Military rivalries

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An ICBM was an intercontinental ballistic missile: a long-range rocket that could carry a nuclear warhead from one continent to another, for example from the USSR to the USA, in about half an hour, with no way of stopping it.

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Source A supports the idea that nuclear weapons could prevent war because Churchill says that 'safety will be the sturdy child of terror'. He means that the hydrogen bomb was so terrifying that no country would dare to start a war, so the terror itself would keep the world safe. In the same way, 'survival' would be 'the twin brother of annihilation': the certainty of total destruction would make survival more likely. He calls this a 'sublime irony' because the most destructive weapon ever invented might bring peace.

The context explains his view. The USA had tested the first hydrogen bomb in 1952 and the USSR followed in 1953; these weapons were hundreds of times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. The Americans had adopted 'massive retaliation', threatening a nuclear response to Soviet aggression, which relied on exactly this kind of deterrence, later called mutually assured destruction. The provenance supports this reading: Churchill was an experienced war leader speaking to Parliament to justify the costly decision that Britain should build its own H-bomb, so he presents it as a weapon that would keep the peace rather than fight a war.

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Source B is useful because it explains why Western governments wanted NATO. The minister refers to Soviet control of Eastern Europe, the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia 'barely a year ago' and the Berlin Blockade, when 'the people of Berlin are fed by aeroplanes'. This matches my knowledge: the Czech coup of February 1948 and the blockade, which began in June 1948, convinced the West that Stalin might use force. His point that Western Europe could not defend itself 'against the largest army in the world' is also accurate, which is why Britain, France and the Benelux countries, who had signed the Brussels Treaty in 1948, wanted the USA committed to their defence. His summary of the treaty, that 'an attack on one of us will be met by all of us', reflects Article 5. The provenance makes it useful for Western motives, because a government minister knew official thinking. However, he was persuading Parliament to approve the treaty, so he stresses the Soviet threat and insists that NATO 'threatens no one', which is one-sided.

Source C is useful in a different way, because it shows how the USSR saw NATO. Pravda claims the pact had 'nothing to do with defence' and that 'American monopolists' with 'the atomic bomb and bases across the world' wanted to 'ring the Soviet Union' with armies. This reflects real Soviet fears: in 1949 only the USA had the atomic bomb, and American B-29 bombers had been sent to bases in Britain during the blockade. The Soviet government did condemn the treaty as aggressive and against the UN Charter. As the official newspaper of the Communist Party, Pravda shows the Soviet government's line. However, it is propaganda written for Soviet readers: it uses Marxist language, appeals to the memory of the war and ignores Soviet actions such as the blockade that had frightened the West.

Overall, both sources are useful but for different purposes. Source B is more useful for understanding why NATO was set up, because it explains the fears of its founders and the events that drove them. Source C is useful for understanding the consequences, showing why the USSR saw NATO as a threat. Together they show the central problem of the Cold War: each side believed its own actions were defensive and the other side's were aggressive.

Model answer

The most obvious purpose of NATO was to keep the Soviet Union out of Western Europe. By 1949 the USSR controlled Eastern Europe, and two events in 1948 had alarmed the West. In February the communists seized power in Czechoslovakia, and in June Stalin cut off West Berlin, starting the Berlin Blockade. The Red Army was far larger than the armies of Western Europe, which were still recovering from the war. The North Atlantic Treaty, signed on 4 April 1949 while the blockade was still going on, dealt directly with this threat. Under Article 5, an attack on one member would be treated as an attack on all, so if the USSR attacked any Western European country it would face the USA, which alone had the atomic bomb. NATO was therefore a deterrent, intended to make a Soviet invasion unthinkable, and in 1951 it set up an integrated military command under General Eisenhower.

However, NATO had other purposes. Perhaps the most important was to commit the USA to the defence of Europe. In March 1948 Britain, France and the Benelux countries had signed the Brussels Treaty, but they knew they could not resist the USSR alone. The British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, worked hard to bind the Americans into a permanent alliance, and the Vandenberg Resolution of June 1948 allowed the USA to join a peacetime alliance for the first time. In this sense, keeping the Americans in was as important as keeping the Russians out, because only the USA could do the second.

NATO was also part of the wider American policy of containment. Like the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, it was meant to give Western Europeans the confidence to resist communism, including from within: France and Italy had large communist parties, and an American security guarantee strengthened their democratic governments.

The German question was another purpose. A remark usually attributed to NATO's first Secretary General, Lord Ismay, said that NATO existed 'to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down'. Many Europeans, especially the French, feared a revived Germany. When the Korean War made the USA want West German soldiers, NATO provided a way to rearm West Germany under allied control, and it joined in 1955. The USSR responded by setting up the Warsaw Pact.

In conclusion, I largely agree with the statement. In 1949 the urgent purpose of NATO was to deter a Soviet attack on Western Europe, as the timing during the Berlin Blockade and the wording of Article 5 show. The other purposes - committing the USA, containing communism and controlling Germany - were real, but most of them served that main aim: the Americans were brought in precisely so that the Russians could be kept out. Over time NATO's purposes widened, especially when it absorbed West Germany, but keeping the Soviet Union out of Western Europe remained its central reason for existing.