NATO: History and Purpose

NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)

• An intergovernmental military alliance of 32 member states (30 European and 2 North American)
• Established in the aftermath of World War II as a collective security system
• Member states agree to defend each other against attacks by third parties
• Served as a check on the threat posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War
• Remained in place after the dissolution of the Soviet Union

NATO Member States

• Greece, Turkey, Germany, Spain, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Finland, Sweden, United States, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United Kingdom

USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics)

• A transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991
• Successor state to the Russian Empire
• Nominally organized as a federal union of 15 national republics
• Highly centralized government and economy with communism and socialism as its ideological base

USSR Member States

• Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belorussia, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan

United Nations (UN)

• A diplomatic and political international organization
• Established after World War II to prevent future world wars
• Stated purposes: maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and serve as a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations
• Mission complicated in its early decades due to Cold War tensions between the United States and Soviet Union
• Provided primarily unarmed military observers and lightly armed troops for monitoring, reporting, and confidence-building roles