The North Atlantic Treaty, also known as the Washington Treaty, forms the legal basis of, and is implemented by, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The treaty was signed in Washington, D.C., on 4 April 1949.
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👉 North Atlantic Treaty in the context of Enlargement of NATO
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 (commonly called the Warsaw Pact) later that month. Following the end of the Franco regime, newly democratic Spain chose to join NATO in 1982.
In 1990, negotiators reached an agreement that a reunified Germany would be in NATO under West Germany's existing membership. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, many former Warsaw Pact and post-Soviet states sought to join NATO. Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic became members in 1999, amid much debate within NATO itself. NATO then formalized the process of joining the organization with "Membership Action Plans", which aided the accession of seven Central and Eastern Europe countries shortly before the 2004 Istanbul summit: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Two countries on the Adriatic Sea—Albania and Croatia—joined on 1 April 2009 before the 2009 Strasbourg–Kehl summit. The next member states to join NATO were Montenegro in June 2017, and North Macedonia in March 2020.
In this Dossier
- ⭐ Core Definition: North Atlantic Treaty
- 👉 North Atlantic Treaty in the context of Enlargement of NATO
- North Atlantic Treaty in the context of NATO
- North Atlantic Treaty in the context of North Atlantic Treaty Organization
- North Atlantic Treaty in the context of Member states of NATO
- North Atlantic Treaty in the context of North Atlantic Council
- North Atlantic Treaty in the context of NATO peacekeeping
- North Atlantic Treaty in the context of Partnership for Peace
North Atlantic Treaty in the context of NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO /ˈneɪtoʊ/ NAY-toh; French: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique Nord, OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 32 member states—30 in Europe and 2 in North America. Founded in the aftermath of World War II, NATO was established with the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949. The organization serves as a system of collective security, whereby its independent member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any outside party. This is enshrined in Article 5 of the treaty, which states that an armed attack against one member shall be considered an attack against them all.
Throughout the Cold War, NATO's primary purpose was to deter and counter the threat posed by the Soviet Union and its satellite states, which formed the rival Warsaw Pact in 1955. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the alliance adapted, conducting its first major military interventions in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992–1995) and Yugoslavia (1999). Article 5 was invoked for the first and only time after the September 11 attacks, leading to the deployment of NATO troops to Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The alliance has since been involved in a range of roles, including training in Iraq, intervention in Libya in 2011, and countering piracy.
North Atlantic Treaty in the context of North Atlantic Treaty Organization
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an intergovernmental military alliance between 32 member states—30 in Europe and 2 in North America. Founded in the aftermath of World War II, NATO was established with the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949. The organization serves as a system of collective security, whereby its independent member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any outside party. This is enshrined in Article 5 of the treaty, which states that an armed attack against one member shall be considered an attack against them all.
Throughout the Cold War, NATO's primary purpose was to deter and counter the threat posed by the Soviet Union and its satellite states, which formed the rival Warsaw Pact in 1955. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the alliance adapted, conducting its first major military interventions in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992–1995) and Yugoslavia (1999). Article 5 was invoked for the first and only time after the September 11 attacks, leading to the deployment of NATO troops to Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). The alliance has since been involved in a range of roles, including training in Iraq, intervention in Libya in 2011, and countering piracy.
North Atlantic Treaty in the context of Member states of NATO
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.
North Atlantic Treaty in the context of North Atlantic Council
The North Atlantic Council (abbr. NAC, French: Conseil de l'Atlantique nord) is the principal political decision-making body of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), consisting of permanent representatives of its member countries. It was established by Article 9 of the North Atlantic Treaty, and it is the only body in NATO that derives its authority explicitly from the treaty.
North Atlantic Treaty in the context of NATO peacekeeping
Although the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) existed as an alliance and conducted joint military exercises throughout the Cold War period, it engaged in no military operations during this time. All of its military operations occurred in the post-Cold War era. The first of these was in Bosnia, where NATO engaged to an increasing extent. This engagement culminated in NATO's 1995 air campaign, Operation Deliberate Force, which targeted the Army of Republika Srpska, whose presence in Bosnia posed a danger to United Nations Safe Areas. This engagement ultimately helped to bring about the Dayton Accords.
The organization played a prominent role in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks, when the United States invoked Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which interprets an external attack on any member to be an attack on all NATO members under the idea of collective defense. NATO has participated in a wide range of roles elsewhere, including relief efforts, counter-piracy, enforcing no-fly zones and naval blockades.
North Atlantic Treaty in the context of Partnership for Peace
The Partnership for Peace (PfP; French: Partenariat pour la paix) 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 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. 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.
Amidst the security concerns in Eastern Europe after the Cold War and dissolution of the Soviet Union, and also due to the failure of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC), the program was launched during the summit in Brussels, Belgium, between January 10 and 11, 1994. In the process, neutral countries also faced a situation in which they had to reconsider maintaining military neutrality; therefore, countries such as Austria, Finland and Sweden joined the Partnership for Peace field activities in 1997.