NATO - NOW WITH 30 MEMBER STATES


MARCH 30:
Today I want to tell something about NATO. Why?  Because the alliance just got its member state no. 30:  North Macedonia.  So, now four former Yugoslav countries are full members of NATO.
The history very briefly:   NATO ( North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ) was created in April 1949.  It had 12 member states from the beginning, incl. the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, Norway and Denmark.  On the other side of the Atlantic the US and Canada were also full members from the start. West Germany only became an independent country one month later, and it joined NATO from 1955.
See more on NATO’s home page:   https://www.nato.int/


The most important article in the NATO treaty is article 5. It says:  An attack on one member state is automatically considered to be an attack on all members!  And in the years following the start a significant improvement of the military equipment and readiness of all members took place – with a strong economic and military support from the US.
The political leader of NATO, the secretary-general, always has to be a European.  At the moment it is the former Norwegian prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg. The military leader in the alliance must be an American. He is called SACEUR ( Supreme Allied Commander Europe ).  Since 2019 it has been general Tom Wolters from the US Air Force. 
NATO’s political headquarters are in Brussels. And the military one – SHAPE – is in Casteau in the south of Belgium.
The cooperation has many aspects: coordination of the defence activities of the members, exchange of information and intelligence, standardisation of military equipment, joint military exercises, and cooperation about defence and security questions, also with non-member states.


 From time to time NATO is also handling specific tasks. One of them is The Air Policing Mission in the three Baltic countries.  Those countries do not have their own air forces. Therefore, three other NATO member states at a time look after their air defence by having jet fighters on bases in the countries.  These fighters often have a lot to do to keep Russian military airplanes out of the Baltic air space.
The cooperation in NATO takes place in two languages, English and French. Why not in all the languages of the members states, such as in the EU?  Because NATO unlike the EU is not making legislation of direct impact on citizens.
When the defence budgets are concerned this is a matter for each member state. At a NATO summit in Wales in 2014 it was agreed that all members at the latest from 2024 have to use at least 2% of GNP on defence purposes.  This is one of the questions president Trump (also) has misunderstood.  He continues claiming that this obligation is already in force now.  If every country will reach the goal in 2024 is another matter.
NATO keeps the door open for more countries, if they want to become a member and fulfill the conditions.  At the moment ( March 2020 ) three European countries want to join:  Bosnia-Herzegovina, Georgia and Ukraine.
NATO has also cooperation agreements with about 40 partner countries around the world, incl. Sweden, Finland and Austria.


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