North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the context of "Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II"

The Visegrád Group (also known as the Visegrád Four or the V4) is a cultural and political alliance of four Central European countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. The alliance aims to advance co-operation in military, economic, cultural and energy affairs. All four nations are also members of the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the Three Seas Initiative.

The alliance traces its origins to the summit meetings of leaders of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland, held in the Hungarian castle town of Visegrád on 15 February 1991. Visegrád was chosen as the location for the summits as an intentional allusion to the medieval Congress of Visegrád between John I of Bohemia, Charles I of Hungary, and Casimir III of Poland in 1335.

The NATO headquarters is the political and administrative center of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). After previous locations in London and Paris, it has been headquartered in Brussels since 1967, in a complex in Haren, part of the City of Brussels, along the Boulevard Léopold III/Leopold III-laan.

The staff at the headquarters is composed of national delegations of NATO member states and includes civilian and military liaison offices and officers or diplomatic missions and diplomats of partner countries, as well as the International Staff (IS) and International Military Staff (IMS) filled from serving members of the armed forces of member states. Non-governmental citizens' groups have also grown up in support of NATO, broadly under the banner of the Atlantic Council/Atlantic Treaty Association movement.

The Soviet Navy (Russian: Военно-морской флот (ВМФ) СССР, romanized: Voyenno-morskoy flot (VMF) SSSR) was the naval warfare uniform service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy made up a large part of the Soviet Union's strategic planning in the event of a conflict with the opposing superpower, the United States, during the Cold War (1945–1991). The Soviet Navy played a large role during the Cold War, either confronting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in western Europe or power projection to maintain its sphere of influence in eastern Europe.

The Soviet Navy was divided into four major fleets: the Northern, Pacific, Black Sea, and Baltic Fleets, in addition to the Leningrad Naval Base, which was commanded separately. It also had a smaller force, the Caspian Flotilla, which operated in the Caspian Sea and was followed by a larger fleet, the 5th Squadron, in the Mediterranean Sea. The Soviet Navy included Naval Aviation, Naval Infantry, and the Coastal Artillery.

The Kosovo Force (KFOR) is a NATO-led international peacekeeping force and military of Kosovo. KFOR is the third security responder, after the Kosovo Police and the EU Rule of Law (EULEX) mission, respectively, with whom NATO peacekeeping forces work in close coordination. Its operations are gradually reducing until the Kosovo Security Force, established in 2009, becomes self-sufficient.

KFOR entered Kosovo on 12 June 1999, one day after the United Nations Security Council adopted the UNSC Resolution 1244. At the time, Kosovo was facing a grave humanitarian crisis, with the Yugoslav Army in action against the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in daily engagements. Nearly one million people had fled Kosovo as refugees by that time, many of whom left permanently.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an international military alliance consisting of 32 member states from Europe and North America. It was established at the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949. Of the 32 member countries, 30 are in Europe and two are in North America. Between 1994 and 1997, wider forums for regional cooperation between NATO and its neighbours were set up, including the Partnership for Peace, the Mediterranean Dialogue initiative, and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council.

All members have militaries, except for Iceland, which does not have a typical army (but it does have a coast guard and a small unit of civilian specialists for NATO operations). Three of NATO's members are nuclear weapons states: France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. NATO has 12 original founding member states. Three more members joined between 1952 and 1955, and a fourth joined in 1982. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has added 16 more members from 1999 to 2024. Article 5 of the treaty states that if an armed attack occurs against one of the member states, it shall be considered an attack against all members, and other members shall assist the attacked member, with armed forces if necessary. Article 6 of the treaty limits the scope of Article 5 to the islands north of the Tropic of Cancer, the North American and European mainlands, the entirety of Turkey, and French Algeria, the last of which has been moot since July 1962. Thus, an attack on Hawaii, Puerto Rico, French Guiana, the Falkland Islands, Ceuta or Melilla, among other places, would not trigger an Article 5 response.

The Western European Union (WEU; French: Union de l'Europe occidentale, UEO; German: Westeuropäische Union, WEU) was the international organisation and military alliance that succeeded the Western Union (WU) after the 1954 amendment of the 1948 Treaty of Brussels. The WEU implemented the Modified Brussels Treaty. During the Cold War, the Western Bloc included the WEU member-states, plus the United States and Canada, as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The Cold War ended c. 1991, and at the turn of the 21st century, WEU tasks and institutions were gradually transferred to the European Union (EU), providing central parts of the EU's new military component, the European Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). This process was completed in 2009 when a solidarity clause between the member states of the European Union, which was similar (but not identical) to the WEU's mutual-defence clause, entered into force with the Treaty of Lisbon. The states party to the Modified Treaty of Brussels consequently decided to terminate that treaty on 31 March 2010, with all the WEU's remaining activities to cease within 15 months.On 30 June 2011, the WEU officially ceased to exist; with the European Union taking over its activities.

The Atlantic Treaty Association (ATA) is an umbrella organization which draws together political leaders, academics, military officials, and diplomats to support the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The ATA is an independent organization that is separate from NATO.

The structure of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is complex and multi-faceted. The decision-making body is the North Atlantic Council (NAC), and the member state representatives also sit on the Defence Policy and Planning Committee (DPPC) and the Nuclear Planning Group (NPG). Below that the Secretary General of NATO directs the civilian International Staff, that is divided into administrative divisions, offices and other organizations. Also responsible to the NAC, DPPC, and NPG are a host of committees that supervise the various NATO logistics and standardisation agencies.

The NATO Military Committee advises and assists the NAC on military matters. 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.