Encyclopedia
The
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation , also called the
North Atlantic Alliance, the
Atlantic Alliance or the
Western Alliance, is an
international organisation for collective security established in 1949, in support of the North Atlantic Treaty signed in
Washington, DC, on 4 April 1949. Its headquarters are located in
Brussels,
Belgium. Its other official name is the
French equivalent,
l'Organisation du Traité de l'Atlantique Nord .
The 2006 NATO Summit will take place in
Latvia.
Purpose
The core of NATO is
Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty, which states
The Treaty cautiously avoids reference both to the identification of an enemy and to any concrete measures of common defence. Nevertheless, it was intended so that if the
USSR and its allies launched an attack against any of the NATO members, it would be treated as if it was an attack on all member states. This marked a significant change for the United States, which traditionally harboured strong isolationist groups across parties in Congress. However, the feared invasion of Western Europe never came. Instead, the provision was invoked for the first time in the treaty's history on 12 September 2001, in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States the day before.
NATO was founded early in the Cold War with the express aim of defending western Europe against a military invasion by the
Soviet Union. In 1990 it was discovered that the NATO treaty also included secret provisions requiring member states to set up and organise clandestine paramilitary
militias, known as "stay-behind armies", who would use guerrilla tactics behind enemy lines following a successful invasion. However, when the invasion never came, attention was turned to domestic communist and socialist groups. These paramilitary groups, also known as
Gladio, are accused of having carried out dozens of terrorist bombings, notably in Italy during the strategy of tension years, which were officially blamed on communist forces.
History
Beginnings
The Treaty of Brussels, signed on 17 March 1948 by
Belgium, the
Netherlands,
Luxembourg,
France, and the
United Kingdom, is considered the precursor to the NATO agreement. This treaty established a military alliance, later to become the
Western European Union. However, American participation was thought necessary in order to counter the military power of the Soviet Union, and therefore talks for a new military alliance began almost immediately.
These talks resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty, which was signed in
Washington, DC on 4 April 1949. It included the five Treaty of Brussels states,
United States,
Canada,
Portugal,
Italy,
Norway,
Denmark and
Iceland. Three years later, on 18 February 1952,
Greece and
Turkey also joined. Because of geography,
Australia and
New Zealand missed out on membership. In place of this, the ANZUS agreement was made by the
United States with these nations.
In 1954 the Soviet Union suggested that it should join NATO to preserve peace in Europe. U.S. and U.K. rejected this, seeing it as an attempt to curtail the buildup of NATO forces in Europe.
The incorporation of West Germany into the organisation on 9 May 1955 was described as "a decisive turning point in the history of our continent" by Halvard Lange, Foreign Minister of Norway at the time. Indeed, one of its immediate results was the creation of the
Warsaw Pact, signed on 14 May 1955 by the
Soviet Union and its satellite states as a formal response to this event, firmly establishing the two opposing sides of the
Cold War.
Early Cold War - Crisis with France
The unity of NATO was breached early on in its history, with a crisis occurring during
Charles de Gaulle's presidency of France from 1958 onwards. De Gaulle protested the United States' hegemonical role in the organisation and protested what he perceived as a
special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom. In a memorandum he sent on 17 September 1958 to President
Eisenhower and Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan, he argued for the creation of a tripartite Directorate that would put France on an equal footing with the United States and the United Kingdom, and also for the expansion of NATO's coverage to include geographical areas of interest to France.
Considering the response he was given unsatisfactory, de Gaulle started pursuing an independent defence for his country. France's Mediterranean fleet was withdrawn from NATO command in 11 March 1959. An independent nuclear programme was also pursued: In June 1959, de Gaulle banned the stationing of foreign nuclear weapons on French soil, which caused United States to transfer 200 military aeroplanes out of France; on 13 February 1960 France tested its first nuclear bomb -- a move much criticised among its NATO allies.
Though France showed solidarity with the rest of NATO during the
Cuban missile crisis in 1962, de Gaulle continued his pursuit of an independent defence by also removing the Atlantic and Channel fleets of France from NATO command. Finally in 1966 all French armed forces were removed from NATO’s integrated military command and all non-French NATO troops were asked to leave France. This precipitated the relocation of the
Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe from
Paris to
Brussels in Belgium by 16 October 1967. In Belgium, NATO is also based in Casteau in South of Brussels. France rejoined NATO's military command in 1993.
Détente
During most of the duration of the
Cold War, NATO maintained a holding pattern with no actual military engagement as an organisation. On 1 July 1968, the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty opened for signature: NATO argued that its nuclear weapons sharing arrangements did not breach the treaty as US forces controlled the weapons until a decision was made to go to war, at which point the treaty would no longer be controlling. Few states knew of the NATO nuclear sharing arrangements at that time, and they were not challenged.
On 30 May 1978, NATO countries officially defined two complementary aims of the Alliance, to maintain security and pursue
détente. This was supposed to mean matching defences at the level rendered necessary by the
Warsaw Pact's offensive capabilities without spurring a further arms race.
However, on 12 December 1979, in light of a build-up of
Warsaw Pact nuclear capabilities in Europe, ministers approved the deployment of US
Cruise and
Pershing II theatre nuclear weapons in Europe. The new warheads were also meant to strengthen the western negotiating position in regard to nuclear disarmament. This policy was called the Dual Track policy. Similarly, in 1983–
84, responding to the stationing of Warsaw Pact
SS-20 medium-range missiles in Europe, NATO deployed modern Pershing II missiles able to reach Moscow within minutes. This action led to peace movement protests throughout Western Europe.
The membership of the organisation in this time period likewise remained largely static, with NATO only gaining one new member in 30 May 1982, when newly democratic Spain joined the alliance, following a referendum. Greece also in 1974 withdrew its forces from NATO’s military command structure, as a result of Greco-Turkish tensions following the 1974 Cyprus dispute; Greek forces were however readmitted in 1980.
In November 1983, a NATO manoeuvre code-named
Able Archer 83, which simulated a NATO nuclear release, caused panic in the Kremlin. Soviet leadership, led by ailing General Secretary
Yuri Andropov became concerned that US President
Ronald Reagan may have been intending to launch a genuine first strike. In response, Soviet nuclear forces were readied and air units in Eastern Germany and Poland were placed on alert. Though at the time written off by US intelligence as a propaganda effort, many historians now believe Soviet fear of a NATO first strike was genuine.
On October 24, 1990 it was acknowledged by Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti to the
Italian Parliament that NATO had long held a secret policy of support and training for right wing terrorist organisations in member states. The policy, which is codenamed
Operation Gladio, and related terrorist groups are thought to have carried out the
Bologna massacre , the Paris massacre , political assassinations in Belgium, military coups in
Greece and Turkey and an attempted coup in France . The official aim was to prevent
Communist movements in Western Europe gaining power. However, many researchers have commented that the true aim was often to increase the power and control of the United States over Europe.
Post-Cold War
The end of the
Cold War, the dissolution of the
Warsaw Pact in 1991, removed the de facto main adversary of NATO. This caused a strategic reevalution of NATO's purpose, nature and tasks. In practice this ended up entailing a gradual expansion of NATO to Eastern Europe, as well as the extension of its activities to areas not formerly concerning it.
The first post-Cold War expansion of NATO came with the
reunification of Germany on 3 October 1990, when the former
East Germany became part of the
Federal Republic of Germany and the alliance. This had been agreed in the Two Plus Four Treaty earlier in the year. To secure Soviet approval of a united Germany remaining in NATO, it was agreed that foreign troops and nuclear weapons would not be stationed in the east, and also that NATO would never expand further east.
On 28 February 1994, NATO also took its first military action, shooting down four Bosnian Serb aircraft violating a UN no-fly zone over central
Bosnia and Herzegovina. NATO air strikes the following year helped bring the
war in Bosnia to an end, resulting in the
Dayton Agreement.
Between 1994 and 1997, wider forums for regional cooperation between NATO and its neighbours were set up, like the
Partnership for Peace, the
Mediterranean Dialogue initiative and the
Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council. On 8 July 1997, three former communist countries, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland, were invited to join NATO, which finally happened in 1999.
On 24 March 1999, NATO saw its first broad-scale military engagement in the
Kosovo War, where it waged an
11-week bombing campaign against what was then the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. A formal declaration of war never took place. Yugoslavia referred to the Kosovo War as
military aggression, as being undeclared and contravening the UN Charter..The conflict ended on 11 June 1999, when Yugoslavian leader
Slobodan Miloševic agreed to NATO’s demands by accepting UN resolution 1244. NATO then helped establish the
KFOR, a NATO-led force under a
United Nations mandate that operates the military mission in Kosovo.
Debate concerning NATO's role and the concerns of the wider international community continued throughout its expanded military activities: The United States opposed efforts to require the UN Security Council to approve NATO military strikes, such as the ongoing action against Yugoslavia, while France and other NATO countries claimed the alliance needed UN approval. American officials said that this would undermine the authority of the alliance, and they noted that
Russia and
China would have exercised their Security Council vetoes to block the strike on
Yugoslavia. In April 1999, at the
Washington summit, a German proposal that NATO adopt a no-first-use nuclear strategy was rejected.
After the September 11 attacks
The expansion of the activities and geographical reach of NATO grew even further as an outcome of the September 11th attacks. These caused as a response the provisional invocation of the collective security of NATO's charter — Article 5 which states that any attack on a member state will be considered an attack against the entire group of members. The invocation was confirmed on 4 October 2001 when NATO determined that the attacks were indeed eligible under the terms of the North Atlantic Treaty. The eight official actions taken by NATO in response to the attacks included the first two examples of military action taken in response to an invocation of Article 5:
Operation Eagle Assist and
Operation Active Endeavour.
Despite this early show of solidarity, NATO faced a crisis little more than a year later, when on 10 February 2003,
France and
Belgium vetoed the procedure of silent approval concerning the timing of protective measures for
Turkey in case of a possible war with
Iraq.
Germany did not use its right to break the procedure but said it supported the veto.
On the issue of
Afghanistan on the other hand, the alliance showed greater unity: On 16 April 2003 NATO agreed to take command of the
International Security Assistance Force in
Afghanistan. The decision came at the request of
Germany and the
Netherlands, the two nations leading ISAF at the time of the agreement, and all 19 NATO ambassadors approved it unanimously. The handover of control to NATO took place on 11 August, and marked the first time in NATO’s history that it took charge of a mission outside the north Atlantic area.
Canada had originally been slated to take over ISAF by itself on that date.
On July 31 2006, a NATO-led force, made up mostly of troops from
Great Britain,
Canada,
Turkey and the
Netherlands, took over military operations in the south of Afghanistan from a U.S.-led anti-terror coalition.
In January 2004, NATO appointed Minister Hikmet Cetin, of Turkey, as the Senior Civilian Representative in Afghanistan. Minister Cetin is primarily responsible for advancing the political-military aspects of the Alliance in Afghanistan.
Expansion and restructuring
New NATO structures were also formed while old ones were abolished: The NATO Response Force was launched at the 2002 Prague Summit on 21 November. On 19 June 2003, a major restructuring of the NATO military commands began as the Headquarters of the Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic were abolished and a new command, Allied Command Transformation , was established in
Norfolk, Virginia,
USA, and the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe became the Headquarters of
Allied Command Operations . ACT is responsible for driving transformation in NATO, whilst ACO is responsible for current operations.
Membership went on expanding with the accession of seven more Eastern European countries to NATO:
Estonia,
Latvia and
Lithuania and also
Slovenia,
Slovakia,
Bulgaria, and
Romania. They were first invited to start talks of membership during the 2002 Prague Summit, and joined NATO on 29 March 2004.
A number of other countries have also expressed a wish to join the alliance, including
Albania, the
Republic of Macedonia,
Georgia and
Croatia.
From the Russian point of view, NATO's eastward expansion since the end of the cold war has been in clear breach of an agreement between Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev and US President
George H.W. Bush which allowed for a peaceful
unification of Germany. NATO's expansion policy is seen as a continuation of a cold war attempt to surround and isolate Russia.
ISAF
- Main article: ISAF
In August 2003, NATO had its first mission ever outside Europe when it assumed control over
International Security Assistance Force in
Afghanistan.
Membership
Founding members :
Countries that joined after the initial foundation:
;Former
Eastern Bloc states that joined after the Cold War:
March 12 1999:March 29 2004:Notes: France withdrew from the integrated military command in 1966. From then until 1993 it had remained solely a member of NATO's political structure.
Iceland, the sole NATO member that does not have its own military force , joined on the condition that they would not be expected to establish one. It has recently however provided troops, trained in Norway, for NATO peacekeeping.
Greece withdrew its forces from NATO’s military command structure from 1974 to 1980 as a result of Greco-Turkish tensions following the 1974
Cyprus dispute.
Possible NATO expansion
For the further expansion of NATO, a mechanism called MAP or Membership Action Plan was approved in the Washington Summit of 1999. Participation in MAP for a country entails the annual presentation of reports concerning its progress on five different fields:
- Political and economic: Countries must demonstrate a willingness to settle international, ethnic or external territorial disputes by peaceful means as well as a commitment to the rule of law and human rights. Democratic control of their armed forces must be established.
- Defence and military: This chapter focuses on the ability of the country to contribute to the Alliance's defence and missions.
- Resources: This concerns the need for candidate countries to allocate enough resources to their armed forces to be able to meet the commitments of membership.
- Security: Concerning the security of sensitive information, and safeguards ensuring it.
- Legal issues: Ensuring the compatibility of domestic legislation with NATO cooperation.
NATO provides feedback as well as technical advice to each of the countries and evaluates their progress on an individual basis.
Currently MAPs are in implementation with the following countries:
CroatiaAt the Summit in
Sofia, on 28 April 2006, it was announced that it is expected to agree on MAPs with the following countries in time for the Riga Summit in November 2006.
. On September 21, 2006, NATO members voted to admit Georgia into the process of "Intensified Dialogue", which is the first step into the membership of NATO.
Ukraine
Defence Minister of
Ukraine Anatoliy Hrytsenko declared that Ukraine would have an Action Plan on NATO membership by the end of March 2006, to begin implementation by September 2006. A final decision concerning Ukraine's membership in NATO is expected to be made in 2008, with full membership possible by 2010.
The idea of Ukrainian membership in NATO has gained support from a number of NATO leaders, including President
Traian Basescu of
Romania and president Ivan Gašparovic of Slovakia. The Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia, Alexander Grushko, announced however that NATO membership for Ukraine was not in Russia's best interests and wouldn't help the relations of the two countries.
Currently a majority of Ukrainian citizens oppose NATO membership. Protests have taken place by opposition blocs against the idea, and petitions signed urging the end of relations with NATO. Prime Minister
Yuriy Yekhanurov has indicated Ukraine will not enter NATO as long as the public continues opposing the move.
Plans for membership were shelved on September 14, 2006 due to the overwhelming disapproval of NATO membership.
Finland
Finland is participating in nearly all sub-areas of the Partnership for Peace programme, and has provided peacekeeping forces to the Afghanistan and Kosovo missions. The possibility of
Finland's membership in NATO was one of the most major issues debated in relation to the
Finnish presidential election of 2006.
The main contester of the presidency,
Sauli Niinistö of the National Coalition Party, supported Finland joining a "more European" NATO. Fellow right-winger Henrik Lax of the Swedish People's Party likewise supported the concept. On the other side, incumbent president
Tarja Halonen of the
Social Democratic Party opposed changing the status quo, as did most other candidates in the election. Her victory and re-election to the post of president has currently put the issue of a NATO membership for Finland on hold for at least the duration of her term.
Other political figures of Finland who have weighed in with opinions include former
President of Finland Martti Ahtisaari who has argued that Finland should join all the organisations supported by other Western democracies in order "to shrug off once and for all the burden of Finlandisation". Another former president, Mauno Koivisto, opposes the idea, arguing that NATO membership would ruin Finland's relations with Russia.
Polls in Finland indicate that the public is strongly against NATO membership.
Cooperation with non-member states
Euro-Atlantic Partnership
A double framework has been established to help further co-operation between the 26 NATO members and 20 "partner countries".
- The Partnership for Peace programme was established in 1994 and is based on individual bilateral relations between each partner country and NATO: each country may choose the extent of its participation. The PfP programme is considered the operational wing of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership.
- The Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council on the other hand was first established on 29 May 1997, and is a forum for regular co-ordination, consultation and dialogue between all 46 participants.
The 20 partner countries are the following:
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- Countries that possessed capitalist economies during the Cold War:
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- Malta joined PfP in 1994, but its new government withdrew in 1996. Because of this Malta is not participating in ESDP activities that use NATO assets and information.
- Cyprus's admission to PfP is resisted by Turkey, because of the Northern Cyprus issue. Because of this Cyprus is not participating in ESDP activities that use NATO assets and information.
- Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Montenegro are aspirants for PfP and EAPC participation . Their inclusion into the programme depends on implementing some reforms and cooperation with the ICTY.
International Partnership Action Plans
Launched at the November 2002 Prague Summit, Individual Partnership Action Plans are open to countries that have the political will and ability to deepen their relationship with NATO.
Currently IPAPs are in implementation with the following countries:
Under development are IPAPs with the following countries:
Mediterranean Dialogue
The
Mediterranean Dialogue, first launched in 1994 is a forum of cooperation between NATO and seven countries of the Mediterranean:
NATO-Russian Federation Council
NATO and Russian Federation made a reciprocal commitment in 1997 "to work together to build a stable, secure and undivided continent on the basis of partnership and common interest."
In May 2002, this commitment was strengthened with the establishment of the NATO-Russia Council, which brings together the NATO members and Russia. The purpose of this council is to identify and pursue opportunities for joint action with the 27 participants as equal partners.
Other partners
In April 2005,
Australia signed a
security agreement with NATO on enhancing intelligence cooperation in the fight against terrorism. Australia also posted a defence attache to NATO's headquarters. Cooperation with
Japan,
El Salvador,
South Korea and
New Zealand was also announced as priority.
Israel is currently a
Mediterranean Dialogue country and has been recently seeking to expand its relationship with NATO. The first visit by a head of NATO to Israel occurred on 23 February - 24 February 2005 and the first joint Israel-NATO naval exercise occurred on 27 March 2005. . In May of the same year Israel was admitted to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. Israeli troops also took part in NATO exercises in June 2005.
