Formation+of+Nato

= The Formation of NATO = = = NATO stands for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It is a military organization and alliance consisting of soldiers from countries that belong to the United Nations. It was established in 1949 by the United Nations as a defensive response to the Cold War. The idea was initially proposed by Escott Reid, who worked in Canada’s Department of External Affairs. The countries that first joined it were Canada, the United States, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Portugal. They were soon joined by Greece, Turkey, and western Germany. Their arrangement was that if one of the countries of NATO was attacked by the So viets or an enemy, other countries belonging to the alliance would aid in a defense against the attacker(s). NATO believed that its alliance would intimidate and discourage the Soviet Union from taking hostile action. 

The form ation of NATO made the Cold War a ve ry fragile one. If the Soviets or their allies decided to attack any one of the countries belonging to NATO, it would attract the rest of the alliance and initiate a new world war. This is similar to how WWI and WWII were initiated, but this war would be nuclear. NATO is now the largest peacekeeping organization in the world. It is a major reason to why there have not been any recent world wars. The greatest inventions and agreements come out of desperate and pressured times. This is evident in the formation of NATO during the Cold War–some of history’s most potentially final hours.