We’ve all heard of NATO at some point, in the news, in school, in social media. But what is it really? What’s its purpose and how does it work? Who’s in it?
Founded on April 4th 1949, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is a military alliance across Europe and North america. When first signed the treaty included the following twelve countries: the USA, Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Great Britain. Now the treaty is made up of 30 countries, and has close ties to even more.
But what is its purpose? After the second world war there was a power struggle in Europe between the east (the Warsaw Pact lead by the USSR) and the west (France, Britain, etc. and the USA), thus an alliance was set up to act as a counterweight in the balance of power primarily in Europe but also the rest of the world. This holds true to this day, but rather than the Soviet Union, Russia is now the main ‘rival’ of NATO.
NATO is a defensive military alliance, in short meaning that the member states agree to aid each other in the case that one of them is attacked. This is in accordance to §5: “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all”
§5 is one of 14, while the others are too many to go into detail about, here are some of the more important ones you might want to know about. §1 says that all members must attempt to peacefully solve any international dispute, in order to not endanger international peace and security. §6 states that for §5 to take effect the attack must either be on the territories of the member state or any military force, vessels or aircraft in or above these territories, so that any military of a member state that is somewhere else in the world would not give reason for §5 if they were attacked.
Another important part of NATO is its Secretary General. This is the main representative of NATO and acts as both the spokesperson and an international diplomat. They’re also in charge of coordinating the member states. Currently this position is held by Norwegian ex prime minister Jens Stoltenberg. Though it’s important to note that the Secretary General holds no political or military power, that’s up to other high ranking individuals and each of the member states.
Now hopefully you know a bit more about what NATO is, even though it’s of course much more complex in reality it’s not bad to know what the largest military alliance in the world really is.
By Linus