What is NATO and Which Countries Are Members?

The treaty for which the alliance is called has 14 articles, by which all NATO members should abide. One of the essential articles within the treaty is Article 5, which declares that an assault in opposition to one member state is an assault in opposition to all of them.

That article positioned Western Europe below U.S. safety within the face of a Soviet Union that was cementing its domination over Central and Japanese Europe and appeared then solely to be rising in energy and ambition.

After the Soviet Union’s collapse within the early Nineteen Nineties, the alliance took on a wider function. NATO forces — made up of troops volunteered by member states — operated as peacekeepers in Bosnia within the Nineteen Nineties, and bombed Serbia in 1999 to guard Kosovo, the place the alliance nonetheless has troops.

Which international locations are in NATO?

Along with america and Canada, 10 different international locations grew to become a part of NATO in 1949, together with: Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and Britain.

Since then, 18 extra European powers have joined: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Turkey, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.

Different European international locations have, through the years, prevented becoming a member of NATO, together with Sweden and Finland.