NATO Essay

On April 4 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or also known as NATO, was established under the North Atlantic Treaty by Belgium, Canada, Great Britain, France, Iceland, Italy, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United States. Then as time has moved on, NATO still continues to be in intact today with twenty-eight countries and with the headquarters being in Brussels, Belgium. The North Atlantic Treaty was ultimately negotiated as a Western countermeasure against the threat of aggression by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The treaty was intended and designed to safeguard the freedom of these countries and provide a joint self-defense. Furthermore, the treaty encouraged political, economic, and …show more content…
The Soviet Union had control of most of these governments and enforced Communism within each state. Thus, the United States wanted Europe to become economically strong, rearmed, and integrated in order to prevent communist expansion into the Western European states. The relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union was quickly fading in 1948 as there were disagreements over the postwar status of Germany. The United States and Soviet Union each organized a part of Germany with the United States in the west and the Soviet Union in the east. In 1948, Secretary of State of the United States George Marshall, launched a program called the Marshall Plan. The Marshall plan was a European recovery program which led to the United States giving massive amounts of economic aid to the countries of western and southern Europe. The Soviet Union and their satellite states, however, did not participate in the Marshall Plan and demonstrated the growing division between East and West Europe. The Marshall Plan achieved its goal by enabling economic cooperation between the United States and Western Europe, but also the plan promoted the idea of support in other areas such as defense. Through the Marshall Plan, the goal of the United States was to stabilize Western Europe so that they could be …show more content…
At the end of the Cold War, the Warsaw Pact fell apart and the Soviet Union had collapsed. NATO began to grow and include former Soviet Union satellite states and eventually a link was formed between NATO and Russia. After the Cold War, NATO’s role in world affairs changed, and United States forces in Europe have been greatly reduced. NATO has continued to concentrate on security and stability throughout Europe and to focus on maintaining peace. In more recent times, NATO was used to help in Bosnia in peacekeeping operations against Serbia. Then, NATO was involved in commanding the security force in the Kabul area in Afghanistan. Overall, NATO has now evolved to confront global threats around the world and continues to be involved in attempts to work towards peace during present time