Dougie M,
You wrote:
"The North Atlantic association was to counter the Soviet threat and only came into its own when the Warsaw Pact formed in the 50s."
This is how disinformation starts :-) No time to type a couple of words in a search engine? I thought this stuff was being studied in mil. academies worldwide...
NATO was formed in 1949 and it was the first NATO secretary general to say (informally) that the organization's goal was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down."
Then very soon the next major steps were undertaken because of the Korean war.
After Turkey and Greece joined NATO in 1952, the Soviet Union also applied for a membership (in 1954) because formally it was said that NATO was not considering USSR as an enemy, but the suggestion was, of course, declined.
Warsaw pact was signed only in 1955, a week after the NATO's second expansion when Germany joined the club. I think it was nothing but a nervous reply in a sense "we can't take it any more", but it could be justified by the fact that Germany was again openly on the other side, and plans like "Dropshot" were getting closer to the reality.
As for the main subject, from outside NATO it's strange to hear that "who is 2nd in the hierarchy" is an issue. Does it really matter? Look at another chatterbox club - the EU and CEC. There many people now there at high management positions from the countries that many others can hardly find on the map.