ABSTRACT

The roots of the Atlantic Alliance can be traced back to the Treaty of Dunkirk (1947) and the Brussels Treaty (1948). Whereas through the first the UK and France agreed to give mutual support to each other should the event of a renewed German aggression occur, the Brussels Treaty, signed by Britain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg, created a collective-defense Alliance that was also aimed at “strengthening of economic, social and cultural ties between the signatories.” Although both made reference to Germany, underneath the formal letter of the treaties, “the German threat” was used, in fact, to cloud the real intention of the signatories, which was to create a defense system against the Soviet Union.2