A Brief History
On April 4, 2023, Finland became the 31st member of the NATO alliance, a pact originally meant to counter the threat from the USSR, consisting of 12 European and North American nations. NATO continued to grow after the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, and several more nations are awaiting acceptance into the alliance, including Ukraine, with more nations considering applying for membership.
Digging Deeper
Back when the Cold War was still a thing, the communist bloc countered NATO with the Warsaw Pact, an alliance of the USSR and seven other communist states. The Warsaw Pact dissolved in 1991.
World War II pitted the Axis Powers against the Grand Alliance, or just the “Allies.”
World War I saw the Central Powers battle with the Triple Entente which later added many other members.
In the Napoleonic Wars, seven separate and successive “coalitions” united against Napoleon Bonaparte and the French, eventually defeating Napoleon.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
CIA. The Warsaw Pact – Soviet-East European Military Relations in Historical Perspective Sources and Reassessments. CreateSpace, 2012.
Sayle, Timothy. Enduring Alliance: A History of NATO and the Postwar Global Order. Cornell University Press, 2019.
The featured image in this article, a map of the enlargement of NATO, is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code.
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