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East Yangon University

Department of Law

Law-631(B)
Law of International Institutions
The origin development of
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Name Thet Su San

Roll No LLM -05

Q. Trace the origin development of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Introduction
As World War II came to a close, the alliance between the Soviet Union and Western
powers deteriorated. Europe needed a plan for maintaining long-term peace. Under terms
outlined at the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin was given
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temporary control of Poland and a portion of Germany. However, it quickly became clear that
the Soviet Union had greater ambitions, as it sponsored communist-led coups in
Czechoslovakia and surrounding east European territories. Fearful of further Soviet
encroachment on Western Europe, these countries discussed forming an organization capable
of providing mutual security.
The origin development of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The Brussels Treaty organization was established in 1948 as an organization for
collective self-defence. But it was realized to be inadequate for the defense of Western
Europe almost as soon as it was formed. Therefore, the North Atlantic Treaty was singed on
April 4, 1949. The treaty was originally singed by 12 States, including the USA, Canada and
Iceland. The Organization is not, therefore, strictly European. The NATO has now 28
members.
Between 1947 and 1952, the Marshall Plan provided the means of stabilising Western
European economies. NATO’s role as a political and military alliance was to provide for
collective defence against any form of aggression and to maintain a secure environment for
the development of democracy and economic growth. In the words of the then US President
Harry S Truman, the Marshall Plan and NATO were “two halves of the same walnut”.
The founding members of NATO - Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland,
Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United
States - committed themselves to come to each other’s defence in the event of military
aggression against any one of them. Accordingly, NATO member states increased their
efforts to develop the military structures needed to implement their commitment to joint
defence. Nevertheless, NATO remained a politically led organisation catering for the
interests of all its members. By binding North America to the defence of Western Europe, the
Alliance would demonstrate that any attempt at political and military coercion against
Western Europe would fail. Simultaneously, it would provide a framework for preventing the
resurgence of militant nationalism in Europe. In all these respects, the Alliance more than
served its purpose.
The presence of North American forces on European soil, at the request of European
governments, helped to discourage any attempt to threaten or politically coerce allied
countries. Moreover, as time passed, former adversaries became allies. In 1952 Greece and
Turkey joined the Alliance, followed three years later by the Federal Republic of Germany,
and in 1982 by Spain. Through the Alliance, Western Europe and North America not only
jointly defended their independence but also achieved an unprecedented level of stability.
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Indeed, the security provided by NATO has been described as the “oxygen of prosperity”
which laid the basis for European economic cooperation and integration. It also paved the
way for the end of the Cold War and of the division of Europe at the beginning of the 1990s
NATO membership is open to "any other European state in a position to further the
principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area.
Article 4 of the Treaty provides that:
"The Parties will consult together whenever in the opinion of any of them, the
territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened".
NATO is committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes. If diplomatic efforts fail, it
has the military capacity needed to undertake crisis-management operations. These are
carried out under Article 5 of the Washington Treaty - NATO's founding treaty - or under a
UN mandate, alone or in cooperation with other countries and international organizations.
The essence of the Treaty lies in Article 5, which states: "The Parties agree that an
armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an
attack against them all: ..if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right
of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United
Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking such action including the use of
armed force. Europe and North America are more closely specified in Article 6, so that a
geographical area is defined. After the accession of Turkey and Greece, this was extended by
a Protocol of October 17, 1951, to cover their territories.
During the Cold War, NATO’s role and purpose were clearly defined by the existence
of the threat posed by the Soviet Union. By the early 1990s, the Warsaw Pact had been
dissolved at the insistence of the newly liberated countries of Eastern Europe, and the Soviet
Union had collapsed. With the disappearance of traditional adversaries, some commentators
believed that the need for NATO had also been removed and that future defence expenditure
and investment in armed forces should be dramatically reduced.
In spite of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, however, hopes for a peace dividend
proved premature. It soon became apparent that although the end of the Cold War might have
removed direct military threats, instability in some parts of Europe had increased. A number
of regional conflicts, often fuelled by ethnic and religious tensions, broke out in the former
Yugoslavia and in parts of the former Soviet Union and threatened to spread. NATO
countries rapidly came to the conclusion that their commitment to collective defence and the
cooperation achieved through NATO continued to provide the best guarantee for their
security. Moreover, although the prospect of military invasion might be negligible, new
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forms of political and military cooperation would be called for to deal with new challenges
such as ethnic conflicts and to foster stability and security in the wider Europe.
With this goal in mind, NATO has, over the past decade, evolved from being
exclusively a tightly knit alliance with responsibility for collective defence, to becoming the
focus for a partnership of nations cooperating in the wider field of security. From 1990
onwards, regular contacts were established with former Warsaw Pact countries and newly
independent republics of the former Soviet Union, firstly through the establishment of the
North Atlantic Cooperation Council, which was since renamed the Euro-Atlantic Partnership
Council, and subsequently through the Partnership for Peace. NATO also underwent a
process of radical internal change to respond to Europe’s new security situation. In particular,
it began to transform its military structures and forces to enable it to undertake crisis
management, peacekeeping and peace-support tasks in cooperation with its new Partner
countries.
Well before this process was complete, the Alliance was in fact already undertaking
military operations to monitor and enforce United Nations resolutions relating to the former
Yugoslavia. With the signature of the Dayton Agreement which ended the war in Bosnia and
Herzegovina in 1995, NATO then played a key role by establishing the Implementation Force
(IFOR) and subsequently the Stabilisation Force (SFOR), in order to ensure that the
agreement was implemented and to prepare a basis for future peace. A few years later, in
1999, the Alliance intervened in Kosovo by launching an air campaign against the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia, in order to halt massive human rights’ violations against the Kosovar
Albanians and to prevent the spread of the conflict in the region. NATO has also introduced a
number of other initiatives to meet future security challenges. Among the most important of
these are the Defence Capabilities Initiative (DCI); the development of the European Security
and Defence Identity within the Alliance (ESDI); and the establishment of a Weapons of
Mass Destruction Centre, which seeks to improve the Alliance’s ability to respond to the
threat posed by such weapons and to prevent their spread.
Conclusion
The structure of NATO is very simple and the Treaty mentions only a Council and a
Defense Committee. However, considerable constitutional changes occurred in 1951 and
1952.13 NATO's essential purpose is to safeguard the freedom and security of its members
through political and military means. NATO promotes democratic values and encourages
consultation and cooperation on defence and security issues to build trust and, in the long run,
prevent conflict NATO is an alliance of countries from Europe and North America. It
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provides a unique link between these two continents for consultation and cooperation in the
field of defence and security, and the conduct of multinational crisis-management operations.
NATO provides a unique opportunity for member countries to consult and take decisions on
security issues at all levels and in a variety of fields. A "NATO decision" is the expression of
the collective will of all 28 member countries since all decisions are taken by consensus.

References
https://www.nato.int/docu/presskit/010219/004gb.pdf
The textbook of fourth year of law.