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PRAK III – winter semester 2010 – 2011
Homework to be prepared for 20th Oct
Insert the missing words:
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (the headquarters in Brussels, Belgium) is a military
alliance ……………………... by the North Atlantic Treaty. NATO´s purpose is to increase
the stability and freedom of its members through a system of collective security.
The North Atlantic Treaty was ……………………… in 1949, in the first years of the
………………….. War era. The original purpose of NATO was to defend Western Europe
against a possible attack by communist countries ………………. the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics (USSR). The original members were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France,
Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United
States. Greece and Turkey entered the alliance in 1952, West Germany in 1955 (from 1990
being a member as Germany), and Spain in 1982. The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland
became members in …………….; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia,
and Slovenia in 2004. France withdrew from the integrated military command of NATO in
1966, but it remained a member of the organization.
The heart of NATO is expressed in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, in which the
signatory members ……………………. that
„an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be
considered an attack against them all; and consequently they agree that, if such an
armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or
collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United
Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually
and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including
the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic
area.“
NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time in 2001, …………….. terrorist attacks organized
by the exiled Saudi Arabian millionaire Osama bin Laden destroyed the World Trade Center
in New York City and part of the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., killing some 3,000
people.
Article 6 defines the geographic scope of the treaty as covering “an armed attack on the
territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America.” Other articles commit the
………………….. to strengthening their democratic institutions, to building their collective
military capability, to consulting each other, and to remaining …………………. to inviting
other European states to join.
Historical background
After World War II in 1945, Western Europe was ………………… exhausted and militarily
weak (the western Allies had rapidly and drastically reduced their armies at the end of the
war), and newly powerful communist ……………….. had arisen in France and Italy. In
contrast, the Soviet Union had emerged from the war with its armies dominating all the states
of Central and Eastern Europe, and by 1948 communists under Moscow's sponsorship had
consolidated their control of the ……………………… of those countries and suppressed all
noncommunist political activity. What became known as the ……………………….., a term
popularized by Winston Churchill, had descended over Central and Eastern Europe.
Furthermore, …………………. cooperation between the western Allies and the Soviets had
completely broken down. Each side was organizing its own sector of occupied Germany, so
that two German states would emerge, a democratic one in the west and a ……………………
one in the east.
In 1948 the United States launched the Marshall Plan, which infused massive amounts of
………………….. aid to the countries of Western and Southern Europe on the condition that
they …………………….. with each other and engage in joint planning to hasten their mutual
recovery. As for military recovery, under the Brussels Treaty of 1948, the United Kingdom,
France, and the Low Countries (Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg) concluded a
collective-defense agreement called the Western European Union. It was soon recognized,
however, that a more formidable alliance would be …………………. to provide an adequate
military counterweight to the Soviets.
By this time Britain, Canada, and the United States had already engaged in secret exploratory
talks ………………… security arrangements that would serve as an alternative to the United
Nations (UN), which was ………………… paralyzed by the rapidly emerging Cold War. In
March 1948, ……………… a virtual communist coup d'état in Czechoslovakia in February,
the three governments began discussions on a multilateral collective-defense scheme that
would enhance Western security and promote ……………….. values. These discussions were
eventually ……………………. by France, the Low Countries, and Norway and in April 1949
resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty.