The organization bound by the North Atlantic Treaty (abbreviated NATO), which is also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance. NATO, which consists of 28 states bordering the North Atlantic Ocean (namely Canada, the United States, Turkey and most members of the European Union), was created to protect their freedoms. In its treaty, signed in Washington on April 4, 1949 and establishing what NATO is, it is stated that an armed attack on one of the members of the alliance should be considered an attack on all.
The North Atlantic Alliance stands for the rule of law, democracy, individual freedom, and the peaceful resolution of disputes and promotes such values in the Euro-Atlantic region. The headquarters is located in Brussels, Belgium.
So what is NATO? This is a forum in which countries in Europe and North America have the opportunity to consult with each other on security issues of mutual interest and take joint action to resolve these issues. In recent years, NATO's mission has expanded to include defense against weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and cyber attacks. The fight against terrorism was included in the alliance's priority goals after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in September 2001, which is considered an attack on the United States.
To better understand what NATO is, let's look at history. The military bloc was created after the Second World War ended, with its main purpose being to protect member countries from large numbers of troops from communist countries. NATO's history further developed during the Cold War, when it expanded to prevent
nuclear war. After West Germany joined the bloc, communist countries including the USSR, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany formed the Warsaw Pact alliance. In response, NATO adopted a policy of massive retaliation, promising to use nuclear weapons if attacked.
After the fall in 1989, and also after the collapse of the USSR, relations between NATO and Russia began to be based on bilateral cooperation. In 2002, the Russia-NATO Council was created to regulate general security issues. Alliance's highest priority
became a mission in Afghanistan. For the success of the peacekeeping mission, the organization even asked for help from its main competitor, Russia.
Over the years, NATO has grown stronger and strengthened the bonds between members. The treaty itself served as the basis and model for other international security treaties. Today, the question of what NATO is can be answered with confidence: it is one of the most successful defense alliances of all time, which is currently influencing the scenario of various world changes. Our future world is filled with known and unknown threats. NATO can act as a beacon on the high seas of various dangers.
NATO - translated from English (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or North Atlantic Alliance. So what is NATO? This is a military-political bloc founded on April 4, 1949 to create a security system and provide military assistance to member countries, improve their well-being and maintain peace. 12 states became NATO members: 10 European (Great Britain, France, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Iceland) and the USA and Canada.
Reasons for the creation of NATO
The need to create such a union was dictated by political circumstances. After World War II, the world found itself divided into two camps: socialist and capitalist, between which there was serious confrontation. The USSR, which supported communist movements in Europe, was considered the main security threat. To fight a common enemy, the Brussels Treaty was signed by five European countries in 1948, which became the forerunner of NATO.
NATO structure
The main governing body is the NATO Council, headquartered in Brussels. The Chairman is the Secretary General.
The highest military-political body of NATO is the Defense Planning Committee, the highest military body is the Military Committee. The structure also includes nuclear deterrence and rapid reaction groups.
NATO is currently
NATO currently includes 28 countries. Three of them - France, Greece, Spain - at certain stages did not take part in the activities of the alliance. It is interesting that one of the NATO members, Iceland, does not have its own army.
Since the early 1990s. In connection with the collapse of the socialist camp, NATO began to actively pursue a policy of attracting new members. The Partnership for Peace program was also developed, in which Russia also participates.
NATO's modern activities have two vectors. One of them (non-military) is aimed at economic, energy, and cultural cooperation. The second (military) causes the most criticism due to the alliance’s participation in military conflicts at the turn of the 20th-21st centuries. (Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.).
Now you know what NATO is and what policies this organization pursues.
Today everyone has heard about this intergovernmental international organization and the world's largest military-political alliance. participating countries - this is the basic principle of the alliance called NATO. The list of countries included in it currently includes 28 states. All of them are located exclusively in two parts of the world - North America and Europe.
Goals, objectives and structure of the organization
NATO (an abbreviation for the English "North Atlantic Treaty Organization") is an international organization of the countries of Europe and North America. The main goal of the military-political alliance is to ensure freedom for all member countries of the alliance. All activities of this structure are based on democratic values and freedoms, as well as on the principles of the rule of law.
The organization is based on the principle of collective security of states. In other words, in the event of aggression or military intervention in one of the alliance member countries, other NATO members are obliged to jointly respond to this military threat. The activities of the alliance are also manifested in the regular holding of joint armies of the participating countries.
The structure of the organization is represented by three main bodies. This:
- North Atlantic Council;
- Defense Planning Committee;
- Nuclear Planning Committee.
They cooperate not only in the military field, but also in other spheres of society, such as ecology, science, emergency situations, and so on.
An integral part of the alliance's work is consultations between its members. Thus, any decision is made only on the basis of consensus. That is, each of the participating countries must vote for one or another decision of the organization. Sometimes discussions of certain issues drag on for a long time, but almost always NATO managed to reach consensus.
History of the creation and expansion of the alliance
The formation of a military-political alliance began almost immediately after the end of World War II. Historians name two main reasons that forced the heads of leading powers to think about a new security system. The first is the threat of revenge of the Nazi movements in post-war Germany, and the second is the active spread by the Soviet Union of its influence in the countries of Eastern and Central Europe.
As a result, on April 4, 1949, the so-called North Atlantic Treaty was signed in Washington, which marked the beginning of the formation of a new alliance under the abbreviation NATO. The list of countries that signed this document included 12 states. They were the USA, Canada, France, Portugal, Norway, Belgium, Great Britain, Denmark, Italy, Iceland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. They are considered the founders of this powerful military-political bloc.
In subsequent years, other states joined the NATO bloc. The largest addition to the alliance occurred in 2004, when 7 Eastern European states became new NATO members. Currently, the geography of the alliance continues to move east. Thus, recently, the heads of countries such as Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine expressed their intention to join NATO.
It should be noted that during the Cold War, the image of NATO was deliberately demonized by Soviet propaganda. The USSR artificially made the alliance its main enemy. This explains the rather low support for the bloc's policies in a number of post-Soviet states.
NATO: list of countries and geography of the alliance
What states are part of this international organization today? Thus, all NATO countries (as of 2014) are listed below in the chronological order of their entry into the alliance:
- Canada;
- France;
- Portugal;
- Kingdom of Norway;
- Kingdom of Belgium;
- Great Britain;
- Kingdom of Denmark;
- Italy;
- Iceland;
- Netherlands;
- Duchy of Luxembourg;
- Türkiye;
- Hellenic Republic;
- Germany;
- Spain;
- Republic of Poland;
- Czech Republic;
- Hungary;
- Republic of Bulgaria;
- Romania;
- Slovakia;
- Slovenia;
- Estonia;
- Latvia;
- Lithuania;
- Croatia;
- Republic of Albania.
The military-political union includes exclusively European countries, as well as two North American states. Below you can see how all NATO countries are located on the world map.
Finally
April 4, 1949 - this date can be considered the starting point in the history of the international organization under the abbreviation NATO. The list of countries that are included in it is slowly but systematically growing. As of 2015, 28 states are members of the alliance. It is quite possible that in the near future the organization will be replenished with new member countries.
THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE OF 1949 AND THE FORMATION OF NATO
The presidential elections of November 1948 in the United States and the victory of the Democratic Party candidate G. Truman, who remained president for a second term (he served as acting president for the first term after the death of F.D. Roosevelt in 1945 as his vice president) unleashed hands of the American administration. This made it possible to make a breakthrough towards consolidating American dominance in Western Europe not only by economic, but also by military-political methods. In the new administration, the post of Secretary of State was taken by Dean Acheson, who adhered to more offensive views than J. Marshall, who had fallen ill and retired. He rushed to implement the most revolutionary US foreign policy idea since Wilson's League of Nations - a plan to create a military-political union under US leadership in Europe in peacetime and on a permanent basis. After the adoption of the Vandenberg Resolution in 1948, it was easier to implement such an idea, since the resolution created a legal basis for the United States to abandon isolationism. All that remained was to break the hesitations of the Western European allies.
Canada, which formally remained a British dominion, but in fact had long since become independent in foreign policy, was also supposed to be a participant in the bloc. In May 1948, as already noted, American diplomats began to discuss the practical aspects of possible American security guarantees for European countries with representatives of France and Britain. The USA, Canada and the Brussels Pact countries began negotiations on the creation of a new military-political bloc.
On January 14, 1949, representatives of the US State Department for the first time openly announced the existence of a threat to the security of Western European countries and the ineffectiveness of the UN due to the principle of unanimity of the permanent members of the Security Council. On March 18, 1949, the draft North Atlantic Treaty was published, and on April 4, a conference was held in Washington with the participation of the United States, the countries of the Western Union, Canada, as well as Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Portugal. Italy also took part in the Washington Conference, which for the first time since the end of the war returned to the family of Western countries, from which it had excluded itself by entering into an alliance with Germany before the war. On the same day, delegates signed the North Atlantic Treaty. The term NATO and the expression “North Atlantic Treaty Organization” appeared later; it was first used in the convention signed as a follow-up treaty between its participants in Ottawa on September 20, 1951.
For several years the union existed as a political and legal phenomenon; there was no organization as such. But in the early 50s, NATO turned into a system of political and military administration headed by a secretary general. A unified command arose, at whose disposal contingents of various types of troops were allocated, military training grounds were created, joint production of weapons was established and their standardization was carried out. Subsequently, Greece and Turkey joined NATO in 1952, Germany in 1955, Spain in 1982 (it was not part of the NATO military organization until 1997), and in 1998 after the collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw agreements – Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.
In its wording, the Washington Treaty was strong. It contained very strict military obligations. Its text (Article 5) states: “...An armed attack against one or more parties in Europe or North America will be considered an armed attack against them all together; ... and if such an armed attack should occur, each of the parties ... will assist the party or parties attacked by immediately taking, individually or jointly with the other parties, such measures as may be necessary, including the use of armed force...”
This wording meant that participating countries must provide each other with military assistance immediately, as if they themselves were under attack. Meanwhile, as a rule, alliance treaties concluded by the United States provided for, in the event of an attack on one of the parties or the threat of such an attack, consultations between the participating countries on the adoption of joint protective measures in accordance with constitutional procedures. This meant that before providing practical assistance to any country, the US administration had to obtain permission from the Senate, which was not guaranteed and could take a long time.
But in the event that the United States itself was attacked, the US President could order the use of force immediately, while simultaneously asking the Senate for sanction of the decision he made. The Senate retained the right to agree or disagree with the administration's decision. If the Senate disagreed, the administration had to reverse its decision and return American troops to their permanent locations within 30 days. According to Art. 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, it turned out that the US President could use American armed forces to protect Western European countries and Canada, acting under a simplified procedure, as if the US itself had been attacked.
The parties to the treaty pledged to develop military-political and military-technical cooperation among themselves, for the purpose of which the American Congress in August 1949 allocated a huge sum of $4 billion at that time. The United States assumed the bulk of the costs of military construction in Western countries. Europe, which made the North Atlantic Treaty very attractive to Western European states. NATO headquarters were located in Paris.
The Washington Treaty was a sign of the victory of the Atlantic principle in ensuring European security.
History of international relations (1918-2003) / ed. HELL. Bogaturova.
http://www.diphis.ru/i_obrazovanie_nato-a871.html
THE IMAGE OF NATO IN SOVIET PROPAGANDA
The Bunny received an invitation from the Wolf
Welcome him and his wife to a banquet.
Another would write: “...Accept the assurances...
I'm unwell... Mercy... Sorry... Hello..."
But this Wolf, although he was not a humanist,
I didn’t growl at hares when I met them,
I didn’t poison them in the forest, I didn’t touch them in a clean field,
I responded to their bow with a bow...
That's why, flattered by the invitation,
Having told the Hare: “Brush your hair!” Let's go to!",
Having come up with a loud toast, anticipating a treat,
And, full of respect,
The Hare came to the Wolf for a reception.
The owner is glad to see the guest: “It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other!
Yes, you have recovered!” -
“A whole kilogram!”
While the bunnies were trampling in the hallway,
The owner winked at the toothy cooks...
I won’t describe that banquet.
For complete clarity, I can only say,
That the cooks brought the dish to the table,
And it was... hare stew!
My comparison may be a bit harsh,
But I meant bunnies in the NATO system.
S. Mikhalkov. Wolf Diplomat
http://pritchi.net/pritchi/basni/volkdiplomat-sergeja-mihalkova.html
After the death of I.V. Stalin, serious changes occurred in the foreign policy of the Soviet Union. The successful developments of the USSR in the field of creating atomic and hydrogen bombs eliminated the US monopoly on the possession of weapons of mass destruction. In international relations, acute confrontation with former allies in the anti-Hitler coalition - in the Berlin crisis and the Korean War - gave way to some thaw.
In March 1954, the Soviet government approached the governments of the United States, Great Britain and France with a proposal to create a system of collective security in Europe - the conclusion of a Pan-European Treaty on Collective Security in Europe and the possible entry of the USSR into NATO. In May, Moscow received notes from Western powers, similar in content, with a negative response to its proposals. In the subsequent months of 1954, the exchange of views continued: a note from the Soviet side on July 24 was followed by notes from the three powers on September 10, to which the USSR, in turn, responded on October 23.
It can be assumed that, despite public statements criticizing NATO's threatening actions, Moscow's attitude towards this bloc was not exclusively condemnatory. The article by N.I. Egorova provides a recording of a conversation between J.V. Stalin and the French Ambassador L. Jox on August 25, 1952. To his question about the nature of NATO, from the point of view of Charles de Gaulle, the Soviet leader heard an answer about the peaceful nature of the alliance and its conclusion within the framework of the UN Charter. “Stalin laughed and asked Vyshinsky, who was present at the conversation, whether in this case the USSR should join him. Most likely, it was just irony, but it is possible that ... Stalin had some hidden intentions,” writes Egorova .
One can hardly agree with this thesis about Stalin’s irony; rather, the facts suggest “hidden intentions” of the Kremlin leader. At a preliminary meeting in Paris of the Deputy Foreign Ministers of the USSR, USA, Great Britain and France, A.A. Gromyko repeatedly (May 25 and June 21, 1951) stated: “If this pact had been directed against the revival of German aggression, the USSR itself would have joined "to NATO. It is noteworthy that the main provisions of the above statements and directives were contained in the note of the Third European Department to the Minister dated March 29, 1954. In addition, it should be noted that the question of the possible accession of the USSR to NATO was raised even before the formal creation of the latter. For example, in the English Parliament, at the instigation of representatives of the Communist Party and independent Labor members, in the first months of 1949 there was a discussion about whether to extend an invitation to the Soviet Union.
On March 10, 1954, A.A. Gromyko sent V.M. Molotov a draft memorandum to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee to G.M. Malenkov and N.S. Khrushchev (prepared by G.M. Pushkin, A.A. Sobolev, A.A. Soldatov, respectively, in the Third European Department, the Americas Department and the UN Affairs Department). In it, as part of the work to promote the draft principles of the Pan-European Treaty, it was stated: “The main argument against our proposal is the thesis that the Soviet project is aimed at ousting the United States from Europe and that the USSR, having taken the place of the United States, would become the dominant power in Europe". In this regard, the authors of the document considered it advisable to make “changes providing for equal participation of the United States in the Pan-European Treaty.”
Sending a note to the Institution, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs proposed not to declare in the note “directly the USSR’s readiness to join the North Atlantic Treaty, but to limit itself to expressing readiness to jointly consider ... the issue of the USSR’s participation” in the treaty (in one of the working drafts there was a noticeably different option - “limit only an indication of such a possibility, which would not prevent the Soviet Union in the future, if the question of accession ... did not find a positive resolution, to continue the fight against it as an aggressive treaty").
The importance that the Soviet leadership attached to this initiative can be judged by this fact. When forming the subcommittee of the UN Disarmament Commission, instructions to the Soviet representative A.Ya. Vyshinsky at the beginning of April 1954 stated: “At this moment we are not interested in launching the work of the Disarmament Commission... an attempt to revive the Commission... can be used for diverting attention from our note on March 31st."
After receiving the response notes from the three powers, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs began work on preparing new diplomatic documents (a Plan for the Soviet government’s response note to the US government’s note dated May 7, 1954, Printing Instructions, etc.) were drawn up. Their content convincingly shows that the main direction of action in the conditions of the West's categorical rejection of Soviet ideas about a system of collective security in Europe is propaganda.
The “main idea” of the new note was to justify “the purpose of the Soviet proposals - instead of creating military groups opposed to each other, which leads to war, to create a system of collective security in Europe, which leads to the strengthening of peace.” It was also supposed to “remove the argument of the three powers about the Atlantic Pact as an organization of “like-minded countries”, “to show the possibility and necessity of cooperation in maintaining peace... states with different social systems.” One of the points of the draft Directives for the press determined that “ The main emphasis of speeches in the press and radio should be aimed at exposing the discrepancies between the peace-loving words and non-peace-loving deeds of the ruling circles of the United States." The calls that "speeches in the press should be combative, offensive" are also quite understandable. A propaganda bias appeared in the provisions of the draft response note of the USSR, where the meaning of the US “policy of power” was explained: “... in relations between states, it is not the principle of cooperation between countries that comes to the fore, but the principle of dictate, and negotiations between states are increasingly being replaced by threats and ultimatums.”
In conclusion, it is appropriate to cite a very eloquent description of the current situation, given in one of the first drafts of the response (dated May 16, 1954) to the note from the three powers: “One could expect that the government of the United States, as well as the governments of England and France, since they declare in their desire to promote detente in international relations and strengthen peace, will have a positive attitude towards this initiative of the Soviet government, however, in reality it turned out differently.”
Thus, a comparative analysis of archival documents (including draft notes and accompanying notes) allows us to conclude that the Foreign Ministry, when considering the prospects for implementing this initiative, did not categorically exclude the possibility of joining NATO. At the same time, when developing diplomatic decisions, the aggressive, offensive nature of the bloc was an invariable postulate.
Material from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, North Atlantic Alliance(English) North Atlantic Treaty Organization
, NATO; fr. Organization du traité de l "Atlantique Nord
, OTAN) is the world's largest military-political bloc, uniting most European countries, the USA and Canada. Founded on April 4, 1949 in the USA, “to protect Europe from Soviet influence.” Then 12 countries became NATO member states - the USA, Canada, Iceland, Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, Italy and Portugal. It is a “transatlantic forum” for allied countries to consult on any issues affecting the vital interests of its members, including events that could threaten their security. One of NATO's declared goals is to provide deterrence or protection against any form of aggression against the territory of any NATO member state.
| North Atlantic Treaty Organization | |
| North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Organization du traité de l’Atlantique Nord (OTAN) |
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NATO flag |
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Member countries map |
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| Membership: |
28 states [show] |
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| Headquarters: |
Brussels, Belgium |
| Official languages: |
English French |
| Managers | |
| Secretary General |
Anders Fogh Rasmussen |
| Base | |
| Official site | |
| North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Wikimedia Commons | |
Goals
In accordance with the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949, NATO aims to enhance stability and prosperity in the North Atlantic region. “The participating countries have joined forces to create collective defense and maintain peace and security.”
NATO's 2010 Strategic Concept, Active Participation, Modern Defence, presents NATO's three most important missions - collective defence, crisis management and cooperative security.
Regional teams
There are two regional commands within Allied Command Europe:
- Northern European Allied Forces: Belgium, Great Britain, Germany, Denmark, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Czech Republic; headquartered in Brunsam, the Netherlands;
- Southern European Allied Forces: Hungary, Greece, Italy, Spain and Türkiye; headquarters - Naples, Italy.
The Atlantic High Command consists of five headquarters:
- Eastern Atlantic,
- Western Atlantic,
- South Atlantic,
- Strike fleet
- Allied Submarine Command.
The official languages of NATO are English and French.
The headquarters of the NATO Council is located in Brussels (Belgium).
Members
Main article: NATO expansion
| date | A country | Notes |
| founding countries | ||
| April, 4 1949 | ||
| April, 4 1949 | Great Britain | |
| April, 4 1949 | ||
| April, 4 1949 | Iceland | Iceland is the only NATO member that does not have regular armed forces; this was one of the conditions for the country's entry into the organization. Iceland has only a coast guard (COGS). It was also decided to train Icelandic volunteers at bases in Norway to participate in NATO peacekeeping missions. |
| April, 4 1949 | Italy | |
| April, 4 1949 | Canada | |
| April, 4 1949 | Luxembourg | |
| April, 4 1949 | Netherlands | |
| April, 4 1949 | Norway | |
| April, 4 1949 | Portugal | |
| April, 4 1949 | USA | |
| April, 4 1949 | France | Since July 1966 France withdrew from the military organization of NATO, remaining a participant in the political structure of the North Atlantic Treaty. In 2009 she returned to all abandoned structures. |
| first expansion | ||
| 18th of Febuary 1952 | Greece | WITH 1974 to 1980 Greece did not take part in the NATO military organization due to tense relations with another member of the bloc - Turkey. |
| 18th of Febuary 1952 | Türkiye | |
| second expansion | ||
| 9th May 1955 | Germany | West Germany joined. The Saarland reunited with Germany in 1957, and on October 3, 1990 - a united Germany. |
| third expansion | ||
| May 30 1982 | Spain | Does not participate in the NATO military organization. |
| fourth expansion | ||
| March 12 1999 | Hungary | |
| March 12 1999 | Poland | |
| March 12 1999 | Czech | |
| fifth expansion | ||
| March 29 2004 | Bulgaria | |
| March 29 2004 | Latvia | |
| March 29 2004 | Lithuania | |
| March 29 2004 | Romania | |
| March 29 2004 | Slovakia | |
| March 29 2004 | Slovenia | |
| March 29 2004 | Estonia | |
| sixth expansion | ||
| April 1 2009 | Albania | |
| April 1 2009 | Croatia | |
Partners
Possible members
Membership Action Plan Participants
| A country | Partnership for Peace | Accelerated dialogue | Membership Action Plan | |
| Macedonia | November 1995 | April 1999 | ||
| Montenegro | December 2006 | June 2008 | April 2008 | December 2009 |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | December 2006 | January 2008 | April 2008 | April 2010 |
Participants of the Accelerated Dialogue
| A country | Partnership for Peace | Individual affiliate plan | Accelerated dialogue |
| Ukraine | February 1994 | November 2002 | April 2005 |
| Georgia | March 1994 | October 2004 | September 2006 |
Relationship
USSR, Russia
Main article: Russia and NATO
The USSR perceived the creation of the bloc in 1949 as a threat to its own security. In 1954 in Berlin, at a meeting of the foreign ministers of the United States, Great Britain, France and the USSR, Soviet representatives were assured that NATO was a purely defensive organization. In response to calls for cooperation, the USSR offered NATO member countries its membership in the alliance, but this initiative was rejected. In response, the Soviet Union formed in 1955 a military bloc of states pursuing pro-Soviet policies - Warsaw Pact .
After the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR, the NATO bloc, which, according to official documents, was created to repel the Soviet threat, did not cease to exist and began to expand eastward. And if earlier the bloc declared its main goal to repel the Soviet threat, now, according to the American left-wing publicist Noam Chomsky, “the task is to control the international energy system, sea routes, pipelines - and everything else that hegemony decides to control.”
In April 2006, answering questions from the Moscow News newspaper, A. I. Solzhenitsyn stated:
“NATO is methodically and persistently developing its military apparatus - to the East of Europe and to the continental coverage of Russia from the South. Here there is open material and ideological support for color revolutions, and the paradoxical introduction of North Atlantic interests into Central Asia. All this leaves no doubt that the complete encirclement of Russia is being prepared, and then the loss of its sovereignty.”