What the heck is NATO? What’s it about? What’s it for? Not many people bother to ask any more. As with many New World organizations originally created under the guise of a temporary measure or a situation-based project or specific goal-oriented institution (think IMF, think World Bank), this one too has far exceeded its supposed originally intended mission, its sphere of control and operation, its size and budget, and basically everything it was marketed under when it was established. Also, as with all these institutions long-past and long-exceeding their originally marketed role, people cease to question or even critically think of the actual purpose, performance and results of supporting, keeping and funding this costly new world military body called NATO.

So, what was the ‘supposed’ role of this gigantic hawk of imperials’ tool originally? Check all the ‘legitimate’ reference bodies of literature, and what you get is what was marketed and sold over six decades ago:

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The NATO headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium, and the organization constitutes a system of collective defense whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party.

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For its first few years, NATO was not much more than a political association. However, the Korean War galvanized the member states, and an integrated military structure was built up under the direction of two U.S. supreme commanders. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, famously stated the organization’s goal was “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down”