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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 31 member states – 29 European and two North American. Established in the aftermath of World War II, the organization implemented the North Atlantic Treaty, signed in Washington, D.C., on 4 April 1949. NATO is a collective security system: its independent member states agree to defend each other against attacks by third parties. During the Cold War, NATO operated as a check on the threat posed by the Soviet Union. The alliance remained in place after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, and has been involved in military operations in the Balkans, the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. The organization's motto is animus in consulendo liber.
The Partnership for Peace is a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) program aimed at creating trust between the member states of NATO and other states mostly in Europe, including post-Soviet states; 19 states are members. The program contains six areas of cooperation, which aims to build relationships with partners through military-to-military cooperation on training, exercises, disaster planning and response, science and environmental issues, professionalization, policy planning, and relations with civilian government.
The Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany , or the Two Plus Four Agreement , is an international agreement that allowed the reunification of Germany in the early 1990s. It was negotiated in 1990 between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, and the Four Powers which had occupied Germany at the end of World War II in Europe: France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States; it also replaced the 1945 Potsdam Agreement before. In the treaty, the Four Powers renounced all rights they held in Germany, allowing a reunited Germany to become fully sovereign the following year. At the same time, the two German states agreed to confirm their acceptance of the existing border with Poland, and accepted that the borders of Germany after unification would correspond only to the territories then administered by West and East Germany, with the exclusion and renunciation of any other territorial claims.
The Munich Security Conference is an annual conference on international security policy that has been held in Munich, Bavaria, Germany since 1963. Formerly named the Munich Conference on Security Policy, the motto is: Peace through Dialogue. It is the world's largest gathering of its kind.
The Geneva Summit of 1955 was a Cold War-era meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. Held on July 18, 1955, it was a meeting of "The Big Four": President Dwight D. Eisenhower of the United States, Prime Minister Anthony Eden of Britain, Premier Nikolai A. Bulganin of the Soviet Union, and Prime Minister Edgar Faure of France. They were accompanied by the foreign ministers of the four powers : John Foster Dulles, Harold Macmillan, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Antoine Pinay. Also in attendance was Nikita Khrushchev, de facto leader of the Soviet Union.
Founded in 1955, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly serves as the consultative interparliamentary organisation for the North Atlantic Alliance. Its current President is Joëlle Garriaud-Maylam from France, elected in 2022. Its current Secretary General is Ruxandra Popa, who has been in this position since January 2020.
The 2006 Riga summit or the 19th NATO Summit was a NATO summit held in the Olympic Sports Centre, Riga, Latvia from 28 to 29 November 2006. The most important topics discussed were the War in Afghanistan and the future role and borders of the alliance. Further, the summit focused on the alliance's continued transformation, taking stock of what has been accomplished since the 2002 Prague Summit. NATO also committed itself to extending further membership invitations in the upcoming 2008 Bucharest Summit. This summit was the first NATO summit held on the territory of the formerly Soviet-occupied Baltic states.
The 2004 Istanbul summit was held in Istanbul, Turkey from 28 to 29 June 2004. It was the 17th NATO summit in which NATO's Heads of State and Governments met to make formal decisions about security topics. In general, the summit is seen as a continuation of the transformation process that began in the 2002 Prague summit, which hoped to create a shift from a Cold War alliance against Soviet aggression to a 21st-century coalition against new and out-of-area security threats. The summit consisted of four meetings.
NATO is a military alliance of thirty-one European and North American countries that constitutes a system of collective defense. The process of joining the alliance is governed by Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which allows for the invitation of "other European States" only and by subsequent agreements. Countries wishing to join must meet certain requirements and complete a multi-step process involving political dialog and military integration. The accession process is overseen by the North Atlantic Council, NATO's governing body. NATO was formed in 1949 with twelve founding members and has added new members nine times. The first additions were Greece and Turkey in 1952. In May 1955, West Germany joined NATO, which was one of the conditions agreed to as part of the end of the country's occupation by France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, prompting the Soviet Union to form their own collective security alliance later that month. Following the end of the Franco regime, newly-democratic Spain chose to join NATO in 1982.
Relations between the NATO military alliance and the Russian Federation were established in 1991 within the framework of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. In 1994, Russia joined the Partnership for Peace program, and on 27 May 1997, the NATO–Russia Founding Act (NRFA) was signed at a NATO Summit in Paris, France, enabling the creation of the NATO–Russia Permanent Joint Council (NRPJC). Through the early part of 2010s NATO and Russia signed several additional agreements on cooperation. The NRPJC was replaced in 2002 by the NATO–Russia Council (NRC), which was established in an effort to partner on security issues and joint projects together.
The 1957 Paris summit was the first NATO summit bringing the leaders of member nations together at the same time. The formal sessions and informal meetings in Paris, France took place on 16–19 December 1957. This was only the second meeting of the NATO heads of state following the ceremonial signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949.
The 1974 Brussels summit was the second NATO summit bringing the leaders of member nations together at the same time. The formal sessions and informal meetings in Brussels, Belgium took place on June 26, 1974. This twenty-fifth anniversary event was only the third meeting of the NATO heads of state following the ceremonial signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on April 4, 1949.
The 1975 Brussels summit was the third NATO summit bringing the leaders of member nations together at the same time. The formal sessions and informal meetings in Brussels, Belgium took place on 29–30 May 1975. This event was only the third meeting of the NATO heads of state following the ceremonial signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949.
The 1985 Brussels summit was the 7th NATO summit bringing the leaders of member nations together at the same time. The formal sessions and informal meetings in Brussels, Belgium took place on 21 November 1985. This event was only the seventh meeting of the NATO heads of state following the ceremonial signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949. Lord Carrington was Secretary General of NATO at the time, and he chaired the meeting.
The 1988 Brussels summit was the 8th NATO summit bringing the leaders of member nations together at the same time. The formal sessions and informal meetings in Brussels, Belgium took place on 2–3 March 1988.
The 1994 Brussels summit was the 13th NATO summit bringing the leaders of member nations together at the same time. The formal sessions and informal meetings in Brussels, Belgium took place on 10–11 January 1994.
The 1977 London summit was the 4th NATO summit bringing the leaders of member nations together at the same time. The formal sessions and informal meetings in London took place on 10–11 May 1977. This event was only the fifth meeting of the NATO heads of state following the ceremonial signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949.
The 1978 Washington summit was the 5th NATO summit bringing the leaders of member nations together at the same time. The formal sessions and informal meetings in Washington, D.C. took place on May 30–31, 1978. This event was only the fifth meeting of the NATO heads of state following the ceremonial signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on April 4, 1949.
The 2014 Wales Summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was a meeting of the heads of state and heads of government of the NATO countries, held in Newport, Wales on 4 and 5 September 2014. Such summits are sporadically held and allow leaders and officials from NATO Allies to discuss current issues of mutual concern and to plan strategic activities. The 2014 summit has been described by US Navy Admiral James G. Stavridis as the most important since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The history of NATO begins in the immediate aftermath of World War II when British diplomacy set the stage to contain the Soviet Union and to stop the expansion of Soviet power in Europe. The United Kingdom and France signed, in 1947, the Treaty of Dunkirk, a defensive pact, which was expanded in 1948 with the Treaty of Brussels to add the three Benelux countries and committed them to collective defense against an armed attack for fifty years. The British worked with Washington to expand the alliance into NATO in 1949, adding the United States and Canada as well as Italy, Portugal, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland. West Germany joined in 1955 and Spain joined in 1982.
References
- Thomas, Ian Q.R. (1997). The promise of alliance: NATO and the political imagination. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-8476-8581-3; OCLC 36746439
