Реферат: NATO Essay Research Paper The North Atlantic
factors of the late sixties and early seventies was America?s involvement in
the Vietnam War. This horrifying war sapped the US economy, morale, and foreign
policy prowess. Although the 1970s began with the Strategic Arms Limitation
Talks (SALT I), this decade created more disillusionment by world powers as the
Soviets continued to rapidly stock their military and nuclear arsenals. In 1979,
NATO initiated a dual-track program where new defense efforts were coupled with
new efforts in reconciliation and cooperation. Unfortunately, the steps taken by
both sides were small and uneventful and usually were retracted within a short
time. This brings us to the Reagan years, the eighties, and to the closest
watched political tug-a-war in years. This decade opened with a deepening crisis
and in 1983 the USSR failed to prevent the deployment of intermediate-range
ballistic missiles, sent to counteract the ones they had pointed a Europe?s
major cites. It is possible to say that NATO help greatly in dissuading the USSR
from following through on attacking Western Europe. The ?game? had gotten
deadly serious and in 1987 both sides agreed to talks. Out of these talks came
the Intermediate-range Nuclear Force (INF) Treaty, which not only gave people a
sense of relief across the world it also began the breakdown of the Warsaw Pact
and the WTO. The change in the wind prompted the Berlin Wall that separated a
people for over twenty-five years to be torn down and Germany was finally
reunified. The late eighties to the mid-nineties finally saw the beginning of
the end to the Cold War. This time also showed the world the success of NATO and
the unified efforts of its members in meeting the challenge of the Communists
and the WTO. NATO had finally shown itself to be a viable source for
communication and resolution between factions instead of war. That became more
evident in the 1990s, with the continued depletion of nuclear arsenals on both
sides, the dissolving of the Warsaw Pact in 1991, and the continued duties to
help return the countries of Eastern Europe to normalcy. An example of this is
evident in Bosnia/Herzegovina and Kosovo. These areas and people have been able
to strengthen their nationalistic feeling with both encouraging and disastrous