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On April 4, 1949, sixteen countries signed the Treaty of Washington and formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States. These different groups of countries came together and formed the NATO Alliance. They wanted to help the world maintain peace due to the Soviet Union’s threat on the non-Communist countries of Western Europe. The formation of NATO came at a time when the different countries were trying to show how powerful they were and Russia was causing problems in Western Europe. After World War II in 1945, the Cold War ensued. This was where the Communist states maintained by Russia and the non-communist states of the United States were in a political uproar. The issue of nuclear weapon security was also in question. Countries such as France and Britian were worried about