By participating in NATO the United States advanced their policy of the containment of communism in Europe
Thomas Paine, a recent English emigrant to America, provided the Patriot cause with a stimulating pamphlet titled Common Sense. Until his fifty-page pamphlet appeared, colonial grievances had been mainly directed at the British Parliament; few colonists considered independence an option. Paine, however, directly attacked allegiance to the monarchy, which had remained the last frayed connection to Britain. The “common sense” of the matter, he stressed, was that King George III bore the responsibility for the rebellion. Americans, Paine urged, should consult their own interests, abandon George III, and assert their independence. Only by declaring independence, Paine predicted, could the colonists enlist the support of France and Spain and thereby engender a holy war of monarchy against the monarchy.
