 The Western Military Alliance came to be in 1949. This was a treaty in the self-interest of the United States as well as Canada and the European countries. Nicholas Burns is a former U.S. ambassador to NATO and the current U.S. ambassador to China. The West European countries had largely been destroyed by World War II. If the United States and the West European countries in Canada hadn't formed the alliance on April 4, 1949, there's every reason to believe the Soviets would have pushed further into the democracies of Western Europe.