NATO: Taking Up the Charge

With the fall of communism in 1990, a much sought after era of peace was presumed. Truly, for nearly two decades, such seemed to be the case - "peace in our time" the likes Neville Chamberlain pined for in 1938. Of late, however, newfound menaces threaten to undermine the last eighteen years' progress, not the least of which is transnational terrorism and the erosion of democratic institutions throughout the Western world.

With the specter of a bygone, prewar era looming, NATO - an organization given only passing thought since the fall of the Iron Curtain - has once again taken up the charge to defend freedom and stability in the world. This paper seeks to explore that agency's history and potential role in the days to come.

How It All Began

As World War II came to a close and wartime partnerships between East and West became irrelevant - irrelevant insofar as the threat of global domination posed by Chancellor Hitler and Emperor Hirohito no longer existed after 1945 - old fears, coupled with even older geopolitical feuds, resurfaced.

The democratic Western powers had achieved military victory over the forces of radical fascism during the war, but at the price of an unsavory alliance. The Soviet Union, under the leadership of Josef Stalin - arguably the worst mass murderer in human history, responsible, either directly or by proxy, for the deaths of between 20 and 60 million people[1] - was a strange political bedfellow to be sure, but at the time it was considered a necessary partnership. However, once the threat of Hitler and his ilk was removed from the equation, the philosophy of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" was chucked.

It became clear, almost immediately, after the war that the USSR had no intention of scaling down its military forces. With the US having risen to military and geopolitical preeminence as a result of the last two World Wars, Russia felt the need to maintain its military readiness should America seek to capitalize on this newfound glory - particularly by way of "imperial" expansion. (Russia concerns were understandable given the US' possession of what was then the most powerful weapon on Earth: the atomic bomb.)

With the Soviet Union's refusal to demilitarize, its dodgy acquiescence to post-war treaties, and its menacing political practices in and around Eastern Europe, it became pertinent to prepare for the worst. As Soviet influence (and interference) began to creep across Eastern Europe, particularly between 1947 and 1949 in Norway, Greece, Turkey, and Czechoslovakia, the case for NATO was made.[2]

NATO and the Warsaw Pact

"The signature of the Brussels Treaty of March 1948 marked the determination of five Western European countries - Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom - to develop a common defense system and to strengthen the ties between them in a manner which would enable them to resist ideological, political and military threats to their security."[3] This initiative was joined immediately by the US and Canada, and later by Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Norway and Portugal under the Treaty of Washington in April 1949, officially forming the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

NATO's goal from the outset was to promote and preserve democratic institutions and peace throughout the post-war world - particularly within the Western sphere of influence - and to bolster preexisting provisions within the UN Charter to that affect. These aims and the methods by which NATO was willing to achieve them were viewed by the Soviet Union as both expansionist and interventionist, though, prompting them to form a post-war, collective security apparatus of their own.

Officially dubbed the "Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation, and Mutual Assistance," the Warsaw Pact of 1955 became better known as NATO's counterbalance in the East. Comprised of Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact espoused, in theory, many of the same ideas and goals as its NATO counterpart;[4] however, it became clear almost immediately that it was, in practice, nothing more than a tool for promoting Communist ideology and subservience to the Soviet Union.

Two examples of the Warsaw Pact's true aim were observed in the cases of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. "When Hungary tried to extricate themselves from the agreement in 1956, Soviet forces moved to crush the uprising; and, in 1968, Soviet troops invaded Czechoslovakia (with support from five other Pact members), after the Czech government began to exhibit 'Imperialistic' tendencies."[5]

The Curtain Falls

From the 1950s onward, while NATO prospered and expanded its cooperative security efforts throughout Western Europe and the Mediterranean, the Warsaw Pact languished. When communism collapsed in 1990 and the Soviet Union dissolved, the Warsaw Pact was nullified a year later. NATO remained, however, expanding its influence all the more, particularly in and around the former Soviet Eastern Bloc. "The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland became the first former Warsaw Pact countries to gain NATO membership in 1999."[6]

Since the Cold War, NATO has transformed itself from a geopolitical security agency to one more focused on promoting the general welfare of Western Europe, the Mediterranean, and North America. This shift has involved extending the hand of friendship to once bitter enemies, including the Russian Federation, and to working on joint diplomatic, peacekeeping, search and rescue, and disaster preparedness co-ventures with its myriad allies.

Necessary Evolution

NATO's cooperative initiatives notwithstanding, its defensive role remains a vital one. The geopolitical threats NATO faces have evolved in the wake of the Cold War: "ethnic conflict, the abuse of human rights, political instability, economic fragility, terrorism and the spread of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and their means of delivery."[7] As the threats have evolved, from regional to transnational, so, too, must NATO evolve in kind. It has already sought to do so by extending an invitation of membership to countries far outside its original sphere of influence: Albania, Croatia, and Macedonia.[8]

Naturally, NATO's newfound expansion and change in function haven't been met with universal support. There are those who feel that NATO's newfound vigor is pushing the Western world back towards the brink of regional, if not global war. NATO's working relationship with the Russian Federation has been strained immensely in light of its eastern expansion, as well as over Russia's recent unsanctioned military operation in Georgia over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.[9] (Georgia has been approached over potential membership in both NATO and the EU in recent months.)

Many would prefer that NATO stick to its altruistic post-war practices, while others welcome the action of any intergovernmental agency willing to act where the UN Security Council's indecisiveness and impotence has failed. In this age of transnational terrorism and dwindling democratic institutions, the threats to regional and global stability are real, and they will persist and thrive until someone takes action.

NATO seems to be the only one answering that call.

[1] Rummel, R. J. "How Many Did Stalin Really Murder?" Democratic Peace. http://freedomspeace.blogspot.com/2005/04/how-many-did-stalin-really-murder.html 26 August, 2005.

[2] "NATO and the Cold War - Why did the Warsaw Pact end after the Cold War and not NATO?" Lectures: NATO's Transformation. North Atlantic Treaty Organization. http://www.nato.int/multi/video/lectures/031104/031104a.htm 26 May, 2006.

[3] Ibid

[4] "The Warsaw Pact, 1955." Modern History Sourcebook. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1955warsawpact.html November 1998.

[5] "The Warsaw Pact." Warsaw Life. http://www.warsaw-life.com/poland/warsaw-pact 2007.

[6] "Profile: Nato." BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/1549072.stm 3 April, 2008.

[7] Shea, J. "How did NATO survive the Cold War? - NATO's transformation after the Cold War from 1989 to present." Lectures: NATO's Transformation. North Atlantic Treaty Organization. http://www.nato.int/multi/video/lectures/031104/031104.htm 6 November, 2003.

[8] Bowers, C. L. "NATO Looks to Expand Membership at Bucharest Summit." American Forces Press Service. U.S. Department of Defense. http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=49430 1 April, 2008.

[9] "Russia hits back at Nato warning." BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7571104.stm 19 August, 2008.