeting and accurately portrays a discussion between

members of NATO.

“Meeting of the NATO

Ukraine Council.” Photograph.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

. N.p.2 December 2015. Web. 18 January 2016.This photograph gives a more personal first-hand

view of communications within NATO and shows us how members of NATO interact with each

other. It comes from the real meeting within NATO and shows the members encountering each

other.

NATO. “A dangerous world reminds people why NATO is still important.” Online video clip.

YouTube. YouTube, 23 December 2015. Web. 18 January 2016.The way this video created by

NATO presented information greatly illustrates the dangers the world faces that NATO works to

prevent. It provides considerable evidence that NATO remains necessary for the world today in

order to work against problems like terrorism. It sticks to facts about the world today and
conveys the message that the world still needs NATO.

“NATO Conference on Terminology Management.” Photograph.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

. N.p. 20 November 2015. Web. 18 January 2016.Because this photograph was taken from the

perspective of an audience member, it provides a different view of how NATO exchanges

information with others. It shows the first hand experience of someone involved in a meeting

with NATO.

Pictures: