ABSTRACT

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was founded in 1949 in response to what was seen as a looming Soviet threat against Europe and the rest of the world. The Cold War developed in a piecemeal fashion out of the grand and ultimately victorious WWII coalition. The stage was now set for actual negotiations between the USA and the European countries, mainly the Western Union, leading to a principled agreement on the foundations in October 1948. NATO was all along primarily a military alliance, so we need to pay some attention to its military plans, strategies and activities. The fundamental purpose of the nuclear forces of the Allies is political: to preserve peace and prevent coercion and any kind of war. Macedonia became one of the 'collateral victims' of NATO's war in Kosovo as the flow of Kosovo Albanian refugees threatened to upset a delicate ethnic balance in this country.