When the U.S., Canada and 10 western European nations came together in 1949 to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, they had a clear goal. “Keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down,” said Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay, NATO’s first Secretary General. The military alliance was intended to rebuild Europe from the rubble of World War II and to act as a buffer against Soviet aggression.
But the collapse of the Soviet Union made NATO’s purpose less clear. In fact, in 1990, as the Cold War drew to a close, President Mikhail Gorbachev proposed the Soviet Union join NATO. At the time, Gorbachev was negotiating German reunification with the then U.S. Secretary of State James Baker. “You say that NATO is not directed against us,” he said, referring to the rival Warsaw Pact, an alliance between the Soviet Union and Communist countries in Eastern Europe, “that it is simply a security structure that is adapting to new realities. Therefore, we propose to join NATO.”
..