NATO's new strategy

Author: Wang Fang et al. (editors)
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 1999-07-01
Features: NATO, the full name of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was a military alliance formed by Western countries led by the United States during the Cold War to counter the Soviet Union. On April 4, 1949, to counter the "expansion" of the former Soviet Union in military and ideological terms, 12 countries including the United States, Canada, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Portugal, and Italy signed the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington, D.C., establishing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), with its headquarters in the suburbs of Paris, France. The treaty stipulated that member states would practice "collective defense," requiring all member states to provide assistance, including the use of force, if any member state went to war with another country. On February 18, 1952, Greece and Turkey in Asia joined. On May 5, 1955, West Germany joined. That same year, on May 14, to counter NATO, the Soviet Union and seven Eastern European countries, including Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Albania, signed the Warsaw Pact in Warsaw, Poland, forming a military alliance led by the Soviet Union, with its headquarters in Moscow. From then on, the confrontation between the two military blocs became a prominent symbol of the Cold War. To help the general Chinese public understand NATO, we compiled this pamphlet. This book introduces the origins and development history of NATO, with a focus on the process of NATO's eastward expansion and the subsequent Kosovo War. It briefly analyzes the objectives the United States and other major member states sought to achieve through NATO and their respective positions within it, as well as the impact of the new NATO on global security, particularly its potential impact on Chinese security. Our analysis is certainly very immature, and we only hope to provoke deep reflection among all Chinese compatriots who care about the fate of our nation and the future of our people.