CHAPTER 15 THE ALLIANCES OF EUROPE

NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance of 28 European countries and two North American countries.

NATO constitutes a system of collective security; its independent member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. It was established during the Cold War in response to the perceived threat posed by the Soviet Union. The alliance has remained in place since the end of the Cold War and has been involved in military operations in the Balkans, the Middle East and North Africa. NATO headquarters is in Brussels, Belgium. The headquarters of Allied Command Operations is near Mons, Belgium.

The admission of new member states has increased the alliance from the original 12 countries to 30. The most recent member state to be added is North Macedonia on March 27, 2020. NATO recognizes Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Ukraine as potential members. Enlargement has led to tensions with non-member Russia. President Putin demanded NATO provide legal guarantees that it would stop expanding east (to countries such as Ukraine, Georgia or Moldova). The Warsaw Pact

The Warsaw Pact was a political and military alliance comprising the Soviet Union and the communist states of Eastern Europe.

The original members of the Warsaw Pact were the Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria.

The Pact was to facilitate collective decision-making by all its members. In practice, the USSR effectively controlled the organization.

The Warsaw Pact came to an end in 1991, after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, and just before the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

The European Union (EU) is a political and economic grouping of 27 European countries. The EU promotes democratic values and is one of the world’s most powerful trade blocs. Nineteen of the countries share the euro as their official currency.

The EU grew out of wishes to strengthen international economic and political co-operation on the European continent post-World War II. The European Economic Community (EEC), launched in 1957, became the European Union in 1993 with the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty deepening the integration of members’ foreign, security and internal affairs policies. The EU established a common market the same year to promote the free movement of goods, services, people, and capital across its borders. A common currency, the euro, was adopted in 1999.

In the 2016 “ ‘Brexit” referendum, the UK voted to leave the EU and the country officially left in 2020. The Baltic States

The Baltic states — or the Baltic countries — is a modern unofficial geopolitical term for the grouping of three countries: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. All three are members of NATO and the European Union.

They are classified as high-income economies by the World Bank and maintain a very high Human Development Index. The three governments engage in intergovernmental and parliamentary cooperation. There is also frequent cooperation in foreign and security policy, defense, energy, and transportation. The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)

The Commonwealth of Independent States, a free association of sovereign states, was formed in 1991 by Russia and 11 other republics that were formerly part of the Soviet Union.

The elected leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus signed on to a new association to replace the crumbling Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The three Slavic republics were later joined by the Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, by the Transcaucasian republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, and by Moldova.

The CIS Charter was adopted on January 22, 1993. According to the Charter, the goals of the CIS are:

· The members of the CIS would cooperate in political, cultural, economic, environmental protection, and all spheres.

· To promote the economic and social development of all member states.

· To ensure and protect human rights and other fundamental liberties according to international laws.

· Cooperation among all member states for maintaining international peace and security. The Council of Ministers of Defense has been established to coordinate military cooperation among all the member states.

· Prevention of armed conflicts and peaceful settlement of disputes between the CIS member states.

Georgia officially withdrew from the Commonwealth, and on May 19, 2018, Ukraine officially ended its participation in all the statutory bodies of the CIS following Russia’s forced annexation of Crimea.