Can someone please explain NATO and why it's supposed to be so bad?

Question

I started to look at the Wikipedia site, but it's long and I don't really have the time or energy to wade through it. Can someone please explain NATO to me?

NATO for Dummies would be great.

Answer 1

The NATO started as a military alliance of the US, Western Europe,Turkey against the supposedly 'evil empire' , i.e ,The Soviet bloc during the Cold war .

In terms of conventional weaponry , no single nation could match upto the soviets, however this alliance gave the US and its allies superiority in terms of both quality and in most cases even in terms of quantity ( excluding armoured formations , in which the soviets had tens of thousands of armoured vehicles, nato could never match that !!! ) . The alliance had terms which included a common military command  , standardised military equipment which could be used by any national military of the alliance , military doctrine , sharing of bases ,etc. The last  term brought the alliance upto the soviet's doorstep . The conventional superiority ( naval and airforce )  of the alliance ( as long as the supply lines were kept open for supplies from across the atlantic) acted as a sort of a deterrent against the Soviet's overwhelming tank formations and nuclear missile superiority .

After 'Glasnost' and the 'end' of the cold war over time , the alliance seems to have taken a new direction in which existing military and strategic structures are being used  as a front for new campaigns like bosnia , kosovo, afghanistan by which the US tries to make the world a 'Safer place to live in' .

Answer 2

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an alliance led by the United States and its allies in Europe.  It was originally to counter the Soviet bloc, but now functions as a peace time alliance and continues to expand its membership.  Afghanistan is a NATO led mission.

What's wrong with it? Nothing in my opinion and the opinion of most other people, but there are those who view any alliance as infringement on the sovereignty of the US.

Answer 3

NATO is  a military alliance between the North Atlantic states that was created in response to the Soviet Union's Warsaw Pact.  It was created in the Cold War era to be a counter-weight to Soviet aggression but today exists with no specific purpose other than to continue regional stability and to assist its members with increasing military security.

There isnt anything really bad about NATO, depending on who you are.  Yes, it does cost a lot of money and yes the US tends to pay most of that, but we are the ones that use it the most.  Kosovo, Albania, Serbia, and countless other locations have all been helped by NATO.

Answer 4

NATIO is a U.S. military organization. It is a tool for the U.S. military to “legitimately” place military units in countries in adjacent to states of “interest”.

It is completely dominated financially and militarily by the U.S.

Major criticism is that there is no need for such a potentially destructive military organization on the world stage.

Another criticism is that when NATO abuses it’s military power, it cannot be countered.

In addition to U.S. superiority, NATO states are utterly left to U.S. mercy. For example, since the end of WW2 the European continent is completely dependent on NATO (U.S.) for their military. And thus subjected to U.S. input on affairs.

But the largest issue is that NATO has no legitimacy to function in non-NATO states. But again, it does largely to the points made above.

Answer 5

Their sole reason for being doesn't even exist anymore.

And, there must be 10's of thousands of beaurocrats who we're paying for who sit in offices writing memos to one another for $80k per year.