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In This Week in Military History, we discuss the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty.
The genesis of the North Atlantic Treaty stemmed from the breakdown of the coalition that had defeated the Axis powers in World War II, as tensions that had previously plagued the relationship between the Soviet Union and Western capitalist countries returned. In western Europe, leaders feared the potential influence of local communist parties among populations struggling amidst ruined communities and devastated economies. Meanwhile the Soviet Union, led by Joseph Stalin, solidified control over Eastern European countries in an effort to produce a buffer zone against possible future military threats – which Winston Churchill described in a 1946 speech [[iron curtain sound bite] “iron curtain has descended across the Continent.”]
Efforts by the administration of President Harry Truman to provide economic aid to western governments, such as the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, exacerbated tensions with the Soviet Union. In 1948, a coup installed a communist government in Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union closed the border between East and West Germany, prompting the Berlin Airlift, and greatly alarmed Western leaders.
On April 4, 1949, twelve countries signed the North Atlantic Treaty, including the United States. Never before had the U.S. entered a peacetime alliance beyond the Western Hemisphere. The North Atlantic Treaty is the basis for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, and provides for the collective defense of all signatory nations. Its key provision is Article 5, which states that an attack on a member country is an attack upon them all, and requires all members to render immediate assistance.
Though created to counter threats from the Soviet Union, Article 5 was never invoked during the Cold War, and only once in its history: after Sept. 11, 2001. Only a few additional countries signed the North Atlantic Treaty during the Cold War. But after the fall of the Soviet Union, the number of alliance members expanded dramatically as more countries in central and eastern Europe sought to enter NATO. Today there are 30 signatories to the North Atlantic Treaty, with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Ukraine all having expressed an intent to join.
Join us next time for another segment of This Week in Military History with the Pritzker Military Museum and Library.
Photo Credit:
Wiki Commons
Harry S. Truman Library and Museum
Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-098967, Aufnahme der Bundesrepublik in die NATO
United States Air Force Historical Research Agency
Video Credit:
Google Earth
NATO Channel
