The NATO alliance, first created in 1949, is the longest alliance in history. The creation of this alliance came about with the gradual realization that Stalin’s Soviet Union had superseded Hitler’s Das Dritte Reich. With the creation of NATO, should Stalin or one of his successors have decided to drive west all the way to the Atlantic, creating Orwell’s Eurasia, he would have encountered stiff resistance and possibly defeat. As such, NATO was ipso facto anti-communist and anti-Soviet. Predictably, it was condemned in the West by fellow travelers, although the anti-communist George Kennan admittedly made a good case against its formation.             But NATO also had several unforeseen benefits. For one thing, it kept the peace in Europe between its otherwise belligerent members for 68 years. In a continent that used to go into civil war almost...(Read Full Article)