World History: Foundation of NATO

After the initial success of the Marshall plan, it became increasingly evident that the plan by itself would not be enough. Soviet infringement in East Europe became overtly aggressive and it was well demonstrated in some of the events as follows:

• Czech coup, 1948: In 1948, Soviet engineered and backed a coup d’etat in Czechoslovakia. In this, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, with Soviet backing, assumed undisputed control over the government there and marked the onset of four decades of Communist dictatorship in the country.
• Berlin Blockade (1948-1949): The Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 – 12 May 1949) is seen as first major international crises of the Cold War. During the multinational occupation of post–World War II Germany, Soviets imposed a blockade on Berlin aimed at dislodging the western powers from there. It blocked Western Allies’ railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. The Soviets offered to drop the blockade if the Western Allies withdrew the newly introduced Deutsche mark from West Berlin.

From these events, it suddenly became too apparent that a basic necessity for Europe’s recovery was not merely economic but also military security.

Initiative by European Powers

The first move in this direction had already been made by the Europeans themselves when in March 1947 France and Britain signed the Treaty of Dunkirk for their mutual defense against a threat to their security. An extension of this treaty was made in 1948 when through the Brussels Pact, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg signed a collective treaty of self-defence. The Brussels pact was established as a military counterpart to the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation, OEEC. Just as the success of the OEEC depended upon American capital the pact members expected their alliance to attract American military support too.

Formation of NATO

US did not disappoint the Europeans. To stop the rising tide of communism, US was irresistibly drawn toward this new European alliance. In April 1949, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and the United States created the historic North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. The signatory powers stipulated that an attack by an aggressor on one was an attack on all, and that each of the other nations, individually or together, would take “such action as it deems necessary,” including “armed force.”

American justification of the NATO

Unquestionably, for the United States, the NATO commitment set a new precedent. This was for the first time in its history that Americans had committed themselves to an alliance in peacetime. Europe thus became America’s ‘first line of defence’. Yet despite this drastic departure from tradition, the pact met with wide spread public favour. There was a general feeling that if another world war broke out, America would be sucked into it from the beginning and since this was so, it might be able  to avert it, unlike as in 1914 and 1939, by issuing a warning on potential aggressors that they would have to face American opposition from the very outset. Thus, it was precisely intended to give a clear message to the Soviet Union that the United States would fight to preserve Europe’s freedom. Europe’s vital importance to American security had been proved beyond doubt with the American participation in the two world wars. Instead of again allowing the balance of power to be upset and once more getting drawn into war after it had started the United States now wanted to prevent such an outbreak by committing herself to the preservation of Europe in peacetime.

It was presumed that the fear of meeting stiff American resistance and fighting an all out war with the United States would deter a potential aggressor. The North Atlantic Pact was approved by the American Senate.

Criticism to NATO

It is interesting to note, that as the name itself suggests, all members of the NATO belonged to the northern flank of the European continent on the North Atlantic Ocean. But the inclusion of Greece and Turkey in 1955 made a mockery of the term since neither of them belonged to the northern flank of Europe nor did they belong to the Atlantic zone. Greece and Turkey were situated on the southern fringes of Europe and they belonged to the Mediterranean zone instead. After the end of the cold war, however, and particularly-with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, NATO has vastly expanded’ in scope and action. NATO’s tentacles have spread far to include countries of East Europe which not so long ago had been important satellites of the Soviet Union.

Soviet Union bitterly denounced NATO as an aggressive coalition “to establish by force Anglo-American domination over the world” and charged that “it is a factor undermining the United Nations Organisation”. The United States, however, justified its position by insisting that it was the militancy of Russian communism that had brought about a major change in the American Foreign Policy.

It had adopted such a policy with great reluctance but basically in response to the instinct of self-preservation. Despite criticism, United States maintained that the new American policies were defensive in their purpose and were authored more by the men in Moscow rather than by the, men in Washington.