North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an alliance of twenty-eight countries from North America and Europe committed to fulfilling the goals of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty. In accordance with this treaty, NATO’s fundamental role is to safeguard the freedom and security of its member countries by political and military means. It also provides a forum in which countries from North America and Europe can consult on security issues of common concern and take joint action in addressing them.

Headquarters In Belgium

The NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, is the alliance’s political headquarters and the permanent home of the North Atlantic Council, NATO’s senior political decision-making body. This council brings together high-level representatives of each member country to discuss policy or operational questions requiring collective decisions. Decisions are agreed upon on the basis of unanimity and common accord. All member countries participating in the military aspect of the alliance contribute forces and equipment, which together constitute NATO’s integrated military structure. These remain under national command and control until they are required by NATO for a specific purpose. NATO does possess some common capabilities owned and operated by the alliance.

Origins After World War II

The origins of NATO were shaped by the cold war. After World War II (1939–1945), anxiety grew in western Europe as Soviet influence spread and communist governments took power in eastern European countries. In March 1948, the Treaty of Brussels was signed by Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. It pledged them to establish a joint defensive system and strengthen their economic and cultural ties. The supreme body of the Brussels Treaty Organization was to be the Consultative Council, consisting of the five foreign ministers.

In July 1948, preliminary talks that led to the North Atlantic Treaty began between the U.S. state department and the ambassadors of Canada and of the Brussels treaty powers. The talks ended in September 1948 with a report to governments recommending inter alia that the proposed treaty should promote peace and security, express determination of the parties to resist aggression, define the area in which it should be operative, be based on self-help and mutual aid, be more than military, and provide machinery for implementation. The following month, the Consultative Council announced complete agreement on the principle of a defensive pact for the North Atlantic and the next steps in this direction.

The actual drafting of the treaty started in December 1948. On March 15, 1949, the Brussels treaty powers, Canada, and the United States formally invited Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Norway, and Portugal to adhere to the treaty. On April 4, 1949, the treaty was signed by Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It was ratified by the legislative bodies of the member countries within five months.

Since 1949, NATO’s membership has increased from twelve to twenty-eight countries. In 1952, Greece and Turkey acceded to the treaty, the Federal Republic of Germany joined in 1955, and Spain in 1982. In 1990, with the unification of Germany, the former German Democratic Republic came under NATO’s security protection. The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined in 1999. In 2003, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia were invited to begin accession talks, and they formally acceded to the treaty in March 2004. Albania and Croatia formally became members in April 2009. Moreover, in March 2009, France submitted a formal request to rejoin the NATO command structure, which it had left in 1966. In July 2009, NATO announced the appointment of French General Stéphane Abrial as Supreme Allied Commander Transformation.

Post–Cold War Military Interventions

Throughout the cold war, NATO acted as a deterrent against military aggression. (NATO forces were not involved in a single military engagement.) With the cold war ending and the Soviet Union collapsing in 1991, NATO’s role was reevaluated, and it became increasingly involved in peacekeeping and peace-support operations. According to NATO, it now deploys in support of the wider interests of the international community and works closely with other organizations to help resolve deep-rooted problems, alleviate suffer ing, and create the conditions in which peace processes can become self-sustaining. The NATO Response Force evolved from a 2002 U.S. proposal; it can be tailored to individual missions and deployed rapidly wherever the North Atlantic Council requires.

Since its first military intervention in 1995, NATO has been engaged in increasingly diverse operations. NATO’s first three peace-support operations took place in Europe (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia). As of April 2009, approximately 70,000 military personnel were engaged in NATO missions internationally. These forces were operating in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Iraq, the Mediterranean, and Somalia. NATO’s operation in Afghanistan is the alliance’s most significant undertaking to date. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which was established by a United Nations (UN) mandate in 2001, has been under NATO leadership since August 2003. ISAF has some 55,000 troops from over forty different countries deployed in Afghanistan. Its mission is to extend the Afghan central government’s authority to create an environment conducive to functioning democratic institutions and the rule of law. With regard to Iraq, the NATO Training Mission–Iraq was set up in 2004 to help develop a democratically led and enduring security sector.

Ongoing Issues

Various issues face NATO. One such issue is the development of a missile defense system to protect NATO territory. At a Bucharest summit in April 2008, allied leaders agreed that the planned deployment of European-based U.S. missile defense assets should be an integral part of any future NATO-wide missile defense architecture. The system has been opposed by Russia and created tensions. The United States said in September 2009 that it would no longer move forward with parts of the system being based in Poland and the Czech Republic, and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen called for a new strategic partnership with Russia. Similarly, the enlargement of NATO into Eastern Europe and the joining of former Soviet Republics have been sources of contention with Russia. There is also ongoing debate over the role of NATO in the “war on terror ism” and its operations in Afghanistan.

Bibliography:

DeRouen, Karl, Jr., and Paul Bellamy, eds. International Security and the United States: An Encyclopedia. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2008.
“France Officially Asks to Rejoin NATO Command.” Washington Times. March 20, 2009. www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/20/france-officially-asks-to-rejoin-nato-command.
House of Commons Defence Committee. The Future of NATO and European Defence: Ninth Report of Session 2007–08. March 20, 2008. www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmdfence/111/111.pdf.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization. www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/index.htm.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO Handbook. 2006. www.nato.int/docu/handbook/2006/hb-en-2006.pdf.
Purvis, Andrew. “NATO: Alliance of the Unwilling.” Time Magazine. March 26, 2008. www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725548,00. html.
Robertson, David. A Dictionary of Modern Politics. 3rd ed. London: Europa, 2002.
Rupp, Richard E. NATO after 9/11: An Alliance in Continuing Decline. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

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