International Organizations

The alliances and multinational bodies the United States built, funds, or leads.

NATO

The 1949 alliance that bound America to Europe's defense and deterred the Soviet Union for forty years

SEATO

The Cold War alliance built to contain communism in Asia, 1954–1977

The League of Nations

The world body Woodrow Wilson built — and the U.S. Senate refused to join, 1920

The Organization of American States

The Western Hemisphere body that carried old doctrines into the Cold War, 1948

The Warsaw Pact

The Soviet military alliance that answered NATO, 1955–1991

The World Bank and IMF

The Bretton Woods twins America built to run the global economy, 1944

The World Health Organization

The UN's global health agency — and America's fraught partner in it, 1948

The World Trade Organization

The referee of global trade, from GATT in 1947 to the WTO in 1995

United Nations

The international body America founded in 1945 — and has funded, led, and defied ever since