North American Alliance Research Paper

Though the North Atlantic Treaty Organization originated on April 4, 1949, with the signing of the Washington Treaty, but the story and ideas begin in 1945 with the end of World War II, resulting in the desire and need to create a stable and secure world. Alliances are created to protect their members from an outside threat. For the creation of NATO during the Cold War, this threat was the rising power of the Soviet Union. The Alliances creation was part of a broader effort to serve three purposes: deterring soviet expansionism, forbidding the revival of nationalist militarism in Europe through a strong North American presence on the continent, and encouraging European political integration (Nato.int). In the first part of the paper, the …show more content…
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, there has been an “open door policy” instituted within NATO. “The Open-Door Policy is a founding principle of NATO and means that any country in the Euro-Atlantic area is free to join NATO if it is prepared to meet the standards and obligations of membership, contributes to the security of the Alliance, and shares NATO’s values of democracy, reform, and the rule of law” (nato.int). The last enlargement was in 2017, when Montenegro joined the alliance.
The current goals of the North Atlantic Treaty include political and military alliance. The political alliance within NATO “promotes democratic values and enables members to consult and cooperate on defense and security- related issues to solve problems, build trust and in the long run prevent conflict”. The military alliance part of NATO, is a commitment “to the peace resolution of disputes. If diplomatic efforts fail, it has the military power to undertake crisis- management operations”. In addition, a main goal is collective defense which is portrayed in Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, which, calls but does not commit, member states to assist another member when they are under attack. The 2010 strategic concept defines NATO’s core tasks as: collective defense, crisis management and cooperative security …show more content…
Underneath the military representatives lies the Military committee, composed of international military staff. Within this, there is the integrated military command structure which includes allied command operations as well as allied command transformation. Underneath NATO delegations, there is the nuclear planning group & the North Atlantic council (NAC). The NAC is the principle political decision making body in NATO. Each country has its own seat, meeting once a week or whenever they need to. It is chaired by the Secretary General who aids member states in reaching an agreement on key topics. The secretary general is also NATO’s chief spokesperson and is head of the international staff, this is the alliances top international civil servant. They are responsible for steering the process of consultation and decision making within the alliance and ensuring that decisions are carried out. Both the Nuclear planning group and the NAC have subordinate committees. These committees bring national representative as well as other experts from member countries and the convene regularly. The nuclear planning group has the same authority as the council with regard to nuclear policy issues. There are 29 member states that compose of NATO, all of which are from North America or Europe, decisions are taken by consensus, requiring the collective decision of all 29