What exactly does NATO do?
NATO, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as it should be known, is a military organization. Its members include the USA and Canada, as well as most of the countries of Western Europe, including the UK, and ten Central/Eastern European countries which have joined since 1999. NATO has now grown to 26 members – bear in mind that you could be asked to explain the reasons why countries are keen to join NATO. NATO was originally set up in 1949 to counter-balance the power of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe. From 1949 until the late 1980s NATO and the Warsaw Pact (Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies) fought the so-called Cold War and the Arms Race against each other. Since the break up of the Soviet Union and the end of Communism in Europe, NATO has changed its role. It is still the major military organisation in Europe, but its role is becoming more like a world peacekeeper, recently referred to as a ‘global policeman’. In the former Yugoslavia, although NATO handed over p
