NATO
New membership in the alliance has been largely from Central and Eastern Europe, including former members of the Warsaw Pact. Accession to the alliance is governed with individual Membership Action Plans, and requires approval by each current member. NATO currently has two candidate countries that are in the process of joining the alliance: Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Macedonia.
In NATO official statements, the Republic of Macedonia is always referred to as the "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", with a footnote stating that "Turkey recognizes the Republic of Macedonia under its constitutional name". Though Macedonia completed its requirements for membership at the same time as Croatia and Albania, who joined NATO in 2009, its accession was blocked by Greece pending a resolution of the Macedonia naming dispute. In order to support each other in the process, new and potential members in the region formed the Adriatic Charter in 2003. Georgia was also named as an aspiring member, and was promised "future membership" during the 2008 summit in Bucharest, though in 2014, US President Barack Obama said the country was not "currently on a path" to membership.
History of NATO
This article outlines the history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). British diplomacy set the stage for NATO to contain the Soviet Union and stop the expansion of Communism in Europe. Britain and France in 1947 signed the Treaty of Dunkirk, a defensive pact. This expanded in 1948 with the Treaty of Brussels to add the three Benelux countries. It committed them to collective defence against any armed attack for fifty years. The British worked with Washington to expand the alliance into NATO in 1949, adding the U.S. and Canada as well as Italy, Portugal, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. West Germany and Spain joined later.