NATO
Definition
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 North American and European countries established in 1949.
Analogy
Imagine NATO as a neighborhood watch group. If one house gets burgled (attacked), everyone else on that street comes together to protect it - just like how NATO members agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party.
Related terms
Article 5: This can be compared with a rule within your neighborhood watch group stating if one house gets attacked, everyone responds. Article 5 declares that an armed attack against one member is considered an attack against all members.
Cold War: A period of geopolitical tension between powers in Eastern Bloc (Soviet Union & its satellite states) & powers in Western Bloc (US & its NATO allies). Like two rival gangs in a city, they never directly fought each other but had intense economic and political rivalry.
Warsaw Pact: This is like the rival neighborhood watch group to NATO during the Cold War. It was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw among the Soviet Union and seven satellite states of Central and Eastern Europe.
"NATO" appears in:
Subjects (2)
Study guides (3)
Practice Questions (5)
How might global alliances be different today if NATO had never been established after WWII?
What is considered a primary purpose behind establishing NATO in April,1949?
How did the role of NATO change after the end of the Cold War?
If NATO had dissolved after World War II instead of expanding, what could be one possible outcome?
How might U.S.-Russia relations be different today if NATO had offered membership to Russia in the early post-Cold War era?
Resources
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