Nato’s renaissance: how the world’s most powerful military alliance has taken centre stage

While avoiding direct involvement, Nato has played a crucial role in the Ukraine war

Long table of men at Nato summit
The ‘Family Portrait’ at a Nato summit in 1957
(Image credit: Bettmann/Getty Images)

Nato was originally designed, in the words of its first secretary general Hastings Ismay, “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down”. The North Atlantic Treaty was signed in 1949 as a defensive military alliance between the US, Canada and ten western European states. At the time, the Red Army was by far the strongest force in Europe, and the USSR had control over most of the continent’s east.

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