From Iron Curtain to Independence – the journey of NATO’s post-Cold War Allies

It takes about two hours to drive from the city of Fulton to the city of Independence, in a straight line directly west in the US state of Missouri. But the historical journey between the two cities took far longer: approximately 53 years.

On 5 March 1946, UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered a famous speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, setting out in no unclear terms that Europe had just been dramatically cleaved in two:

"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow."

This speech is regarded as one of the first and clearest articulations of the Cold War, during which the Soviet Union’s desire to dominate its neighbours kept Europe divided for decades. For more than 40 years, the “ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe” endured under Communist governments that were influenced and interfered with by Moscow. They were forced to join the Soviet-controlled Warsaw Pact in 1955, which allowed the Soviet Union to maintain a military presence in their countries – and directly occupy their territories if they did not comply with its demands. This led to violent crackdowns on any democratic opposition to communism, such as the Soviet invasion to crush the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia following the attempted reforms of the Prague Spring in 1968. 

Eventually, however, grassroots activism for freedom in Eastern Bloc countries throughout the 1980s led to a chain reaction of events in 1989 that ultimately ended the Cold War. This included:

• the Solidarność (Solidarity) labour movement and mass strikes, leading to the first free elections in Poland since the Second World War (4 June 1989)
• the Pan-European Picnic, where thousands of people from East and West were able to gather freely as the border between Austria and Hungary was opened (19 August 1989)
• the Baltic Way, a human chain of two million people across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (23 August 1989)
• the Ecoglasnost protests by environmentalists in Bulgaria (beginning in October and erupting in a huge march on 3 November 1989)
• the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany (9 November 1989)
• the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, where student demonstrations in Prague grew into massive protests that ended Communist one-party rule (17 November – 29 December 1989)
• the Christmas Revolution in Romania, where the Communist government was overthrown when the military stopped enforcing violent crackdowns and switched sides, joining with the protesters calling for democracy (16-25 December 1989)

Over the next decade, the countries that had regained their freedom proceeded to reform their governments, economies and civil societies. They also sought to form closer links with their former adversaries from the West. This included establishing relations with NATO, which declared at the 1990 London Summit that it would “reach out to the countries of the East which were our adversaries in the Cold War, and extend to them the hand of friendship”. 

In that spirit, new partnerships grew throughout the 1990s, with the launch of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (1991), the Partnership for Peace programme (1994) and other forums of dialogue and cooperation. 

Some of the former Eastern Bloc countries decided that their security would be best served by joining NATO as member countries. This led to increased dialogue between them and NATO, and within NATO itself, about possible enlargement. As a result, NATO produced the 1995 Study on NATO Enlargement to define the standards aspiring countries would have to meet in order to become NATO Allies. Two years later, NATO Leaders agreed at the 1997 Madrid Summit to begin accession negotiations with Czechia, Hungary and Poland.  

On 12 March 1999, these three countries became NATO’s first group of post-Cold War Allies as they deposited their Instruments of Accession to the North Atlantic Treaty at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri.

Coincidentally, the city of Independence is only 144 miles (232 kilometres) from Westminster College in Fulton, where Churchill delivered his famous “Iron Curtain” speech in 1946. It would take more than four decades for the Iron Curtain to be torn apart by the revolutions of 1989. With the accessions of former Eastern Bloc countries to NATO in 1999, it was clear that these ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe would never be divided from their Western friends and Allies again.

NATO has continued to enlarge following that historic day in Independence, as more countries have asked to join the Alliance. At the 2002 Prague Summit – the first NATO Summit held in a former Eastern Bloc country – Allied Leaders agreed to start accession talks with seven more countries. On 29 March 2004, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia joined NATO. Albania and Croatia were next, joining NATO on 1 April 2009. Then came Montenegro on 5 June 2017, North Macedonia on 27 March 2020, Finland on 4 April 2023 and Sweden on 7 March 2024.