From London to Brussels: Emergence and Development of a Politico-Administrative System

Abstract

Against the background of dramatic circumstances in early 1948, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was constituted to institutionalize a defence arrangement. In view of East-West tensions eventually turning into a serious confrontation between the Western powers and the Soviet Union, France, Great Britain, and the US realized that their existing collective and bilateral arrangements (above all the Marshall Plan and US bilateral military aid) were insufficient and had to be sustained by a politico-strategic institution (Schmidt 2003: 87, 233–240). West Europeans therefore called upon the US, hitherto hostile to alliances, to negotiate what would eventually become the North Atlantic Treaty of 4 April 1949 (NAT), NATO’s founding document. That treaty constitutes a primarily political arrangement which largely relied on the deterrence effect of both a unity of purposes and principles among the allies (policy of strength) and on the overwhelming US military might, including nuclear weapons and strategic bombers.