Answer:
2. Describe the purpose of each alliance.
NATO: The purpose is to form a military alliance between the United States, Western Europe, and other allies, with the goal of preventing aggression from adversary countries like the Soviet Union.
Warsaw Pact: forming a military alliance similar to NATO, but consisting of the Soviet Union and its satellites countries in Eastern Europe.
SEATO: forming a military alliance between Southeast Asian countries, and the United States, with the goal of preventing the advance of communism.
OAS: The initial goal of the Organization of the Americas was to prevent the advancement of communism in the Americas. Currently, its goal has shifted to cooperation between member states, and election monitoring.
3. Explain how the location and makeup of NATO and the Warsaw Pact affected Europe during the 1950s and 1960s. How did these alliances affect Cold War tensions?
During the 1950s, 1960s, and until 1991, Europe was divided between the two pacts: Western Europe was part of NATO, and allied with the United States, while Eastern Europe was part of the Warsaw Pact, and allied with the Soviet Union.
This division naturally created tensions, that often resulted in events that could have led to war. For example, the Warsaw Pact invaded Hungary in 1956, and Czechoslovakia in 1968, after these countries began to implement democratic reforms, and NATO kept nuclear warheads in Turkey, dangerously close to the Soviet Union.
4. Consider the history of colonialism in Southeast Asia. How does this history help explain why only two Southeast Asian countries were members of SEATO? Explain your answer.
Britain, France, Japan, the Netherlands, and Spain had colonies in Southeast Asia. The relations between the former colonies and the colonial powers continued to be tense decades after colonial power ended.
The only two Southeast Asian countries that are part of SEATO have opposite characteristics: while Thailand was never a colony of any European Power, the Phillipines was a colony of both Spain and the United States, and has remained closely allied with the latter.
5. Explain why some countries chose to be nonaligned. What did they fear, and what did they have to gain by remaining neutral?
Some countries choose to be nonaligned or neutral as part of a national policy that can be decades, or even centuries old, the most famous example of this being Switzerland, which remained neutral during the whole XX century.
Other countries choose to be nonaligned either because they are located far from any relevant sphere of influence, or because they want to maintain good economic relations with all superpowers.
