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NATO's proposed expansion into the Balkans and eastwards into Ukraine and Georgia is causing tensions between the alliance and Russia and within NATO itself. What exactly is planned and is everything as it seems? When the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was created in 1949, the alliance was based on a system of "collective defense" which meant its member states agreed to mutually defend each other in response to an attack by any external party. For most of the last half of the 20th century, the most likely external party was the Soviet Union. Not long after the signing of the treaty which brought NATO into being, the Cold War intensified and pitched NATO members into a standoff with the Warsaw Pact signatories which lasted over 40 years. Until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO's primary goal was to contain the threat that was thought to originate from behind its eastern borders. Since the removal of the Soviet threat, NATO's goal in Europe has changed from defending its eastern borders to pushing those boundaries as far east as possible. In 2004, the alliance executed the biggest expansion in its history, to include seven new members: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia -- all formerly part of the Soviet Union or the Warsaw Pact.
When the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was created in 1949, the alliance was based on a system of "collective defense" which meant its member states agreed to mutually defend each other in response to an attack by any external party.
For most of the last half of the 20th century, the most likely external party was the Soviet Union. Not long after the signing of the treaty which brought NATO into being, the Cold War intensified and pitched NATO members into a standoff with the Warsaw Pact signatories which lasted over 40 years. Until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO's primary goal was to contain the threat that was thought to originate from behind its eastern borders.
Since the removal of the Soviet threat, NATO's goal in Europe has changed from defending its eastern borders to pushing those boundaries as far east as possible. In 2004, the alliance executed the biggest expansion in its history, to include seven new members: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia -- all formerly part of the Soviet Union or the Warsaw Pact.
