i know that the united nations was created in 1945 and that nato was implemented in 1949. other than that, what’s the difference between the two? the united nations has more members, 191 countries i think, and nato has only 20 or so. is it just based on european and american relations? because it seems that both organizations practice and preach the exact same philosphies, the idea of collective unity and alliances. i just wanted to know if there was anything else that really set the two apart. thanks.
The most fundamentall difference between the two, reflected in their dates of creation is their purpose. NATO is a product of the cold war, the UN is a post-war pre cold war institution.
NATO is first and foremost a military alliance, not a diplomatic organisation Its a mutual defense pact against aggression. It was set up to provide a coordinated defence shield against the Soviet Union, and so was organised around this - bases in Germany, Air bases in England and so forth. NATO doesnt advocate a philosophy as such, its a ‘just in case’ type of organisation. It’s now probably more like a peace-keeping/strategic co-ordination exercise for the North Atlantic powers then a serious defense pact.
The UN is completely different - designed to function as a clearing house for international diplomacy, and to implement a ‘world policing’ system to control war and aggression and so minimise the risk of something like WW2 happening again. It has a philosphy centered on conflict prevention.
Hope this helps
NATO == North Atlantic Treaty Organization
It’s an alliance for mutual defence, set up as a deterrent to potential communist-bloc aggression in the cold war. The point: if one nation is attacked, it’s seen as an attack on them all. Particularly beneficial to a small European country, since the very powerful USA is a member.
Member states have a responsibility to be able to deploy a certain number of troops in the event of an attack on any member state.
NATO is, pretty much, a military alliance.
The United Nations, however, has more to it than the Security Council. The UN administers countless non-military programs, which address such things as health, children’s welfare, refugees, economic and social matters, and more. In some ways it’s like a giant driver for humanitarian and social work.
True, the UN does deploy troops for peacekeeping, true, it can sometimes authorize military action by its members, but it’s not limited to mutual defence of North Atlantic states. And the militayr aspect is nowhere near the biggest deal.
www.nato.int
www.un.org
On preview, I see Zcrysis has made a couple of other important points, with which I concur.
NATO started as an alliance between the nations of Western Europe, the United States, and Canada. It was a reaction to the Soviet control of Eastern Europe. The idea was to keep the Russians from attacking Western Europe because doing so would automatically bring the United States into it and you’d start to see the weaponry flying. Well, maybe not nukes so much that early into the alliance because of where nuclear weapons technology was at the time but definitely conventional. The US was in (and still may be in but you never hear about them) similar treaties with other countries like Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.
With the end of the Cold War, Eastern European countries have been coming into NATO. Greece and Turkey became part of NATO in 1951. The last couple memorable NATO actions were the invocation of Article V on 9/11 (and I don’t think anyone ever expected to see Article V invoked because of an attack on the US) and the action in Kosovo. Here is the basic treaty.
There’s been a lot of ink spent since the end of the Cold War about what NATO’s purpose is now, what effect the inclusion of Eastern Europe and even Russia could have, and so on. I think anything along those lines would throw this thread into GD.
The USSR and their satellite states had a similar treaty, the Warsaw Pact. That was signed in 1955.
Oh, I should say that the only reason those two actions (Kosovo and the invocation of Article V on 9/12/2001) are the last couple memorable actions is because those are really the only two things NATO has ever done. All the rest has been internal politics.