Page 78 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

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nor th a tlantic trea ty organiza tion 1379

Further Reading States) each went their own way without a mutual guar-
Ackerman, P., & DuVall, J. (2000). A force more powerful. New York: antee of their future safety, should not be repeated.
Palgrave.
Bondurant, J. (1965). Conquest of violence: The Gandhian philosophy of Churchill was probably the first statesman to fully
conflict. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. understand the implications of the Red Army’s advance
Burrowes, R. J. (1996). The strategy of nonviolent defense. Albany: State into the heartland of Europe agreed upon at Yalta. The
University of New York Press.
Easwaran, E. (1999). The nonviolent soldier of Islam. Tomales, CA: Nili- combination of a residual United States Army and Air
giri Press. Force occupying southern Germany, nonexistent French
Flis, A. (2002). What the West has learned from the East in the twenti- and Italian armored and air forces, and a limited British
eth century. Development and Society,31, 245–264.
Gandhi, M. K. (1960). My nonviolence. Ahmadabad, India: Navjivan land army on the Rhine (Britain being traditionally
Press. strong on the seas and now in the air) could under no
Havel,V. (1985). Power of the powerless: Citizens against the state in cen-
tral eastern Europe. New York: M. E. Sharpe. circumstances resist a Soviet attack beyond what he
Ingram, C. (2003). In the footsteps of Gandhi. Berkeley, CA: Parallax called the Iron Curtain. The British policy of trying to
Press.
Iyer, R. (1983). The moral and political thought of Mahatma Gandhi. New persuade the United States to abandon its prewar isola-
York: Concord Grove Press. tionism met at first with little success. Down from over
King, M. L., Jr. (1964). Stride toward freedom. New York: Harper and 3 million men stationed in Europe in May 1945, the
Row.
Powers, R., & Vogele,W. (Eds.). (1997). Protest, power and change. New United States presence was less than 400,000 strong—
York: Garland Publishing. smaller than the British contingent—in the spring of
Sharp, G. (2000). The politics of nonviolent action (8th ed.). Boston: 1946, when Churchill raised the alarm again in a speech
Porter Sargent Publishers.
Suu Kyi, A. S. (1991). Freedom from fear. London: Viking. on “The Sinews of Peace” given before President Truman
at Fulton, Missouri, which had a very cold reception in
the American press.
The deciding factor was probably the British inability
North Atlantic to continue to support the Greek government’s struggle
against Communist guerillas in March 1947, which made
Treaty it clear that only the United States had the resources in

men, equipment, and money to contain Communist
Organization expansion—in Europe as in the rest of the world. The
approval by Congress in that month of the “Truman Doc-
he North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was trine,” whereby the United States undertook “to support
Tcreated as result of the signing of the North Atlantic free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by
Treaty on 4 April 1949 “to restore and maintain the secu- armed minorities, or by outside pressure,” was a major
rity of the North Atlantic area” (defined as territories, reversal of policy, which was soon extended from Greece
islands, vessels, and aircraft of the signatories “north of to most of Western Europe. The Marshall Plan,
the Tropic of Cancer”). Its creation has to be considered announced in June 1947, was in the same vein, in that
in the context of the incipient Cold War due to the dete- it postulated that European economic recovery with
rioration in the relations between the victors of World American aid was the best bulwark against Soviet and
War II, with the former Soviet ally now perceived as an other Communist expansion.These American initiatives
increasing threat to the safety of the Western Democra- were in accord with the ideas publicly expressed by Bel-
cies on both sides of the Atlantic—a perception con- gian, British, and French statesmen that only a common
firmed by the explosion of the first Soviet atom bomb on system of defense could guarantee the safety of Western
29 August 1949. It was also felt that the mistakes that Europe—a plea that took on increased relevance and
followed World War I, when the four major Western vic- urgency with the Prague coup of 22 February 1948, after
tors (France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United which events moved very fast.