define the following term:
-NATO and COMECON

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The Answer is NATO, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is a political and military alliance established on April 4, 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defense whereby its independent member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. NATO's headquarters are located in Brussels, Belgium, and the alliance includes countries from North America and Europe. The founding members were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Over the years, the alliance has expanded to include additional European countries and Turkey. NATO's primary purpose was to counter the threat of Soviet expansion in Europe during the Cold War. Today, NATO continues to play a significant role in international security and operates under the principle that an attack against one or several of its members is considered as an attack against all.

COMECON, or the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, was an economic organization under the leadership of the Soviet Union that comprised the countries of the Eastern Bloc along with a number of socialist states elsewhere in the world. Established on January 25, 1949, COMECON was intended to promote economic cooperation among socialist countries and to counter the influence of the Marshall Plan (the American aid program to rebuild Western European economies after World War II). Member states included the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and East Germany, among others. COMECON facilitated trade and development projects among the member countries, focusing on the sharing of resources, equipment, and expertise. However, it was less effective than its Western counterparts due to the diverse economic needs and political interests of its member states, as well as the inherent inefficiencies of centrally planned economies. COMECON was dissolved in 1991 following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the political and economic changes in Eastern Europe.

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