The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, widely known as NATO, is an intergovernmental military alliance that was established in the aftermath of World War II. At present, 28 European and 2 North American countries are members of this alliance, which is headquartered in Belgium.
The United States, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Germany, Spain, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia
In 1949, there were 12 founding members of the alliance. These were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, France, Iceland, Italy, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.
Other member countries which joined in the subsequent years are Greece, Turkey, Germany, Spain, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia.
NATO implements the North Atlantic Treaty, which is a system of collective security. In simple terms, the member states have agreed to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party.
One cannot understand NATO without knowing the essentials about the Warsaw Pact. The Warsaw Pact was also a collective defence treaty. It was established by the Soviet Union and seven other Soviet satellite states.
These were Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania.
The Warsaw Pact was created in 1955, immediately after the accession of West Germany to the NATO alliance. While the Warsaw Pact embodied what was referred to as the Eastern bloc, NATO represented the Western bloc.
NATO and the Warsaw Pact saw each other as their primary adversary and were ideologically opposed. They built up their own defences and were engaged in an arms race throughout the Cold War. After Albania in 1968, East Germany withdrew from the Pact following German reunification in 1990.
On February 25, 1991, the Pact was declared at an end by the six remaining member states.
As he seeks to limit NATO’s presence in Eastern Europe, Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded that Ukraine never join the alliance. Days before he announced the military action against Ukraine, President Putin linked the current crisis directly to Russia's demands regarding NATO.
In 2008, NATO appeared to open the door to membership for Georgia and Ukraine, which are also former Soviet republics. However, neither nation has formally received eventual membership with a lack of consensus among NATO members.
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