What is NATO?
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) emerged in 1949, after the WWIIas a military defense alliance modeled after the new world order.
Its founders were the United States, Canada, and ten European countries: France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Norway. It basically meant putting part of Europe under Washington’s protection, at a time when the USSR consolidated its power in Eastern Europe.
Over the years, new member states were added, including Turkey, Germany and Spain, until reaching the current 30 participants.
At the same time, and after the fall of the USSR, it gained geopolitical weight and participated in several wars such as the one in Bosnia, Serbia and Iraq.
Do you have an army of your own?
NATO does not have its own army. Its combat forces are made up of volunteer troops from each country that is part of it, so its power is intrinsically related to the individual military power of each member.
To ensure a unified level, the Alliance established that each nation should allocate 2% of its GDP to defense spending, something that in practice has not been fulfilled by many members.
During the administration of donald trump in the United States this was a major point of friction between Washington and its European allies. The Republican president even threatened not to help his partners in the event of a Russian attack because “they were delinquent.”
When can NATO attack?
According to the treaty that founded it, NATO can only carry out a military attack when one of the countries that integrates it is attacked. Article 5 states that an attack on one of the members will be considered a collective attack.
In its recent history, the collective defense article was activated three times, always at the request of Turkey: on the gulf war (1991) deployed Patriot missiles and performed the same operation during the invasion of Iraq (2003) and in the midst of the war in Syria (2012).
Is the European Union a member of NATO?
No, the European Union (EU) does not participate in NATO, although many countries that are part of the European community bloc do.
In fact, in recent years, France, since the coming to power of Emmanuel Macronhas been promoting within the EU the creation of a European military response force so as not to depend on NATO and, consequently, on the United States.
The embarrassing departure of foreign forces from Afghanistan last August had ignited the debate that was later overshadowed by the tension on the border between Russia and Ukraine and the subsequent invasion.
How is the accession process?
Sweden and Finland – which shares a 1,300-kilometre border with Russia – have just applied to join NATO. The process is long and takes several years in which the military forces of the requesting countries must adapt.
But given the current situation, the Alliance hopes to have expeditious processes to add these two nations, something that collided with the interests of Turkey, suspicious of the links of Stockholm and Helsinki with the Kurdish movement.
For NATO to start the accession debate, the 30 members must approve it and then the parliament of each member must approve the incorporation of the new countries. What in practice gives each State the right to veto.
Source: Ambito
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