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9.2.1: Cooperation Between States

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    Cooperation Between States

    In order to provide shared military and economic security as a unified entity, states engage in alliances. Military alliances help protect states from common enemies, and economic alliances allow for the free exchange of goods in a larger market. These alliances are also referred to as supranational organizations, and they all involve states giving up some of their sovereign power for the common good.

    The largest supranational organization in the world is the United Nations (UN). Formed originally as the League of Nations after World War II, the UN now includes 193 states. The work of the UN includes peacekeeping, humanitarian relief, and the establishment of internationally approved standards of behavior. The headquarters of the UN is in New York City, and important subsidiary organizations of the UN include the World Health Organization (WHO), UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Cultural and Cultural Organization) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

    Military Alliances - NATO and Warsaw Pact

    In terms of military alliances on a regional scale, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) comprises 28 states and was developed after World War II to counter the threat of the former Soviet Union. Member states include numerous Western European states as well as the United States and Canada (Figure 8.2.).

    Nato and former Warsaw pact map .png

    Figure | Current NATO map and former Warsaw Pact Author | User “Alphathon” Source | Wikimedia Commons License | CC BY SA 3.0

    When the Soviet Union existed, the Warsaw Pact was a military alliance between the Soviet Union and seven satellite states of Eastern and Central Europe (Figure 8.2). The Warsaw Pact disbanded in 1991, and several of the former Soviet states as well as satellite states have subsequently joined NATO. As a result, Russia has felt isolated and vulnerable, and as a result, has been aggressively acting to seize or control territories in states close to its borders.

    For example, in 2008, Russia engaged in a military conflict in Georgia, one of the former Soviet states, in order to support a separatist movement allied with Russia. In 2014, Russia invaded the peninsula of Crimea, within the territorial boundaries of Ukraine, one of the former states in the Soviet Union. Furthermore, Russia has intervened militarily against the rebel forces fighting in eastern Ukraine. In response to these provocations, NATO commenced Operation Atlantic Resolve, an ongoing series of training exercises between the United States and other NATO countries in former Warsaw Pact countries such as Poland, Romania, and Latvia.


    9.2.1: Cooperation Between States is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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