NATO

NATO A defensive military alliance founded on 4 April 1949 which established military co operation among its member states and them to defend each individual member in case of a military attack. Its members were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, the Federal Republic of Germany (since 1955), France, Greece (since 1952, left in 1974, rejoined 1979), Iceland (which has no military forces), Italy, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain (since 1982), Turkey (since 1952), the UK, and the USA. Spain and France (from 1966) were not members of the integrated military commands, so that in case of attack their troops were not automatically under NATO high command. The reason for its creation was the military threat posed by the Soviet Union and its satellite eastern European states. The collapse of the Warsaw Pact forced NATO to redefine its role to allow an efficient potential response to the instabilities of the former Soviet Union, such as a streamlining of its military organization, and the creation of Allied Rapid Reaction Forces (ARRF) for immediate mobilization in areas of crisis. NATO also allowed its troops to be at the disposal of the UN, which led to their first-ever deployment in combat in the Bosnian Civil War.

 To readdress its relationship with the former members of the Warsaw Pact, NATO formed the Partnership for Peace in 1994, an alliance which established military consultation and cooperation between the signatory states. The Partnership for Peace was joined by twenty states from the former area of the Warsaw Pact, as well as the previously neutral states of Sweden and Finland. It fell conspicuously short of a military guarantee of the integrity of its member states' borders, but held out a promise of their future full membership in NATO.

A watershed was reached when NATO forces intervened in Kosovo in 1999. This exposed the military weakness of the alliance, as the military and technological superiority of the United States over the other member states became glaringly obvious. This was confirmed in response to the September 11 attacks. For the first time in its history, the common defence clause in the case of an attack (Art. 5) was invoked. The US, in response, preferred not to make use of this offer, and to use only its own sophisticated missile systems and specialist units in its action against the Taliban.

Ironically, with the diminution of NATO's military effectiveness, its political role became more accentuated. For it facilitated the integration of further members even though these added little to NATO's overall military capabilities. Thus, the Prague Summit of 2002 was expected to announce the accession of seven out of nine applicant states, namely Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, and Bulgaria. At the same time, cooperation with Russia was extended, in a further signal of the increasing political, rather than military, importance of the alliance.