NATO or The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is basically a military alliance, born out of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4th of April, 1949. Headquartered at the Belgium capital city of Brussels, the NATO introduced a collection of defense systems, as a result of which, its member-states agreed upon a common defense system, in the face of external invasions.
NATO: Historical Evolution
The origin of NATO can be traced back to 17th of March 1948, with the signing of the Treaty of Brussels by United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. This Treaty led to the foundation of a military coalition, which came to be known as the Western European Union at a later stage. This was soon followed by the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington D.C. on 4th April 1949, which accepted American intervention into the matter, for impeding the attack of the Soviet Russian military forces and participate in the formation of a fresh military alliance as immediately as possible. This was the time when NATO came into existence officially.
Role of NATO in the modern political world:
As an alliance of as many as 26 European and North American nations, NATO is entrusted with the responsibility of executing the the plan of actions, as laid down in the North Atlantic Treaty. As per this Treaty, the basic role of NATO is to protect the freedom of and ensure security to all its member-nations by all possible political and military ways. However, with passing time, NATO has diversified its activities and today, it has a significant role to play in maintaining peace and handling global political and military crises efficiently and effectively.The military regiments as well as the equipments of NATO are all contributions from its member-nations, who are active participants in all the military activities of the organization. These armed forces considered as the primary asset of NATO, are under strict national control and command, unless NATO requires them to combat battles or other emergency situations.
NATO has its military bases worldwide, including countries like:
In part two of our feature on Goldman Sachs, we look at Goldman’s networks of power in Europe and consider the ways in which Goldman is using the same dangerous financial products, which caused the 2007 crisis, to bet against Europe’s floundering economies whilst governing, or advising those countries. Finally, we ask what can be done to reduce Goldman’s power.
Read more
Professor at Columbia University. Recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2001 & the John Bates Clark Medal in 1979. Author of "Freefall: America, Free Markets", "The Sinking of the World Economy", "Globalisation and its Discontents" & "Making Globalisation Work".
Nouriel Roubini, a.k.a. “Doctor Doom”, is chairman of Roubini Global Economics and professor of economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business. Roubini has been consistently cited as one of the world’s top global thinkers. This year, he was voted as the most influential economist in the world by Forbes magazine.
Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom from 1992 to 2007. Prime Minister of the UK between 2007 and 2010. Inaugural 'Distinguished Leader in Residence' at New York University. Advisor at World Economic Forum
Vice President and Director of the Global Economy and Development Program at the Brookings Institution. Former Turkish Minister of State for Economic Affairs. Head of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) from 2005-2009.