In 1994, 45 years after the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the US military shot down four Serbian warplanes that were on an active bombing mission over the no-fly zone in Bosnia. This was the first time in history NATO was engaged in military action since it was established some four decades earlier.
Sixty thousand troops were deployed to enforce the Dayton peace accord, which was enacted by the former Yugoslavia leaders, after a UN peacekeeping force failed to put a stop to the fighting that had, by that point, been going on for two years.
Since then, the organization has deployed several peacekeeping missions in Afghanistan, Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Libya, and Iraq, and the scope of its initial objective has since expanded. What is NATO, and what are its responsibilities?
Here’s everything you need to know.
Why Was NATO Formed?
NATO, which is short for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is a national security alliance that consists of 30 member states that border the North Atlantic Ocean – hence the name. It includes Canada, the US, the UK, Turkey, and most of the member states in the European Union. The full list of NATO countries is as follows:
- United States
- United Kingdom
- Croatia
- Montenegro
- Belgium
- Norway
- Estonia
- France
- Romania
- Italy
- North Macedonia
- Latvia
- Albania
- Spain
- Iceland
- Bulgaria
- Poland
- Greece
- Slovakia
- Luxembourg
- Portugal
- Hungary
- Canada
- Netherlands
- Lithuania
- Slovenia
- Turkey
- Czech Republic
- Germany
- Denmark
When the alliance was first formed in 1949, the initial founding countries consisted of 12 states, namely:
- United States
- United Kingdom
- Iceland
- Netherlands
- Denmark
- Italy
- Portugal
- Belgium
- Luxembourg
- Norway
- Canada
- France
The original goal of the alliance was to counter the post-war threat posed by the expansion of the Soviet Union in Europe. The Soviet response to NATO was to create its own military alliance known as the Warsaw Pact. It consisted of the communist countries in Eastern Europe.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, several former Warsaw Pact member countries abandoned the communist alliance, joining NATO instead. This mass defection is what grew the number of member countries to the present 30, up from the previous 12.
What Does NATO Do?
NATO’s main objective is to protect the freedom and security of all its allied countries. While the organization is a defensive military alliance, perhaps the most important of all the NATO responsibilities is diplomacy. The idea behind this approach is to find ways of resolving conflict without resorting to force.
Allied countries work together to find collaborative solutions that address the needs of all parties. It promotes peace and fosters an environment conducive to economic and political cooperation on either side of the Atlantic Ocean.
On a broader front, NATO has been looking to expand its influence in North America and Europe, which has, in turn, allowed the economies of member states to thrive.
How Does NATO Work?
NATO’s primary mission revolves around protecting the freedom of its allied members and their regional political and economic stability. It targets terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and cyberattacks.
Based on the provisions of Article 5 of the treaty, an attack against any of the allied nations is considered an attack against all the member states. If one of the nations is attacked in what would be considered an act of aggression, all the allied states will retaliate.
To date, Article 5 has only been invoked once since the treaty was first signed by NATO founders in 1949. This was in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on US soil.
It’s important to keep in mind that NATO’s protection only applies to external threats and acts of aggression against allied countries. This protection does not apply in situations involving internal coups or civil wars in member states. These are considered domestic affairs and do not warrant NATO’s intervention.
For instance, if Turkey were under attack from an external aggressor, which could be anything from a full-on military attack to a terrorist bombing, it would receive allied support from other member states that are party to the treaty. On the other hand, if Turkey’s own defense forces carried out a coup to overthrow the existing regime, NATO would not intervene.
This begs the question: Who funds NATO? The short answer is – its member states. However, the US contributes almost 75% of NATO’s entire budget, with only 10 countries reaching the target expenditure level of 2% of their gross domestic product (GDP).
What Is Article 5 of NATO?
One of the treaty’s major provisions is Article 5, which states that: Allied countries agree that an act of armed aggression against one or more of them constitutes an attack against all of them.
While this commitment to the collective defense of all parties to the pact is integral to NATO’s mission, active participation is not compulsory. The treaty leaves it up to member states to decide their contribution to NATO defense efforts.
The NATO Response Force consists of high-readiness air, land, sea, and special troops that can be deployed rapidly to combat military attacks on an allied country. Until February 2022, the units designated to the Response Force have only been deployed to security-related activities at high-profile events and relief missions to disaster-hit regions.
However, when the Russian invasion of Ukraine escalated, NATO passed a resolution to activate the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) for the first time in history to protect its allied members against potential attacks by offering rapid and collective defense in case of an Article 5 operation.
Why Is NATO Still Relevant Today?
Seventy-three years on, NATO is still as relevant today as it was when it was first established. It plays an integral role in global security. The values that bind the allied nations have not changed, and it has succeeded in its core mission to deter acts of aggression from rival nations against the member states. It hasn’t just made the West stronger than ever; it has kept member countries free.
Ultimately, NATO has endured because of the values its allied members share – freedom, democracy, mutual respect, and solidarity.
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