NATO Founded
Twelve countries signed the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington in April 1949 and the United States entered a peacetime alliance for the first time in its history. The immediate causes were three: the communist takeover in Czechoslovakia in February 1948, the Berlin blockade from June, and the European conviction that American economic aid was useless without a security guarantee. The Brussels Treaty of March 1948 between Britain, France and the Benelux countries was the European half; the Vandenberg Resolution in the Senate that June was the American signal that a departure from the tradition against entangling alliances was possible. The treaty's operative provision is Article 5: an armed attack against one shall be considered an attack against them all, and each will take such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force. The qualification about deeming was insisted on by the Senate and matters. The organisation that grew around it was not envisaged in 1949 and was built after Korea: an integrated command structure, a supreme commander who has always been an American, and permanent forces. Lord Ismay's line about keeping the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down is the most quoted description and was probably never said by him. West Germany joined in 1955, which produced the Warsaw Pact nine days later. Article 5 has been invoked once, by the United States after 11 September 2001. Membership has grown from twelve to thirty-two. The alliance's durability is the fact that requires explaining, since almost every peacetime alliance in history has dissolved once its enemy did. It outlived the Warsaw Pact by more than thirty years and expanded eastward while doing it, which is the subject of the argument now.
- Year: 1949 CE
- Category: Diplomatic
