As you no doubt know, NATO has been popping up in the news lately. The previous U.S. Administration was advocating abandoning America’s involvement owing, at least on the surface, to an imbalance of financial responsibilities on the parts of member nations. The insinuation raised eyebrows among allies who felt America was no longer in a position to be of solid foundation and therefore couldn’t be relied upon in times of emergency. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the issue has faded into the woodwork, at least for now.
But some in the U.S. felt, and continue to feel, that NATO is a relic of a bygone era; the Cold War has been long over. Threats from the Soviet Union were no longer relevant because there wasn’t any. But then, there was Vladimir Putin and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and concerns coming from bordering nations to Russia signalling that NATO was just as relevant now as it ever was. Potentially, an echo of the Munich crisis of 1938 and the outbreak of War in 1939 gave some pause to think the past wasn’t as distant as previously thought.
But in 1952 we were right in the middle of the Cold War and the thought then was whether or not NATO was an effective enough detterrant to an outbreak of war as was thought in 1949, when NATO came into existence.
As a reminder*: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO /ˈneɪtoʊ/ NAY-toh; French: Organisation du traité de l’Atlantique nord, OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance of 32 member states—30 European and 2 North American. Established in the aftermath of World War II, the organization implements the North Atlantic Treaty, signed in Washington, D.C., on 4 April 1949. NATO is a collective security system: its independent member states agree to defend each other against attacks by third parties. During the Cold War, NATO operated as a check on the threat posed by the Soviet Union. The alliance remained in place after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, and has been involved in military operations in the Balkans, the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. The organization’s motto is animus in consulendo liber (Latin for ‘a mind unfettered in deliberation’). The organization’s strategic concepts include deterrence.
*thanks Wikipedia.
Here is a Transatlantic discussion which took place on February 6, 1952 and broadcast as part of NBC Radio’s University Of Chicago Roundtable.
History repeats – don’t forget.
