Background

Two years after the Second World War, on 4 March 1947, France and Britain signed the Treaty of Dunkirk, to support each other if either of them should 'become again involved in hostilities with Germany'.

A year later, on 17 March 1948, France and Britain joined with the Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands to sign the Treaty of Brussels.  In many ways, this looked like an expansion of the Treaty of Dunkirk.  However, there were key differences, inasmuch as the Treaty of Brussels:

  1.  pledged to ' fortify and preserve the principles of democracy, personal freedom and political liberty'.

  2.  changed ‘involved in hostilities with Germany’ to ‘an armed attack in Europe’.

So it was clear that, in the Treaty of Brussels, attention had shifted from the danger of Germany to the danger from the Soviet Union.  Next month, in April 1948, the Brussels Pact agreed to set up a ‘Western Union Defence Organization’ (WUDO). WUDO was formed in September 1948 (during the Berlin crisis), and in 1949 it held a naval training exercise in the Bay of Biscay involving 60 British, French, and Dutch warships.

The Formation of NATO

It was becoming increasingly clear that no European force would be strong enough to stop the Red Army if Stalin attacked, so in March 1949 the Brussels Pact opened secret negotiations with the Americans, and in April 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty was signed, which set up the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).

Principles

The North Atlantic Treaty promised:

  •  To safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty.

  •  Continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid to maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.

However, Article 4 stated:

  •  If an armed attack occurs, each of them [will help with] such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force. (i.e. they promised to help, but not necessarily to send military aid).

  •  And Article 5 limited the alliance’s operations to the ‘area north of the Tropic of Cancer’ (i.e. the North Atlantic).

The Treaty also set up a Council which would meet regularly as necessary.  It should be clear from this that the chief aim of NATO was to resist the threat of the Soviet Union, and that - as the words 'continuous and effective' indicated - that this would be a very active, armed resistance. 

Achievements

Key achievements have been:

  1.  1300 STANAGs (Standardization Agreements), including standardised bullets (so all NATO soldiers can fire the same bullets), aircraft marshalling signals (so any NATO aircraft could land at any NATO base) and the NATO phonetic alphabet.

  2.  NATO countries participated in the Korean War in 1950-3.

  3.  The 1952 Lisbon Conference expanded NATO:

        •  it planned the Long-Term Defence Plan.

        •  it set up a permanent force of 35 divisions supported by nuclear weapons.

        •  it set up the post of Secretary General (Baron Hastings Ismay was the first) with the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) situated in Paris.