NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION

NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION. The signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949 marked the end of an American tradition of non-tangling alliances from the years of the early Republic. The treaty reflected Cold War fears of Soviet aggression and linked the United States and Canada on one side of the Atlantic with Iceland, Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, Portugal, and Italy on the other side. (Subsequently, Greece and Turkey in 1952, West Germany in 1955, Spain in 1982, and the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland in 1999 would join the alliance.) Western-oriented European governments wanted assurances beyond those implied by the Truman Doctrine (1947) and the Marshall Plan (1948–1951) that the United States would defend them against a Soviet attack. Thus, attention has always been directed at Article 5, in which the signatory members agreed that "an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all." If such attack occurred, all would respond as if they were each individually attacked.

But NATO was supposed to be more than merely military and anti-Soviet. Canadian diplomats, led by Escott Reid, argued for positive benefits: for the shared cultural tradition reflected in the waves of emigration from Europe to North America (and elsewhere), and the shared values reaching back to ancient Greece and Rome. As NATO expands into Eastern Europe, this emphasis on cultural tradition and economic exchange is helping the alliance adjust to conditions for which it could not have planned—the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of its former Eastern European empire in the 1990s.

The years in between the formation of NATO and the collapse of the Soviet Union demonstrated the tensions and stresses one would expect in a relationship among various countries with differing interests, needs, and views, but the alliance met its objective of preventing a Soviet attack, and the rebuilding underpinned by the Marshall Plan revived the economy and society of Western Europe.

There are several periods in the history of NATO. After the outbreak of fighting on the Korean peninsula, NATO became more of a military organization, and a series of American senior officials took command as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR); the first SACEUR was General Dwight D. Eisenhower. To compensate for this American military leadership, the secretary-general of NATO, who chairs the North Atlantic Council, has always been a European. While each of the NATO countries remains responsible for its own defense procurement, NATO has invested more than $3 billion in infrastructure for bases, airfields, pipelines, communications, and depots.

Challenges from Within

The role of West Germany in NATO was one of the early stressors for the alliance. Not unnaturally, the idea of a rearmed Germany caused some concern among Western European nations (and probably for the Soviet Union as well). But by 1954, negotiations had worked out the details of West Germany's participation. When the military occupation of West Germany ended in October 1954, it joined NATO seven months later, which resulted in the Soviet Union forming the Warsaw Pact with Central and Eastern Europe. West Germany became a focal point of NATO defense against possible, highly mechanized attacks through the Fulda Gap and other traditional east-west invasion routes.

After Charles de Gaulle was reelected as president in 1966, France voiced its criticism of the U.S. domination of NATO and of European defense, and sought to follow another path. De Gaulle felt that NATO could subject France to a war based on decisions by non-Frenchmen, which, indeed, was the basis of the theory of collective defense. From 1958 to 1966, France indicated its displeasure and thereafter it withdrew from NATO's military command structure and required NATO forces to leave French soil, but claimed that it remained committed to the North Atlantic Treaty in case of "unprovoked aggression." France continued to meet with NATO staff and kept its forces in West Germany through bilateral agreements with the Bonn government rather than through the Treaty.

Another challenge was the storage and possible use of nuclear weapons, which was considered a necessary evil to deter overwhelming Soviet ground strength in terms of tanks and other mechanized and motorized forces. An initial commitment to massive retaliation matured into a strategy of flexible response, thus retaining choice about the decision to "go nuclear." Typically, nuclear weapons were deployed with a so-called dual-key system, which permitted the United States and the host country to retain veto over their use.

NATO's European members always wanted U.S. armed forces stationed on the continent. At the very least, they would serve as a "trip wire, " causing a strong U.S. response in the face of a Soviet attack and presumably high U.S. casualties among this forward-stationed defense force. Similarly, European members wanted U.S. nuclear-armed missiles to counter Soviet advantages in ground forces. The alternative in the case of a Soviet invasion of western Europe, European leaders feared, would be a quick march by Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces to the Rhine and beyond before the United States could send the men and materiel from North America needed for defense.

Outside Challenges

There were outside sources of stress for the alliance as well. The construction of the Berlin Wall was a sober reminder of Soviet power in central Europe. Détente during the Nixon administration challenged the alliance to retain its original purpose. The resurgence of Cold War tensions after the 1979 Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, the election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980, and the military rearmament in the early 1980s were other challenges. But the greatest challenges were Mikhail Gorbachev and his July 1989 announcement that the Soviet Union would no longer prop up communist governments in Europe, and the collapse of the communist regimes in Poland, East Germany, and throughout Eastern Europe. Indeed, what was the ongoing role of NATO if the major threat, an aggressive and expansive Soviet Union, no longer existed?

In the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO has changed. It has a new purpose to work with the new regimes in Eastern Europe and seeks to ease tensions and conflicts on its periphery, such as in the Balkans. Thus, NATO is reaching out to its former adversaries, including Russia, and has intervened in the former Yugoslavia to contain the fighting. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, it invoked Article 5 for the first time and indicated that this attack on America was an attack on all of NATO.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baylis, John. The Diplomacy of Pragmatism: Britain and the Formation of NATO, 1942–1949. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1993.

Brogi, Alessandro. A Question of Self-Esteem: The United States and the Cold War Choices in France and Italy, 1944–1958. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2002.

Giauque, Jeffrey G. Grand Designs and Visions of Unity: The Atlantic Powers and the Reorganization of Western Europe, 1955–1963. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

Kaplan, Lawrence S. The United States and NATO: The Formative Years. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984.

Papacosma, S. Victor, Sean Kay, and Mark Rubin, eds. NATO after Fifty Years. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 2001.

Park, William H. Defending the West: A History of NATO. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1986.

Reid, Escott. Time of Fear and Hope: The Making of the North Atlantic Treaty, 1947–1949. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977.

Charles M.Dobbs

See alsoCold War ; Foreign Policy .