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North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

Definition

NATO is an international alliance that consists of 30 member states from North America and Europe. It was established in 1949 as a collective defense mechanism where its independent member countries agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party.

Analogy

Think of NATO like a neighborhood watch program. If one house (country) gets attacked, the rest of the houses (countries) in the neighborhood come together to defend it.

Related terms

Collective Security: A type of coalition building strategy in which a group of nations agree not to attack each other and to defend each other against an attack from one of the others, should such an attack occur.

Cold War: The geopolitical tension between two superpowers, the Soviet Union and United States, after World War II. It's during this period that NATO was formed as part of containment strategy against potential aggression from Communist Bloc.

Article 5: The article within the North Atlantic Treaty that embodies the principle of collective defense. It states that if one NATO ally is attacked, then all NATO allies are considered to be under attack.