1 gen 1949 anni - North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) founded

Descrizione:

Nato: Military alliance formed in 1949 among the United States, Canada, and Western European nations to counter any possible Soviet threat.

Warsaw Pact: A military alliance established in Eastern Europe in 1955 to counter the NATO alliance; it included Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union


The survival of a democratic West Berlin became a symbol of resistance to communism and motivated Western European nations to forge a collective security pact with the United States. In April 1949, the United States secured that pact, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the country’s first peacetime military alliance outside the Western hemisphere. Under the NATO treaty, twelve nations — Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United States — agreed that “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” In May 1949, those nations also agreed to the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), which eventually joined NATO in 1955.

In response, the Soviet Union established the German Democratic Republic (East Germany); the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON); and, in 1955, the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance for Eastern Europe that included Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union. These parallel steps bore out Churchill’s 1946 claim that an “iron curtain” stretching “from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic” now divided Europe. Stalin’s tactics were often ruthless, but they were not without reason. The Soviet Union acted out of the sort of self-interest long practiced by powerful nations — ensuring a defensive perimeter of allies, seeking access to raw materials, and pressing the advantage earned at great cost in war.

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