Following threats posed by post-World War II communist expansions across Europe, a coalition of western nations in 1949, formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).After the defeat of Hitler’s Germany across occupied territories, liberation had opened domestic struggles for power as well as the demand for democracy and social justice, a struggle in which the communists and  the socialists engaged themselves in bitter conflicts. From hardening dividing lines over one issue after another, the struggles became part of the bigger competition among the victorious nations over the booty of war, especially between the Soviet Union on one hand, and France, Great Britain and the United States of America on the other. In the ensuing struggles, the Soviets annexed Eastern European countries from East Prussia, Poland, Hungary to Romania, while occupying areas from the Adriatic to the Baltic regions, and forcing formerly independent states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, into Soviet republics.
Russia applied crude coercion to install friendly governments in autonomous nations it did not annex. In those countries, anticommunist leaders were excluded from coalition governments, while propaganda campaigns, arrests and pressure were applied to eliminate non-communist parties, leading to consolidation of single-party dictatorships that operate on the Soviet model. In East Germany, the Soviets forcefully merged the Social Democratic party to a much smaller Communist party, then practically partitioned Germany into two, by granting independence to East Germany as the German Democratic Republic, situations which made the then British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, see an “Iron Curtain” descending on Europe.According to Churchill, “A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory.
Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organisation intend to do in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and proselytising tendencies.” “… this is certainly not the Liberated Europe we fought to build up. Nor is it one which contains the essentials of permanent peace.” That speech, revealing the Cold War, set the rallying tone for the formation of NATO. Ever since, NATO has remained the world’s most powerful defence alliance. Heralding the organisation in 1949, United States President Truman called it “a shield against aggression.” NATO’s member nations declared that an armed attack against any one member state shall be considered an attack against all, with a further pledge to come to the aid of one another, stating NATO’s general aim as being to “safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation” of its members, by promoting “stability and well-being in the North Atlantic Area.”
However, after long years of the cold war, leading to the disintegration of the USSR and the unification of Germany, some groups are questioning what remains of Russia’s territorial threats of the post-WW II era to warrant NATO’s continued high military spendings. Organisations like the No To NATO, who urge NATO to promote disarmament, say improving people’s lives should be prioritised over weapons and wars which create instability, deprivation, social injustice and environmental destruction. Organisations like the Pax Christi International are also worried about the tendency towards arms race, stock piling of nuclear arsenals and the policy of pre-emptive nuclear strikes. Defenders of NATO however point to Russia’s continued aggression, especially in Eastern Europe, and currently in Ukraine, and NATO’s efforts in limiting the spread of those tendencies, as the reason for the continued relevance of NATO. NATO has also aided in stabilising peace and to fight terrorists around the world.
However, with the expansion of NATO membership to include former Warsaw-pact member nations, Russia whose President, Vladimir Putin, the KGB boss during the USSR era, who continues to bemoan the loss of USSR’s former glory, accuses NATO of endangering Russia’s security by expanding towards its borders.  However Russia’s old game of aggressive external meddling, domination and sense of racial superiority against its Eastern European neighbours, right from the time of Joseph Stalin to the present, could be the major driving forces that push its neighbours towards the more liberal fold of NATO. The current case of Ukraine is a clear example. Russia’s devastating attacks in Ukraine shuddered many Eastern Europeans, the European Union (EU) and the rest of the civilised world, so much so that Sweden and Finland have seen the need to join NATO, while Ukraine regrets not being there already.
In their bid to assist Ukraine defend itself against Russia, NATO members appear to have learnt lessons from the build-up to the 2nd World War, during which Adolf Hitler, parading under a pretext of resentment for the Versailles settlement conditions which exerted heavy war-guilt punishments on Germany due to its role in the 1st World War, annexed Austria, while the world looked aloof. But unsatisfied Hitler went for Sunderland two weeks later, under another pretext of protecting a German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia. In the lackluster negotiations that followed, war-wary Britain and France, willing to appeace Germany in order to avert war, persuaded the Czechs to concede. Yet unappeasable Hitler went beyond his demands, and took the whole of Czechoslovakia instead, one of Europe’s best industrialised democracies. With such successes, Hitler’s popularity raged at home, as high as he was dreaded abroad.
He became more adventurous with escalating demands. He was exuberantly re-arming and recruiting more soldiers, while everywhere inflicting attacks on Jews and ethnic groups the Nazis labelled as inferior. Within weeks, Paris was over ran, and within months, all areas from Normandy to Sicily, with the help of Mussolini of Italy, was under Hitler’s control. Still unsatisfied, Hitler turned his attacks on Britain, the Netherlands and Russia where, though belatedly, he began to meet significant resistance by the Allied forces who had finally woken up to the situation. By then, what began as a localised campaign had turned into a significant war, raging the whole of Europe. It soon became the most atrocious World War II, spreading to African, Asia and America, and consumed between 45 million to 55 million lives.
It  cannot be imagined the height of impunity to which detectors who go unchecked can ascend. Which is why the efforts by NATO, the EU and the UN, to contain the onslaught in Ukraine may be considered wise, in as much as it is managed to forestall escalation. NATO should however engage Russia in confidence-building by reconsidering Russian concerns on its expansion, while Russia should curtail its ambitions. If NATO expands in future, when the remnants of old USSR leaders are no longer on the scene, a new generation of liberal Russians may not worry as much.

By: Joseph Nwankwo