91热爆

On April 4, 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty was signed. US President Harry S. Truman called it, 鈥溾�� a neighbourly act. We are like a group of householders, living in the same locality, who decide to express their community of interests by entering into a formal association for their mutual self-protection.鈥�

But NATO was always more than just a neighbourhood watch project. It was set up to deter Soviet expansion into Western Europe, and succeeded. NATO outlasted it by three decades. But now, the American President Donald Trump seems to many to be more inclined to alliance with Vladimir Putin, the leader of the Soviet Union鈥檚 successor, the Russian Federation, placing questions over the future of the old Alliance. Can anything replace it?

In this Archive on 4, Michael Goldfarb traces the history of NATO - its surprisingly rare military engagements, its neighbourly spats, its evolution into a unique military-political-diplomatic umbrella. He details the story of Article 5, the part of the treaty that commits members to regard an attack on one as an attack on all, with appropriate military response. He also takes a clear-eyed look at the prospects of a purely European defence grouping based on history - the European Community鈥檚 failure to prevent the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia.

The programme begins at the beginning, with the creation of a post-World War 2 order to counter Soviet expansion westward. It uses De Gaulle鈥檚 decision to withdraw France from the military command structure rather than place its nuclear weapons under NATO control, as a way of looking at the fundamental flaw in the alliance - it is made up independent nations, each with its own political dynamics that don鈥檛 always align. The documentary goes on to look at the one and only time Article 5 was invoked - after the attack of 9/11 as America sought to overthrow Afghanistan鈥檚 Taliban government. Finally, it explores NATO鈥檚 expansion eastwards.

Was NATO ever anything more than a tool of US security policy and can European nations succeed in creating their own equivalent to counter Russian expansion into Ukraine? If the experience of the Balkans in the 1990s is anything to go by, that may not be possible. And if Europe鈥檚 collective defence is still tied to the US, then how can it cope with a Trump administration aligning itself with the nation NATO was set up to stand against?

A Certain Height production for 91热爆 Radio 4