The North Atlantic Treaty Organization,also called the North Atlantic Alliance,is an intergovernmental military alliance of 32 member states—30 European and 2 North American. Established in the aftermath of World War II,the organization implements 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 organization's strategic concepts include deterrence.
The Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) is a post–Cold War,North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) institution. The EAPC is a multilateral forum created to improve relations between NATO and non-NATO countries in Europe and Central Asia. States meet to cooperate and discuss political and security issues. It was formed on 29 May 1997 at a Ministers’meeting held in Sintra,Portugal,as the successor to the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC),which was created in 1991.
The Partnership for Peace is a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) program aimed at creating trust and cooperation between the member states of NATO and other states mostly in Europe,including post-Soviet states;18 states are members. The program contains 6 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. During policy negotiations in the 1990s,a primary controversy regarding PfP was its ability to be interpreted as a program that is a stepping stone for joining NATO with full Article 5 guarantees.
The Atlantic Council is an American think tank in the field of international affairs,favoring Atlanticism,founded in 1961. It manages sixteen regional centers and functional programs related to international security and global economic prosperity. It is headquartered in Washington,D.C. It is a member of the Atlantic Treaty Association.
The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is an intergovernmental military alliance in Eurasia consisting of six post-Soviet states:Armenia,Belarus,Kazakhstan,Kyrgyzstan,Russia,and Tajikistan,formed in 2002. The Collective Security Treaty has its origins in the Soviet Armed Forces,which was replaced in 1992 by the United Armed Forces of the Commonwealth of Independent States,and was then itself replaced by the successor armed forces of the respective independent states.
The NATO Parliamentary Assembly serves as the consultative interparliamentary organisation for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It consists of delegates from the parliaments of the 32 NATO member countries as well as from associate and partner countries. Its current President is Gerry Connolly from the United States,elected as Acting President in 2024 after former president MichałSzczerba was elected to European Parliament. Its current Secretary General is Ruxandra Popa,who has been in this position since January 2020.
The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) is a non-partisan American public policy think tank that seeks to promote cooperation and understanding between North America and the European Union.
The 2006 Riga summit or the 20th 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 Baltic states.
The 2004 Istanbul summit was held in Istanbul,Turkey from 28 to 29 June 2004. It was the 18th 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.
Georgia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) enjoy cordial relations. Georgia is not currently a member of NATO,but has been promised by NATO to be admitted in the future.
NATO is a military alliance of thirty-two 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 dialogue 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 ten 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 its 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 the 1997 Paris NATO Summit in 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.
NATO maintains foreign relations with many non-member countries across the globe. NATO runs a number of programs which provide a framework for the partnerships between itself and these non-member nations,typically based on that country's location. These include the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council and the Partnership for Peace.
Resolute Support Mission (RSM) or Operation Resolute Support was a NATO-led multinational mission in Afghanistan. It began on 1 January 2015 as the successor to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF),which was completed on 28 December 2014. Pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 2189 of 2014,RSM was a noncombat mission aimed at advising and training Afghan security forces to provide long-term security to the country,under the aegis of the Security and Defence Cooperation Agreement BSA between the United States and Afghanistan,which was originally supposed to run from 1 January 2015 and "shall remain in force until the end of 2024 and beyond" unless terminated with two years' advance notice.
Ieva Ilvesa is a Latvian diplomat,politician and cyber security policy expert,and former First Lady of Estonia. Ilvesa ran as a Latvian candidate for the 2019 European Parliament election. She was the third place candidate for Development/For!,second on the list was Baiba Rubesa,the former CEO of Rail Baltica.
GLOBSEC is a non-partisan,non-governmental organisation based in Bratislava,Slovakia. One of its main activities is the annual GLOBSEC Bratislava Global Security Forum,in existence since 2005. Other projects include the Tatra Summit conference on European affairs or Chateau Béla Central European Strategic Forum. Its think-tank called GLOBSEC Policy Institute boasts a wide research area based on four pillars. Its main outputs are policy papers and analyses on different topics in the area of international politics and security issues. Since 2016,GLOBSEC is not only the name of one of the top forums on international security worldwide,but also of the legal entity and organiser of the Forum.
The relationship between Azerbaijan and NATO started in 1992 when Azerbaijan joined the newly created North Atlantic Cooperation Council. Considerable partnership between NATO and Azerbaijan dates back to 1994,when the latter joined Partnership for Peace program. Azerbaijan established a diplomatic Mission to NATO in 1997 by the Presidential Decree on 21 November.
The history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (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. Greece and Turkey joined in 1952,West Germany joined in 1955,Spain joined in 1982,Czech Republic,Hungary and Poland joined in 1999,Bulgaria,Estonia,Latvia,Lithuania,Romania,Slovakia,and Slovenia joined in 2004,Albania and Croatia joined in 2009,Montenegro joined in 2017,North Macedonia joined in 2020,Finland joined in 2023,and Sweden joined in 2024.
The Alliance of DemocraciesFoundation (AoD) is a non-profit organisation dedicated to the advancement of democracy and free markets across the globe. It was established in December 2017 by former NATO Secretary General and former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen together with businessman Fritz Schur and lawyer Klaus Søgaard.
Julianne Smith is an American foreign policy advisor and diplomat who serves as the United States Permanent Representative to NATO in the Biden administration. She previously served as deputy national security advisor to then-Vice President Biden in the Obama administration.
