it's like you ignored the entire thrust of my post, which is that this "defensive" alliance refused to cooperate with a UN inquiry when it destroyed libya (and before that, Iraq), that this "defensive" alliance immediately integrated former nazi leaders into its command structure back in the '50s, that this "defensive" alliance pressures former soviet countries to join or be destroyed, that only 6/30 of the countries that joined this "defensive" alliance did so through democratic referendums. They all claim to come to each other's defense if one of them is attacked, therefore it's defensive? This has been the main rhetorical strategy of every expansionist confederation of nations that has ever existed. Far from making an alliance defensive, it creates a huge incentive to put pressure to join on nations bordering the alliance, and creates a huge incentive to deliberately provoke attacks on the alliance ("I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you!" but as a foreign policy) so that overwhelming force in response is justified. The "defensive" nature doesn't make sense since it formed FIRST, not SECOND, and since the main "enemy" of this "defensive" alliance (USSR before '91, RF after '91) was rejected from joining on several different occasions. Also the leader of this "defensive" alliance, the USA, keeps invading, bombing, sanctioning, embargoing, and couping any country that doesn't go along with its foreign policy and private sector interests. And why wasn't the USSR allowed to join? Because they weren't "democratic" is the excuse, but neither was West Germany, nor Italy, nor Turkey, and they all got to join. No. the real excuse was because they were the target of the "defensive" alliance, and because they refused to privatize their economy as the marshall plan demanded. The USSR refused Marshall plan money because it was contingent upon them taking high interest loans from the USA and privatizing their economy, opening them up to direct foreign investment, etc., in a word, becoming capitalist. And even after they became capitalist, it is not as though that really put an end to the tensions, since NATO kept expanding anyway.

Why were these people put into key positions in this "defensive" alliance?