Recently, due to the aggravation of the political situation in the world, the NATO abbreviation practically does not leave newspaper pages and television screens. However, often using this term, people do not fully understand what is at stake, what kind of education and what its goals are.
Instruction manual
1
The acronym NATO, or more correctly NATO, comes from the English phrase North Atlantic Treaty Organization - the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (North Atlantic Alliance). At its core, this organization represents the military-political union, which currently unites 26 countries.
2
The NATO military-political bloc was created in April 1949 to confront the Soviet Union and the countries of the socialist camp. The Union Treaty, uniting 10 countries of the European continent and two American countries into a single alliance, was signed in Washington on April 4, 1949. The main declared task of the new union was to ensure collective security and consultations on vital issues. Initially, NATO included 12 developed countries: the USA, Great Britain, France, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Italy and Luxembourg.
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Since its inception, NATO has tirelessly pursued an expansion policy, admitting more and more member countries. The first expansion took place in 1952, when Turkey and Greece joined the alliance. In May 1955 West Germany joined it, and almost thirty years later, in 1982 - Spain.
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After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, several former socialist countries of Eastern Europe joined the North Atlantic Alliance: Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland. This event occurred in 1999. The last, fifth eastward expansion of NATO took place in 2004. and became the most global for the entire period of the organization’s existence - seven countries of the former socialist camp immediately became members of the alliance: Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and Estonia.
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The supreme military body of NATO is the Military Planning Committee, which considers all issues affecting the governing military bodies, the problems of construction and use of joint forces. In addition, the Committee approves the strategic concepts of the alliance and determines the share of military participation of each country.
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The highest executive body is the Military Committee. He is responsible for the development of the military strategy of the bloc and the strategic plans of NATO. The NATO Military Committee is not a permanent structure and, between its meetings, the implementation of its decisions is monitored by the Permanent Military Committee, which brings together representatives of the general staffs of the participating countries.
7
Nuclear weapons issues are being considered within the framework of NATO by the Nuclear Defense Committee. It is an exclusively advisory body, therefore, the Nuclear Planning Group is directly involved in the development of nuclear weapons issues.
- NATO website in Russian
- TSB - North Atlantic Treaty Organization
