Challenge: Strongly Pro-Yugoslavia NATO

Hello Gentlemen. Your challenge today, should you choose to accept it, is to tell me a plausible way for NATO to develop close ties with Tito's Yugoslavia. While in OTL, many viewed it as a pro-Soviet puppet, this of course couldn't have been further from the truth.

What if NATO had instead realized the truth, and saw a potential ally in Yugoslavia and Tito, and strived to develop closer ties to them, perhaps even giving them military and economic aid to build them into an eastern bulwark against the Soviets?

Yugoslavia doesn't have to join NATO, as I think that is extraordinarily unlikely, but I could see it being an unofficial ally of NATO, especially given how hostile the Soviets were towards them most of the time.

How would this have effected the Cold War, and the future of Yugoslavia in the post-Cold War era?

This is of course after Tito's break with Stalin.
 
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Hello Gentlemen. Your challenge today, should you choose to accept it, is to tell me a plausible way for NATO to develop close ties with Tito's Yugoslavia. While in OTL, many viewed it as a pro-Soviet puppet, this of course couldn't have been further from the truth.
???? Who outside the US thought Tito was a pro-Soviet puppet???

I don't think any likely change on NATO's part would increase ties. I think Tito would have to want to give up/bend his neutrality. The obvious POD would be the Soviets being more aggressive in Tito's direction.
 

ninebucks

Banned
Tito dies early and a liberal, pro-NATO guy comes into power. Maybe makes some kind of democratisation process, (not too excessive mind, if Yugoslavia were to democratically collapse, that wouldn't fulfill the challenge).
 
Much of what you're describing actually happened, and for precisely the reason that Tito was viewed as a potential NATO ally. Between 1949 and 1955 Yugoslavia received approximately $1.2 billion in foreign aid from the West. By 1953 Tito's foreign deficit was covered entirely by US aid. So far as I know, no one, least of all the Soviets themselves, viewed Yugoslavia as a pro-Soviet puppet.
 
Much of what you're describing actually happened, and for precisely the reason that Tito was viewed as a potential NATO ally. Between 1949 and 1955 Yugoslavia received approximately $1.2 billion in foreign aid from the West. By 1953 Tito's foreign deficit was covered entirely by US aid. So far as I know, no one, least of all the Soviets themselves, viewed Yugoslavia as a pro-Soviet puppet.

I never suggested that the Soviets did. The fact that it wasn't willing to be a Soviet puppet was really the root of what caused the split between them. I said many in the west (wrongly) saw Yugoslavia that way. Especially in the West but also in some parts of Europe. Again, it wasn't true, but many saw it that way.

Basically, what the challenge asks is if it is possible for Tito to be a bit less neutral, and be more openly pro-NATO, perhaps even signing a secret alliance with them in the event of a Soviet attack? Would there be any incentive for him to do so?
 
Maybe the Cold War attention will shift to Yugoslavia from East Germany by 1960 if Yugoslavia is pro-NATO. Soviet Union might invade Yugoslavia (like Czechoslovakia in OTL) to prevent Yugoslavia to getting much much closer to NATO.
 

Neroon

Banned
I don´t think Tito could have afforded to abondon his balancing act and become pro-NATO without having to worry about the Red Army spoiling the fun. So if he was to become pro-NATO he´d have to go all the way and join the alliance. I don´t think he would have been willing to go this far and NATO probably couldn´t have afforded to take in a non-Democracy without givinng it´s Socialists tons of new propaganda ammunition.
 
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