International Relations

NATO was created in April 1949, and the Warsaw Pact was established in 1955. Both held a policy of mutual military assistance and collective security against an attack made by a nation outside of the treaty organization. Though the United Nations was created to promote peace in the postwar world, the Soviet Union’s position as a member of the Security Council allowed it to veto many of the organization’s intended actions. Western nations began to feel that another institution was needed to protect them from potential Soviet aggression.
In 1949, the United States, Canada, France, Great Britain, and eight other nations formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to protect the West from possible Soviet-led communist aggression. This marked a significant shift in American foreign policy, which since the Monroe Doctrine had avoided permanent military alliances with European powers. In 1955, the Soviet Union retaliated by issuing the Warsaw Pact with its satellite states in Eastern Europe, which also held a policy of mutual assistance, thus furthering the notion of Churchill’s “iron curtain.”