The Creation of NATO and the Western Alliance

Alban Malia

doi:10.26417/785tuv96g

Abstract

Stalin's actions in eastern Europe evoked fear and uncertainty in the West. The Red Army's fear of a Soviet invasion of the free part of the continent continued to be a major nightmare for post-war Europe. The coup d’etat in Czechoslovakia had the same effect as Stalin's military intervention in Poland. Stalin had ordered to intervene against a country that had great international sympathy for resistance to Hitler in the late 1930s. Whatever Stalin's goal was, he was completely unjustified. The Western Europeans were very afraid. If the Communists did not find it difficult to organize a coup in Prague, what would stop them from doing so in Rome or Paris? And if they tried to do something like that, who would stop them?

Highlights

IntroductionBritish Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin had the great idea to establish a new military alliance that would strongly link Western Europe and the United States
Establishing a Western alliance against Soviet military dangerBritish Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin had the great idea to establish a new military alliance that would strongly link Western Europe and the United States
British Foreign Minister Bevin argued that the survival of the West depended on the strong alliance with the United States of America with Great Britain and British dominance

Summary

Introduction

British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin had the great idea to establish a new military alliance that would strongly link Western Europe and the United States. France and Britain agreed to establish a new military alliance with the aim of appeasing European public opinion and showing that communism could not march as it pleased on this part of the continent. As they could not do without the United States of America, Washington was invited to participate. Seeing Marshall's reluctance, Bevin invited in 1948 the foreign ministers of Benelux and France to join a Western European military pact. Seeing the Soviet advance in central Europe, the US Senate voted for the Vanderberg Resolution, which urged President Truman to progressively pursue regional development for self-defense

Creation of the North Atlantic Alliance

Conclusions