Military and military-political blocs are the creation of the second half of the 20th century. It was then that blocs of states appeared in world practice, intended for collective defense against external aggression from opponents.

Military and military-political blocs are the creation of the second half of the 20th century. It was then that, for the first time in world practice, blocs of states appeared, intended for collective defense against external aggression from ideological and political opponents. The first such bloc of states was the “aggressive NATO bloc” formed in 1949, as official Soviet propaganda called it. 6 years later, on May 14, 1955, the military Warsaw Pact Organization was formed. All subsequent years until 1991 were marked by confrontation between these two military organizations.

Excuse me, why, when speaking about military blocs, are these the only ones that immediately come to mind? Why is 1949 called the year of formation of the first military bloc? What, weren't there such organizations before? But what about the Entente, the Triple Alliance, the Anti-Comintern Pact, etc.? All of the above organizations are the result political agreements. They did not have a single control center, command, or army of the states that were part of them, they did not have unification in weapons, and they did not have a common military doctrine. All of the above treaties only obligated the countries that signed them to go to war if any of the signatory countries were subjected to external aggression.

Military blocs of the second half of the twentieth century are a new word in the field of military policy. Their existence was due to the confrontation between two worldview systems that began immediately after the end of World War II - the Atlanticist-American and the Soviet-imperial. As a result, in 1949, the NATO bloc was formed from countries that fell into the American sphere of influence as a result of World War II. Initially, it included Belgium, Great Britain, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Canada, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the USA and France, which left the military organization of the bloc in 1961, but retained representation in political bodies. In 1952, Turkey and Greece joined the ranks of NATO (despite irreconcilable differences between these countries), in 1955 - the Federal Republic of Germany, and in 1982 - Spain.

This bloc was formed to counter the “Soviet military threat”, in order to prevent the expansion of our country’s spheres of influence. The main spheres of influence of this bloc were the European Theater of Operations (theater of war) and the entire North Atlantic. It was these territories that were supposed to be the main arenas for the coming Third World War.

The main striking forces of this bloc were (and currently remain) the armies of the United States and Great Britain; later they were joined by the German armed forces, the Bundeswehr, revived under American leadership, which became NATO’s main striking force in Europe. Gradually, almost all of “non-Soviet” Europe found itself entangled in a network of NATO military bases. Especially many bases were deployed in Germany and Italy.

Around the same time, in 1951, the military bloc ANZUS was created - a regional military community of Australia, New Zealand and the United States, designed to coordinate collective defense efforts Pacific Ocean. This bloc, unlike NATO, did not have a single command, unified armed forces and permanent headquarters. At present, this bloc has virtually ceased to exist, although it was not officially dissolved.

In 1954, in order to counter Soviet political expansion in the region of the South and Southeast Asia The SEATO bloc was created, which included Australia, France, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand, Great Britain and the USA. However, it did not exist for long and, having failed to fulfill its mission, ceased to exist in 1977 by mutual agreement of the participating countries.

In 1971, the ANZUC bloc was created - a military-political alliance, a five-way defense agreement between Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore, named after the initial letters of the names of the main participants.

The agreement on the formation of this bloc was concluded in the form of a joint communiqué of the defense ministers of the participating countries at a meeting in London on April 15-16, 1971 and came into force on November 1, 1971.

The stated purpose of the Agreement is to protect Malaysia and Singapore from external attack.

According to the agreement, the united ANZUK Armed Forces were created. The United States considered ANZYUK as one of the components of a potential military coalition of all American allies in the event of an aggravation of the situation in the world or the region.

This bloc was dissolved in 1975.

In response to the aggressive preparations of their “probable opponents”, on the initiative of the USSR, on May 14, 1955, an agreement was signed on the creation of the Warsaw Pact military organization - a military bloc European countries- political allies of the USSR. It initially included Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Romania, USSR, Czechoslovakia, but in 1961 Albania suspended its membership in this organization. As already noted, this bloc was created in response to the appearance in Europe of strike forces of NATO member countries. The main armed force of the Department of Internal Affairs was the Armed Forces of the USSR; The Armed Forces of the GDR, created with the active participation of Soviet military specialists, and Poland were also considered quite powerful.

Beginning in 1955, the next 36 years passed in Europe under the sign of confrontation between the NATO and Warsaw blocs. This confrontation ended in 1991 with the signing of an agreement on the dissolution of the military organization of the Warsaw Pact, the withdrawal of Soviet units, first from the distant approaches to our country (from Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany), and then from the troubled outskirts, which suddenly became independent states.

Thus, at present, Europe is completely dominated by the NATO military bloc, which was replenished in the 1990s and early 2000s with new members - former members of the Warsaw Pact Organization and even former Soviet republics. However, along with the euphoria from NATO expansion to the East, into the former boundaries of the so-called “Eastern bloc”, came the first serious problems and disagreements. The "old Europeans" - members of NATO - are expressing increasing dissatisfaction with the dominance of the United States in the bloc, which regularly drags the bloc's member countries into various military adventures. And if in 1999 almost all NATO members directly or indirectly took part in the aggression against Yugoslavia, then already in 2001 some NATO members took part only formally in the American invasion of Afghanistan. And already in 2003, Germany and France openly refused to participate in the Iraqi adventure. At the same time, states that have only recently become NATO members strive with indescribable zeal to participate in all military operations carried out and planned by the United States.

Russia has repeatedly spoken out sharply negatively regarding the expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance, but no one took our country’s opinion on this issue into account. In this regard, at the proposal of Russia, on May 15, 1992, the Treaty on Collective Security of the CIS member countries, and more specifically, Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Russia was signed. In accordance with the Treaty, member states ensure their security on a collective basis. Thus, Article 2 of the Treaty states: “In the event of a threat to the security, territorial integrity and sovereignty of one or more participating States, or a threat international peace and security, the participating states will immediately activate the mechanism of joint consultations in order to coordinate their positions and take measures to eliminate the emerging threat.” Thus, it is clear that, in doctrinal terms, the Collective Security Treaty expresses a purely defensive concept, not directed against any specific country or group of countries.

Within the framework of the CSTO, the Collective Rapid Reaction Forces were created in 2001, which included one battalion each from Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. And on October 11, 2005, CSTO Secretary Nikolai Bordyuzha announced that a collective army group would be created in Central Asia, which would include regiments and even divisions from each country. It is planned that the new group will be subordinate to a single command. In the event of the outbreak of a large-scale military conflict, the CSTO member states will be obliged to provide their armies or all of their armed forces to repel aggression. Thus, a serious bid has been made to transform the CSTO into a full-fledged military bloc, not even of a regional, but of a global level.

Another political organization within which active military construction is being carried out is Shanghai organization cooperation, which includes Russia, China, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, and India, Pakistan, Iran and Mongolia participate in its activities as observers. The previous two years were marked by “combat coordination” of units and subunits of the armed forces of the SCO member countries. In particular, one can recall the largest Russian-Chinese maneuvers “Peaceful Mission”, which took place in the summer of 2005, the Russian-Indian Airborne Forces exercises, the Russian-Uzbek exercises of the GRU and Airborne Forces special forces units and some others. All this speaks of the seriousness of intentions to create a military component of this purely political organization, although such intentions were not officially voiced by anyone anywhere.

The military potential of this hypothetical bloc will be very powerful - Russia, China, India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons in their arsenals; The army of Uzbekistan is considered the most powerful (not counting the Russian) among the Central Asian republics former USSR; The Chinese army has a huge number and is quite well equipped. However, we cannot ignore the irreconcilable contradictions that exist between India and Pakistan, India and China, and the rather cool relations between Pakistan and Russia. Therefore, it is natural that “sub-blocks” can be formed within such a bloc - for example, it is in Russia’s interests to interact more closely with India and Iran, and in the future, to conclude mutually beneficial military-strategic alliances with these states in order to ensure security in the region. A regional military alliance between China and Pakistan is also likely, as the two countries have a long history of military relations. However, in the event of a real threat from other countries or blocs, the armed forces of the SCO member states must act as a united front against the aggressors.

Especially topical issue military cooperation within the SCO is becoming increasingly likely on the eve of an upcoming US invasion of Iran. But regardless of whether the concept of this military bloc is developed and implemented in the coming years, Russia needs to strengthen its military-political presence in the region, including by signing real military-strategic agreements with its traditional partners - India and Iran.

Strengthening the southern borders of our state, including on the “distant approaches”, is one of the most important tasks the current moment.

Objections may follow in the spirit that participation in military blocs for our country is unnecessary, costly, troublesome, and unprofitable. They say that after the Second World War there has not yet been a single armed conflict between military blocs of states, and if this is so, it means that military blocs are a relic of the damned past, which should be gotten rid of as soon as possible. However, we should not forget that a big war did not happen precisely because all the leaders of the states that were part of the blocs understood what this could lead to.

To summarize, it can be argued that Russia’s participation and undisputed leadership in various military blocs beneficial to it is necessary in order to “stake out” and adequately protect its political, economic and other state interests in different regions Globe.

“Cold War” (1946-1991) is a period in the development of international relations and foreign policy of the USSR. The essence of the Cold War was the political, military-strategic and ideological confrontation between the countries of capitalist and socialist systems. It split the world into two parts, two military-political and economic groupings, two socio-political systems. The world has become bipolar, bipolar.

The formal beginning of the Cold War was W. Churchill’s speech in Fulton (USA) on March 5, 1946, in which he called on Western countries to fight the “expansion of totalitarian communism.”

Preconditions of the Cold War: pro-Soviet regimes emerged in Europe; The liberation movement is expanding in the colonies against the mother countries; two superpowers emerged, whose military and economic power gave them significant superiority over others; interests of Western countries in various points the globe are beginning to collide with the interests of the USSR; mutual distrust, the formation of an “enemy image” by each side.

Stages of the Cold War

Stage I: 1946-1953 — confrontation between two military-political blocs in Europe

After the end of World War II, the leadership of the USSR did everything possible to ensure that pro-Soviet forces, primarily communist parties, came to power in the countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe. J. Kennan in February 1946 outlined the basic principles of the policy of “containment”. American policy towards the USSR has taken a course towards limiting the spread of communist ideology in countries Western Europe and Soviet support for communist movements.

• The doctrine of US President Henry Truman (1947) assumed a policy of American intervention in the political, military and economic affairs of the Balkans and other countries. On May 22, 1947, the Truman Doctrine came into force.
• An integral part of the new US foreign policy was a program for the economic revival of war-torn Europe - the “Marshall Plan” (1947).
• On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear bomb tests at the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site.
• Late 1940s — repressions against dissidents begin in the USSR, and a “witch hunt” begins in the USA.
• The USSR is moving to large-scale use of jet fighter-interceptors (B-47 and B-52).
• The most acute period of confrontation between the two blocs occurred during the Korean War.

Events:

March 17, 1948 - in Brussels, Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, Austria, Denmark, Switzerland and Sweden concluded a 50-year pact providing for cooperation in the economic, social, cultural and military fields.

1948 - the USSR concluded treaties of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance with Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Finland.

1949 - split of Germany (West Germany and East Germany).

April 4, 1949 - signing of the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO), on the basis of which unified armed forces were created, headed by US President D. Eisenhower.

1949 - creation of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) to jointly solve economic problems in connection with the division of Europe; this organization included the USSR, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Albania, in 1950 - the GDR, in 1962 - Mongolia.

1955 - creation of a military-political union - the Warsaw Pact Organization (WTO), which included (at the time of signing) Albania (denounced the Treaty in 1968), Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany, Poland, Romania, USSR, Czechoslovakia.

Stage II: 1953-1962 — the onset of Khrushchev’s “thaw” and the retreat of the threat of world war

• 1959 - N. S. Khrushchev’s visit to the USA.
• Events of June 17, 1953 in the GDR, events of 1956 in Poland, anti-communist uprising in Hungary of 1956, Suez crisis.
• 1957 - USSR test of the R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), capable of reaching US territory. Since 1959, serial production of ICBMs began in the Soviet Union.
• The scandal with the American U-2 spy plane (1960) led to a new aggravation of relations between the USSR and the USA, the peak of which was the Berlin Crisis (1961) and the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962).

Stage III: 1962-1979 - détente of international tension

• In 1968, attempts at democratic reforms in Czechoslovakia (Prague Spring) led to military intervention by the USSR and its allies.
• In Germany, the coming to power of the Social Democrats led by W. Brandt was marked by a new “Eastern policy”, which resulted in the Moscow Treaty between the USSR and the Federal Republic of Germany in 1970, which established the inviolability of borders, the refusal territorial claims and declared the possibility of uniting the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR.
• In 1975, a meeting on security and cooperation in Europe was held in Helsinki, and a joint Soviet-American space flight was carried out (the Soyuz-Apollo program).
• Strategic arms limitation treaties have been signed. In military terms, the basis for “detente” was the nuclear-missile parity of blocs that had developed by that time.
• 1974 - The United States and other NATO countries began modernizing forward-deployed assets in Western Europe or off its coast; The United States is creating new generations of cruise missiles.
• In 1976, the USSR began deploying medium-range RSD-10 Pioneer (SS-20) missiles on its western borders and modernized the general purpose forces stationed in Central Europe - in particular, the Tu-22M long-range bomber.
• December 12, 1979 - NATO decided to deploy American medium- and shorter-range missiles on the territory of Western European countries and begin negotiations with the USSR on the issue of Euromissiles.

IV stage: 1979-1985 - a new aggravation in connection with the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan, a violation of the geopolitical balance and the transition of the USSR to a policy of expansion

• In 1981, the United States began production of neutron weapons—artillery shells and warheads for the Lance short-range missile.
• In the fall of 1983, Soviet air defense forces shot down a South Korean civilian airliner. It was then that US President Ronald Reagan called the USSR an “evil empire.”
• In 1983, the United States deployed Pershing-2 medium-range ballistic missiles on the territory of Germany, Great Britain, Denmark, Belgium and Italy within 5-7 minutes of flight to targets on the European territory of the USSR and air-launched cruise missiles; began developing a space missile defense program (the so-called “Star Wars” program).
• In 1983-1986. Soviet nuclear forces and missile warning systems were on high alert.

Stage V: 1985-1991 — the rise to power of M. S. Gorbachev, the policy in the spirit of “détente” of the 1970s, arms limitation programs (meeting in Reykjavik)

• In 1988, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan begins.
• The fall of the communist system in Eastern Europe in 1989-1990 led to the liquidation of the Soviet bloc, and with it the virtual end of the Cold War.

Manifestations of the Cold War:

— acute political and ideological confrontation between the communist and Western liberal systems;

— creation of a system of military (NATO, Warsaw Pact Organization, SEATO, CENTO, ANZUS, ANZYUK) and economic (EEC, CMEA, ASEAN, etc.) alliances;

— creation of an extensive network of military bases of the USA and the USSR on the territory of foreign states;

— speeding up the arms race; a sharp increase in military spending;

— international crises (Berlin crises, Cuban missile crisis, Korean War, Vietnam War, Afghan War);

- an unspoken division of the world into “spheres of influence” (Soviet and Western blocs), within which the possibility of intervention was tacitly allowed in order to maintain a regime pleasing to one or another bloc (Soviet intervention in Hungary in 1956, Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968, American operation in Guatemala, the overthrow of the anti-Western government in Iran organized by the USA and Great Britain, the invasion of Cuba organized by the USA, etc.);

— the rise of the national liberation movement in colonial and dependent countries and territories, the decolonization of these countries, the formation of the “third world”; non-aligned movement, neo-colonialism;

- waging massive “psychological warfare”;

— support for anti-government forces abroad;

— reduction of economic and humanitarian ties between states with different socio-political systems;

- boycotts of the Olympic Games (the USA and a number of other countries boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, the USSR and most socialist countries boycotted the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles).

Recently, the “NATO and regional military alliances 2018” council opened in Norfolk, America, organized by the Defense Policy Advisory Committee, the US Special Operations Forces Command and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Consultation, Command and Control Council. The main agenda of the event is devoted to NATO development vectors, taking into account the experience of current conflicts in the context of the growing dynamics of conflict situations in the alliance’s areas of responsibility. The result of the work of the site will be the development of a conceptual and analytical framework for the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Council.

The central event was the presentation by Daniel Burch, Special Representative of the Middle East Division of the US Department of Defense's Defense Assessment and Analysis Directorate, of the US-NATO: Global Challenges and Prospects program.

The document defined the status quo of the military-political bloc as foreign policy USA, and in “global design” (global design of world military alliances), i.e. in military-political and geopolitical analysis, and the applied methodological framework and basic provisions were accepted as theoretical basis future development of the North Atlantic Alliance. De facto, program provisions consolidated the transition of US-NATO relations and the alliance’s allies to a qualitatively new level within the framework of the recently adopted new edition of the American National Security Strategy.

“The modern world is multimodal and extremely dangerous, covered by a wide range of threats. Opponent states undermine our interests. In the Middle East and Asia, terrorists controlled by unstable transitional regimes occupy significant territories. In these conditions, our main task is to protect the sovereign rights of our citizens and national interests. But the safety of our regular partners remains no less important for us. Modern wars, like the world, have moved significantly forward thanks to progress. They cannot be conducted using the same methods as 25 or 10 years ago. The conflict is asymmetrical, and the threats are increasingly hybrid. Today there is a need for a qualitatively new military-political base capable of protecting our collective security and democratic foundations. Any potential conflict is our conflict, since it one way or another poses a threat to our interests,” says the preamble to the “US-NATO: Global Challenges and Prospects” program.

According to the authors of the document main problem to further ensure global dominance (through factor systems) and at the same time for security is the policy-legal status of the bloc, namely articles limiting operations outside the geographical areas of responsibility of the alliance. That, given the current level of development of transport and telecommunication networks and the presence of “alternative resource bases” (formed with the emergence of global alternatives or as a result of the loss of control over areas of constant instability) and the growth of conflict zones, leads to a decrease in the operational flexibility of the forces and means involved. The same problem, reinforced by the need for complex logistics at both the tactical and strategic levels, does not allow us to quickly establish the necessary interaction between the forces of NATO member countries and the Strategic Command Armed Forces USA (STRATCOM) at the regional level, with the exception of the Alliance Rapid Reaction Force. As a result, a significant decrease in operational and tactical freedom. According to Daniel Birch, these conclusions were obtained as a result of a qualitative analysis of a number of characteristics of ongoing joint operations in Libya, Iraq and Syria.

In addition, the uncoordinated use of military, special, trade, economic and political methods the influence of individual NATO member states within the framework of common goals of collective security leads to an imbalance in relations within the alliance itself and to a decrease in trust on the part of regional allies.

In particular, an example is given of the conflict over the spheres of influence of France and Italy on the Libyan-Sudanese border, where both countries are fighting for control over the Sudanese tribal militia, which acts as a buffer for migration flows passing from the Sahara. At the same time, both sides are seeking to occupy remote fields in Southeast Libya. As a result, these processes create diplomatic barriers to expanding US interaction with the regime of Khalifa Haftar, which controls the Libyan east and the main fields.

A similar block of examples is associated with the territories of Syria and Iraq, where disagreements arose between the United States, Germany, France and Great Britain over the supply and training of the Kurdish militia, controlled by the Kurdish National Councils, and the Syrian Democratic Forces. As a result, the influence of the United States on controlled groups decreased, which required additional resource costs from both the Pentagon and the North Atlantic Alliance.

In this regard, according to analysts of the Defense Ministry and special agencies of the United States, taking into account the acquired actual imbalance within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the most promising direction in modern geopolitical conditions is the construction of factor systems of international coalition models. “This will ensure the most acceptable level of coordination of interests of the alliance member countries and maintain partnerships with our regional allies. At the same time, the use of promising technologies will increase the legitimacy of the alliance represented by the world community without compromising the military-political component,” said Daniel Birch.

Based on this, the main military-political interaction moves from the institutional to the extra-institutional level regarding the North Atlantic Alliance. Those. NATO ceases to perform the role of an external command structure and transfers this function within the framework of geopolitical modeling to various coordination centers and territorial headquarters of STRATCOM, interacting with which in certain theaters of operations the “coalition of states” and their territorial structures will act as the main actor. The alliance itself plays the role of “ensuring the territorial integrity” of the participating countries. Those. used as a basic structure for the modernization of material, technical and technological bases, a single scientific space, resolves issues of collective defense and budgeting, and also carries out political functions to develop a collegial position regarding existing crisis systems.

The use of this approach eliminates questions about reforming the NATO structure, because military-political subjectivity outside the bloc’s areas of responsibility is abolished. At the same time, the rigid vertical structure of decision making and coordination is replaced by a more flexible territorial structure. Such a construction of a block model simultaneously allows optimizing resources and combining the management of both the forces and assets of the United States, NATO member countries and their regional partners in a specific theater of operations. As a result, there is an increase in operational flexibility and situational stability of the entire education.

The “US-NATO: Global Challenges and Prospects” program itself is based on a comprehensive factor analysis of potential crisis systems through the closed “Index of Current and Projected Dynamics of Military-Political Conflicts. Taking into account cross-border threats." According to Daniel Birch methodological basis ranking of “crisis zones” is similar to BERI, but the full set of variables, as well as methods for classifying them, have not been presented.

As a result of applying the above methodology, the countries included in the subregional zone of the Greater Middle East were divided into 4 clusters:

1) Unstable zones or tending to instability - need for external democratic control: Algeria/Morocco, Libya/Sudan, Egypt/Sudan, Iraq/Turkey, Syria/Turkey, Iraq/Syria, Saudi Arabia/Yemen;
2) Stable zones with overall growth internal threats – systems with developed democratic ties: Israel, Türkiye, Jordan, Saudi Arabia;
3) Zones that are gaining stability or are relatively stable - development of democratic ties: Armenia / Azerbaijan, Afghanistan / “Fergana zone”;
4) Counterparties seeking chaos: Iran, Pakistan.

Also, in the explanatory note to the study by experts from the US Land Command Institute, an additional category of sources of threats for NATO member countries and their allies is fixed - these are “Regional asymmetric military-political alliances”, the system core of which is “Counterparties” - Russian Federation and China. In particular, we are talking about the CSTO and the emerging security policy within the SCO, as well as the alliance of Iran, Pakistan and China. According to analysts and authors of the document, these organizations are not without contradictions and are at the stage of their formation, however, they are the sources of the “alternative resource bases” mentioned above.

Here, in the course of assessing threats, the most effective method of limiting the influence of such entities is “replacement technology.” Those. allowing alternative forces into the zones of geostrategic interests of NATO countries. An example is the successful coordination of the United States and India, which is China’s geopolitical opponent in the so-called “Afghan zone.”

Moving on to the conclusions, it should be noted, firstly, that the “US-NATO: Global Challenges and Prospects” program was adopted as a theoretical and methodological basis for analytical support of the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Council, which means the methods described in it will be used for actual activities of the United States and its allies in these territories.

Secondly, the given geographical classification within the framework of the “Index of Current and Projected Dynamics of Military-Political Conflicts. Taking into account trans-border threats”, even taking into account the undisclosed methodology, de facto identified countries that in the near future will be subject to complex influence from the member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and their allies, which in turn will become part of the systemic influence on “counterparties” - Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan.

Thirdly, it is possible for counterparty countries to resist such a complex impact through the construction of complex systems of multi-level alliances and strengthening integration within the framework of the given asymmetric block models, which will increase the factor stability of these countries.

Maxim Alexandrov

The main goal of the activities of political blocs is cooperation between participating countries in the political and military spheres, participation in the creation of a collective defense system, cooperation in maintaining peace and security in the territories and in the world as a whole, coordination of efforts to solve military-political and legal problems.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization - NATO. This is a military-political union of 26 countries, created on April 4, 1949, consisting of the USA, Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Canada, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Denmark, Iceland, in 1952 Greece and Turkey joined it, in 1955 - Germany, in 1981 - Spain, in 1999 - Czech Republic, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

In 1966, France withdrew from NATO's military structure, but continues to remain a member of it in political cooperation. Spain did the same in 1983.

Supreme bodies: session of the NATO Council (between sessions - Permanent Council), Military Planning Committee, Military Committee, Nuclear Defense Committee. The working body of NATO is the International Secretariat, headed by the Secretary General.

Goal: ensuring the freedom and security of all members by political and military means in accordance with the principles of the UN Charter; joint actions and full cooperation in order to strengthen the security of the participating states, ensuring a just and lasting peace in Europe based on common values, democracy, and human rights.

Headquarters - Brussels (Belgium).

Interparliamentary Union. This is an international governmental organization that brings together national parliamentary groups, created in 1889.

Goal: uniting parliaments of all countries to strengthen peace and cooperation between states.

Headquarters - Geneva (Switzerland).

African Union - AU. It was created on May 26, 1963 at a conference of heads of state and government of African countries in Addis Ababa under the name Organization of African Unity (OAU), and received its modern name on July 11, 2000. The objective reasons for the emergence of the AU were fundamental changes in the balance of political forces in the world during the existence of the UAE (1963 - 2000) and the achievement at the turn of the new millennium of some of the tasks that were set for the OAU at the time of its creation.

The African Union includes all 53 African countries: Algeria, Angola, Burkina, Botswana, Burundi, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Djibouti, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Egypt, Zambia, Western Sahara, Zimbabwe, Cape Verde, Cameroon, Kenya, Comoros, Congo, Ivory Coast, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Mauritius, Mauritania, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda , Sao Tome and Principe, Swaziland, Seychelles, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Central African Republic, Chad.

Goal: promoting unity and solidarity among African countries, intensifying and coordinating efforts to improve living standards, protecting sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence, eliminating all forms of colonialism, harmonizing cooperation in the fields of politics, defense and security, economics, education, health and culture.

Headquarters - Addis Ababa (Ethiopia).

ANZUS (from the first letters of the countries it was formed - Australia, New Zealand, United States - ANZUS). It is a trilateral alliance of Australia, New Zealand and the United States. In operation since 1952.

Goal: collective defense in the Pacific region.

ANZUK (from the first letters of the countries it was formed - Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom - ANZUK). This is a five-sided bloc of Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Goal: promoting collective defense in the Pacific region.

It does not have a permanent headquarters.

Organization of American States - OAS (Organization of American States - OAS). Military-political union, created in 1948 on the 9th International conference in Bogota, which adopted the OAS Charter.

Composition (35 countries): Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, Guyana, Guatemala, Honduras, Grenada, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, El Salvador, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, USA, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Chile, Jamaica.

Goal: maintaining peace and security in America, suppressing and peacefully resolving conflicts between participating states, organizing joint actions to repel aggression; coordination of efforts to solve political, economic, legal problems, promoting economic, social, scientific, technical and cultural progress of the participating countries.

Headquarters - Washington (USA).

However, no more or less coherent concept about the distinctive features and correlation of historical communities of people exists to this day. Therefore, European historiography uses terminology created by ancient authors who considered all social groups (communities) barbarians ( eg Germans and Slavs) nothing more than tribes, although these were clearly already TRIBAL UNIONS.

1.2. The reason for the dislike of TRIBAL UNIONS - both by anthropologists and historians - is explained by the SPECIAL formational approach in Marxism, when only the moments of revolutionary transitions from one formation to another were considered the main thing. Karl Marx only declared the development of productive forces, but during the period of primitive communal formation no evolutionary development was envisaged. And in general, for the next generations of Marxists - studying the primitive system was dangerous, since Marx and Engels appointed tribes as those units of humanity in which classes appear, making the assumption of a certain decomposition of tribal relations. Since no facts of decomposition were discovered, it turned out that any honest research contradicted the postulates of Marxism.

Of course, neither Marx nor Engels intended that the formational concept, which had become dogma, deprived anthropologists of the opportunity to study TRIBES, which were all considered to be the same type of clan communities, unchanged from the moment of their inception until their transformation into a state. Indeed, the very concept of socio-economic formations set the ascending dynamics of the development of society, but since in Marxism the line of human development was presented in the form step stairs formations where the transition to the next stage occurred due to revolution, then the stage had to be immutable static essence.

Marx only declared that some accumulations of contradictions occur within a formation, but he saw the formations themselves as unchangeable systems, the structure of which froze from the moment of their appearance to the transformation into the next. After all, it was precisely this idea of ​​the line of human development that corresponded to his basic theory of class struggle as the mover of history. When Marx, in order to substantiate his theories, made the primitive communal system responsible for the emergence of classes, then studying TRIBES from the point of view of any evolution became tantamount to challenging the authority of the founder.

Engels's work for a century ahead resolved all the theoretical problems of the communal system for anthropologists, declaring the TRIBE a static entity, which at the formation stage did not have the right to develop in any way. Engels himself became the patron saint of anthropology, but another thing is that the factual material collected by anthropologists refuted the tenets of Marxism.

When creating the formational concept, not only the incompetence of Marx and Engels in anthropology was revealed, but also the fact that they were captive of the chauvinistic ideas about the Indians that dominated their time. This could not be avoided by the American ethnographer Lewis Morgan, whose book “Ancient Society” (published in 1877) was the primary source of Marx’s ideas on primitive antiquity. Morgan himself, of course, could not help but notice the TRIBAL UNIONS of the North American Indians, but did not consider them units of humanity, considering them only as a collection of individual tribal groups, which were his model “tribes.”

Mogran himself was the bearer of the “burden white man”, which in the 19th century was also typical for residents of Europe. Apparently, the worldview of both Marx and Engels could not help but have a different attitude towards the Indians, as people supposedly leading a backward primitive way of life, making them a standard example of the inhabitants of a primitive communal formation. Indeed, the North American Indians did not have domesticated animals, they led a nomadic lifestyle as hunters of wild animals, which in the eyes of Europeans made them “backward,” and their way of life supposedly typical of all ancient people. Thus, the authority of Marx and Engels turned an undeveloped, or rather, only outlined, formational concept into a generally accepted dogma.

Regarding the idea of ​​​​the possibility of preserving “backward tribes” to this day, I want to say that already in the Neolithic people entered into TERRITORIAL UNIONS, and only a few isolated tribes that did not experience the factor of the finiteness of the earth were given the opportunity to evolve into CHIEFdoms. That natural life, which is considered by many to be supposedly “backward” - from the point of view of evolution - is precisely much more advanced lifestyle than the lifestyle of observers who in their conceit consider themselves “civilized.” The supposedly “backward tribes” observed today are as far from the primitive way of life as all living people. Their way of life is the result of evolutionary adaptation to natural climatic conditions over tens, and perhaps hundreds of thousands of years.