Advertising of alcohol in our country is prohibited, but this does not mean that it is not. From time to time, young people who are pleasant in every respect appear to peppy music on TV screens, they do something good and useful, play sports, dance, have fun, without using a single drop of alcohol. At the end of the video, a famous brand of whiskey, vodka, or beer flashes. Not a drink is advertised, but a brand and lifestyle. The idea of North Atlantic military unity is propagated along the same lines.
An unobtrusive suggestion is made that the countries that joined NATO automatically join in some mystery and immediately become prosperous and prosperous. The picture is pastoral, there is no place for either bombed cities, dusty roads of southern countries, or coffins brought from them by night airplanes.
In the late forties, the creation of the North Atlantic bloc was a justifiable measure. The Stalinist USSR, despite the post-war devastation, sought to expand its geopolitical influence, using any weakness of Western democracies. The goal, as before, was not hidden, it was mentioned in any speech of every Soviet leader. Communism is possible only when capitalism is destroyed.
The countries that joined NATO in 1949 formed the notorious "Iron Curtain", which was talked about by Winston Churchill in Fulton. There were 12 of them: the USA, Great Britain, Canada, Italy, France, Norway, Holland, Portugal, Denmark, Iceland, Luxembourg and Belgium, in the capital of which the headquarters of the new defense alliance is located. The fifth article of the treaty clearly and unambiguously formulates the principle of collective defense: if someone (read the USSR) attacks any state party, the rest undertakes to enter into a military conflict on the side of the latter.
Formally, all countries that joined NATO are equal partners, but, given the disproportionate military and economic potentials, it can be concluded that there is an appropriate degree of influence on decision-making. Nevertheless, the geographical location near a gigantic industrialized state with a difficultly predicted foreign policy encouraged new members to join the North Atlantic bloc. The signing of the Warsaw Pact only accelerated the process.
Turkey and Greece signed an agreement in 1952. Three years later, West Germany became a member of the alliance. In this composition, the organization lasted until 1999.
True, some countries that joined NATO at times felt a catch from the main founding members, expressed in the limitation of their sovereignty. President Charles de Gaulle even suspended France’s participation in the organization, and Spain expressed its desire to limit participation in it exclusively to humanitarian operations. Greece had to leave the ranks of the defenders of democracy because of territorial disputes with Turkey over Cyprus.
Strange as it may seem, the list of countries that are members of NATO has expanded significantly after the disappearance from the international scene of the main object of North Atlantic fears, the Soviet Union. At the turn of the millennium, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary registered their participation in the military structure, and at the end of 2002 it included seven more Eastern European countries, including the former Soviet republics of the Baltic states.
Today, not every student can answer the question of which countries are part of NATO without a hint. There are three dozen of them, including states that are clearly unable to influence the military balance. Some of them do not even pay an annual cash contribution to the budget of the alliance. The military bloc obviously did not become stronger, and its goals are now formulated very vaguely. However, it is very difficult to hide the anti-Russian orientation of this structure with all the efforts of its propagandists.
