The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an intergovernmental military alliance with headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. It is based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on April 4, 1949. It constitutes a system of collective defense whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. The exact wordings in the NATO Charter are:

“The Parties of NATO agreed that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all. Consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense will assist the Party or Parties being attacked, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”

During the initial years, NATO was not much more than a political association. It felt the necessity to build an integrated military structure only during the Korean War. Thereafter, the fluctuating relationship between the European states and the United States raised doubts about NATO’s credibility to defend against a prospective Soviet invasion. This led to the development of the independent French nuclear deterrent and the withdrawal of France from NATO’s military structure in 1966. However, France rejoined the integrated military command of NATO (it would also maintain its independent nuclear deterrent) in 2009.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the subsequent end of the cold war changed NATO’s focus to the Balkans. This culminated into several former Warsaw Pact states joining the alliance in 1999 and 2004. The membership was further enlarged to 28 in 2009 with the formal joining of Albania and Croatia. After the September 11 attacks on the US, NATO changed its focus and sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan.

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The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70 per cent of the world’s defense spending. The United States alone accounts for about half the total military spending of the world and the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy account for a further 15 per cent. The creation of NATO led to the standardization of allied military terminology, procedures, and technology. In many cases, it resulted in the adoption of US Practices by European countries.

NATO is credited for bringing the war in Bosnia to an end. Besides military engagement, NATO has also deployed peacekeeping forces at several post-conflict situations. One unique thing about NATO’s military engagements is that it never formally declared a war. It only led operations including a mission to deliver humanitarian aid to refugees from Kosovo and a mission to disarm ethnic Albanian militias in the Republic of Macedonia.

It was the September 11 attacks that caused NATO to invoke Article 5 of its Charter for the first time in its history. The Article says that an attack on any member shall be considered to be an attack on all. NATO’s response to the attacks included Operation Active Endeavour— a naval operation in the Mediterranean Sea designed to prevent the movement of terrorists or weapons of mass destruction as well as to enhance the security of shipping in general.

In 2003, NATO agreed to take-command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. This decision meant that NATO took charge of a mission outside the north Atlantic area for the first time in its history. In 2004, NATO formed the NATO Training Mission – Iraq, a training mission to assist the Iraqi security forces. In 2006, a NATO-led force, took over military operations in the south of Afghanistan from a U.S.-led anti-terrorism coalition.

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The NATO military structure has also undergone a change in recent years. In 2002, the NATO Response Force (NRF) was launched followed by a major restructuring of the NATO military commands in 2003. A new command, Allied Command Transformation (ACT), was established in Norfolk, Virginia, United States, and the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) became the Headquarters of Allied Command Operations (ACO). ACT is responsible for driving transformation (future capabilities) in NATO, whilst ACO is responsible for current operations.

The 28 countries that presently comprise NATO are: Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal,

Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Since its inception in 1949, NATO has added new members seven times with the latest being in 2009. Georgia and Ukraine are also promised full membership in near future. The other potential countries are the Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, NATO’s expansion policy is being seen by Russia as a continuation of a Cold War attempt to surround and isolate it.

NATO has also undertaken initiatives for cooperation with non- member states. It has established a double framework to help further cooperation between the 28 NATO members and 22 partner countries. The Partnership for Peace (PfP) program was established in 1994 to further develop cooperation with all current and former member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The program is based on individual bilateral relations between each partner country and NATO, in which each country may choose the extent of its participation.

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The PfP program is considered the operational wing of the Euro- Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), established in 1997 as a forum for regular coordination, consultation and dialogue between all 49 participants. NATO had also established a Mediterranean dialogue in 1994 to coordinate with Israel and countries in North Africa.