NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)
MOTTO-
- Motto of NATO is “Animus in CONSULENDO liber”.
- It is written in the Latin language which means a mind unfettered in deliberation
HYMN-
- The NATO Hymn is the anthem of this organization written by Andre Reich, who was a military officer in the Luxembourg army.
What Is NATO?
- NATO stands for north Atlantic treaty organization. It is an intergovernmental military alliance of north Atlantic nations including most of the European nations. NATO is one of the oldest military alliances made on the 4th of April in 1949 after the end of the 2nd world war. NATO consist of 28 European countries and 2 countries from North America. NATO is formed on the principles of the North Atlantic treaty that was signed in Washington D.C. in 1949. NATO is a military alliance that has been intact and has passed the times of the cold war and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. At its founding NATO consisted of 12 members that are Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, the UK, Portugal, and the United States. These countries were a big part of allied nations in a world war which clearly shows it was made with an intention to safeguard these nations if something of this large scale happens in the world. Now let’s try to understand the history of NATO, its operations, and the geopolitical situation at the time it was formed.
History Of NATO
World war 2 has shown one of the biggest, longest, and most- deadliest wars which have shown the greatest military powers against each other. The end of World War 2 showed us the entire world was in crisis with a lack of food, resources, and jobs and the time gap between World War 1 and 2 was very so it was the biggest concern for the allied nations to make themselves secure which came in the form of NATO. World war 2 ended with the greatest attacks of nuclear bombs from the USA on Japan which became a concern for European countries, for this reason, the USA had an upper hand in terms of technology in weapons which was the reason for forming this coalition. NATO was also focused focus on rising communalism because of the soviet’s expansionism, forbidding the revival of nationalist militarism in Europe through a strong American presence in the continent. It can also be seen that why America is called the biggest superpower because of the greatest achievements in the domain of military intelligence, diplomatic relations, and business of the daily commodities that have taken almost all the world in those times like wildfire.
In the 1950s NATO worked only in the defensive form as at that time the world was changing at maximum speed with the colonial powers becoming weak with India, Sri Lanka and many of the countries got independence in the 1960s things started getting changed with the cold war started the tension to increase at the great level. Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and US president John F. Kennedy were nearly able to escape a conflict in Cuba. In the times of 1965 to 1969 Soviet Union was expanding to a great extent from Czechoslovakia to western parts of Germany. During the cold war era, there was the greatest level of polarization was going on in the world which became very bad for developing countries at those times like India.
Core Principles Of NATO
As NATO is the intergovernmental body as well as a military alliance there were some principles that were established and agreed upon by every founding and these principles have also changed or modified with the changing geo-political situations in the world.
When there will be any dispute between the countries which are members of NATO then their argument will be solved at an immediate meeting held by all members. It also gives direction to all the members to maintain reasonable and harmonious relations and supports each other in maintaining political and financial stability. This convention has also helped in creating better trade and foreign exchanges.
All the NATO countries will be going to help the country which wants military aid during external aggression or war-like situation with other countries. For this we can take the example of December 2021 when Ukraine and Georgia were just one step away from taking membership of NATO as the threat of Russia was looming on them for a long time and NATO members which also include the USA can help them with the military assistance, but the things start changing very fast and after the removal of US forces from Afghanistan clearly marked USA’s stance that now they are not going to spend their men, lives, the money of taxpayers to fight the wars that are not even theirs. This stance of the USA and other European countries denied membership to Ukraine and then the war started although NATO and other neighboring countries tried to intervene and help the people of Ukraine NATO membership must have given them an upper hand over Russia.
NATO Members
- NATO has a very long history dating from 1949 with 12 founding member nations including Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, UK, and USA. In the time from 1950 to the 60s turkey and Germany became members followed by Spain, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, and Estonia. And in the latest times, we have seen Montenegro get membership in 2017 and north Macedonia in 2020.
How A Country Can Become A Member Of NATO?
- Article 10 of the treaty gives the correct rules for the countries to join NATO. The parties or the countries can invite the other European countries by an anonymous invitation sent to any European country and that country must give an assurance to support every action taken by NATO and also provide military assistance when required. A country that wants to join NATO must be functional and democratic and gives fair chances and opportunities to the minority population in their country. Firstly, the enlargement bill has been given in front of the council and there has been introduced any new regulations in the treaty by the existing members after it gets passed in the council it goes to the country which wants to join, after their acceptance they officially become part of the NATO family.
Actions Taken By NATO
We can classify the working of NATO in three different phases:-
- Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992- 2004)
- Serbia and Kosovo (1999- present)
- Small military level (2001 – present)
Bosnia And Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina are a country in the Balkan peninsular region with Sarajevo as the capital. The country is surrounded by Serbia, Croatia, Austria, and Greece and also has water connections in Italy.
The war that occurred in the 1990s in the Bosnian region was the after-effect of the breaking up of the socialist federal republic of Yugoslavia, which occurred because of the weakened governing system in the ending years of the cold war.
From the end of World War 1, Bosnia went under the kingdom of Yugoslavia. NATO was seen prominently in the Bosnian area and its role become even bigger gradually by escalating the current operations. NATO turned operation sky monitor into operation deny flight which made the idea of a no-fly zone even more stringent in the Bosnian region. NATO’s first ever military intervention happened in the year 1995 when they targeted the army of the republic Srpska in Bosnia which was quoted as a danger for the citizen of the country by the United Nations. In July 1992 NATO conducted an operation named maritime Monitor in the international waters of Serbia where they aimed a naval blockade which helped them to enforce sanctions given by the United Nations security council.
After many naval blockades against Yugoslavia till the year 1996 operation deliberate forces came into play by the Bosnian forces in accordance with NATO. It was an air campaign that involved almost 400 aircraft and targeted the army of the republic Srpska. After this air campaign, we saw a number of joint guard operations that were regarded as peacekeeping missions finally got ended in the year 1998 when NATO-led implementation and stabilization forces ensured the peace under the Dayton accords.
At last, the country named Bosnia and Herzegovina became struggle free and become fully independent with the help of NATO in the last decade.
Serbia And Kosovo (1992 – Present)
- Kosovo unilaterally got its independence in the year 2008 which was rejected by Serbia. In the year 1999, there was an allied operation which was an air campaign which targeted infrastructure in Serbia as Serbia was in the control of Kosovo. These operations were conducted with the aim to take out Serbia from the area of Kosovo. The bombings from all ends keep going on for the next 3 months before all the sides accepted the Kumanovo treaty which ended this Kosovo war and gave the way for the deployment of peacekeeping forces in Kosovo. These peacekeeping forces helped Kosovo in establishing a secure environment as soon as possible and they still help Kosovo in any kind of intervention like this.
Small Military Level Interventions (2004 – Present)
- In the 21st century, NATO participated in small operations. NATO got involved in the growing problem of piracy which was growing at a large scale in the African region with the name operation ocean shield in the year 2009. Tomahawk missiles were launched on the first night of Libya which NATO codenamed its operation unified protector. There were numerous operations that we saw in the countries like north Macedonia, US airspace, the Mediterranean-sea region, Afghanistan (till 2014), turkey and even Pakistan.
List Of NATO Exercises
- Exercises conducted by NATO can be classified into two phases
- Pre cold war era
- Post cold war era
1. Pre cold war era:-
- Pre cold war era is the time from 1950 to 1990 in which some of the biggest military cooperation exercises by NATO countries were seen.
Exercise grand slam- It was the naval exercise conducted in the Mediterranean Sea area in the year 1952.
Exercise italic weld- It was a combined air-naval-ground exercise conducted in northern Italy in 1953.
- Exercise WELDFAST- It was a combined amphibious landing exercise conducted in the Mediterranean Sea which included American, British, Greek, and Turkish forces.
2. Post cold war era:-
- The post-cold war era is stated as the time from 1990 till now which has seen a high-level upgradation of the technology in the military field by these NATO nations which were also showcased in their joint military exercises.
Joint warrior- It is an exercise conducted regularly also in 2022 which includes airborne assaults, amphibious landing, and counter-insurgency.
Atlantic Resolve- In these 4 companies US forces rotate continuously in the year in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland with the assistance of the US air force.
DEFENDER-Europe 20- US-led multinational exercise which was conducted in the year 2020, the number of participating countries was reduced at that time because of the covid-19 pandemic.
Ukraine And Russia War
- The war that is currently going on between Ukraine and Russia NATO has played in increasing tensions between both nations. Ukraine was initially part of the soviet union which means in those times they were deeply influenced by communist ideology but, when USSR broke down Ukraine came up as a full-fledged democracy and after 2010 it been seen that Ukraine became extremely close to NATO nations and it was in the air that Ukraine is going to join NATO in 2022 which could be a danger for Russia as NATO also has the USA as a member and having American’s army on their border could be a threat to them that became the reason which increased tensions between Ukraine and Russia and NATO talks with Ukraine for the membership also started decreasing. When Russia got to hold on to the 2 western provinces of Ukraine which were under Russian influence namely Donetsk and Luhansk and declared them independent of Ukraine, attacked Ukraine from all possible ends. At that time Ukraine was left alone to fight as they were not having NATO’s membership so they cannot help them with their forces, but all the NATO nations imposed high sanctions on Russia to break them financially and supplied arms and ammunition to Ukraine and provide them with medical and humanitarian aid. Also, all the neighboring countries of Ukraine helped in evacuating foreigners out of the country and women and children of Ukrainian origin.
Views Of Nato Nations On Current Geo-political Situations
It was clearly seen in the late 20th century that NATO was working with the idea of being a group of the most powerful and influential countries. NATO has helped a lot of countries in gaining independence from the monarch or socialist influence and at the start of the 21st century aggressive moves were seen in the African region that helped them in gaining their independence. We have also seen that they have also intervened In the Afghanistan crisis till 2014 which definitely showcases they must be having some of the deepest assets in Afghan territory which could have helped them in stopping the recent upsurge of Taliban which we saw in 2021 or the transfer of power could have been done in a planned and systematic manner as it was done in Kosovo and Bosnia.
In the year 2022, we have seen a very big military attack of Russia on a small democratic nation Ukraine. The struggle between these two nations is still going on but NATO must have given their support or some military assistance which could have helped Ukraine to confront Russia. In these tough situations, NATO countries have countered these ideas of supporting Ukraine by saying that Ukraine is not part of NATO nations so they cannot give military assistance to them. On this, we can say that when they helped in Afghanistan which was also not part of NATO then why did they help them? These are just baseless reasons given by them to just make themselves away from this conflict and these big, wealthy, developed nations use their own rules and regulations always for their own benefits and always create war-like situations that can be beneficial to them and stand outside and watch the countries burning, their economies getting depreciated.
Top 13 Interesting Facts About NATO
1. NATO was established on 4th April 1949
After the end of World War 2, it was established with the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, and Luxembourg as the establishing nations to ensure military-level cooperation between them if a world-level war-like situation arises.
2. NATO is now made up of 30 nations
When NATO was established, it has only 12 members and further included 18 members from time to time.
3. NATO has security members in more than 40 countries.
NATO has close coordination in all over Europe and also with the African union with their organizations of security.
4. NATO intervened in the Bosnian war
From 1992- 2005 NATO helped Bosnia to get its independence from Yugoslavia.
5. Attack on one NATO member invites an attack from all of the NATO nations.
NATO nations are very well coordinated in terms of military level coordination as they helped the member nation in their adverse situation.
6. Article 5 of NATO conventions was invoked once after 9/11
Article 5 got invoked after 9/11 in the Atlantic region against Al-QUAEDA as very strict measures were taken at that time to eradicate terrorism from the world.
7. France re-joined NATO after a break
In the starting period, France questioned USA’S dominance in the organization and finally withdrew in 1968 and after that, they re-joined NATO in the year 2009.
8. NATO members spend 2 per cent of their GDP on defence
NATO consist of some of the most technologically advanced countries in the defence sector as they all spend all most 2 per cent of their GDP on the army of their nation.
9. One NATO member which does not have its own army
ICELAND is the only nation which is a member of NATO and does not have its own army.
10. Open door policy of NATO
Article 10 of NATO states that its entry is open for every European nation.
11. Managing crises around the world
All the countries in NATO promote stability of the neighbourhood and help the country which is struggling to regain their democracy.
12. NATO has one of the best level commanding mechanisms
NATO’s structure of working with different militaries who are trained in different backgrounds and using them wisely and in the best format to ensure safety for every member nation.
13. International cyber security
The greatest technologies in the world which has ensured the greatest cyber security network in the whole world.
