NATO: Many of us are hearing about NATO and NATO member countries during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, but not many know about this intergovernmental military alliance and who all are its members. So without wasting your time, EBNW Story features everything about NATO:
NATO’s stands for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation which is also known as the North Atlantic Alliance. It is a military alliance created in 1949 by twelve countries including the United States, UK, France and Canada. However, now NATO is a group of 30 member countries that agree to work together to ensure the security of the Northern Atlantic area. NATO’s headquarter is located in Brussels, Belgium.
NATO’s aims at guaranting the freedom and security of its members through political and military means, according to the NATO website. NATO was formed largely to counter the threat from the Soviet Union post World War II as the USSR had created its own military alliance in 1955 to counter NATO, called the Warsaw pact. As Warsaw got disbanded with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, several of the Warsaw pact countries became NATO members.
NATO is a system of collective security under the system where an attack on one member state is considered as an attack on all and it calls for a collective response. This means it promises the collective security of all NATO member states.
Currently, NATO – the military organization has 30 members of which North Macedonia is the latest to join NATO in 2020. NATO member countries include two North American countries, 27 European countries and one Eurasian country. Here’s the list of NATO member countries:
1. Albania (2009)
2. Belgium (1949)
3. Bulgaria (2004)
4. Canada (1949)
5. Croatia (2009)
6. Czech Republic (1999)
7. Denmark (1949)
8. Estonia (2004)
9. France (1949)
10. Germany (1955)
11. Greece (1952)
12. Hungary (1999)
13. Iceland (1949)
14. Italy (1949)
15. Latvia (2004)
16. Lithuania (2004)
17. Luxembourg (1949)
18. Montenegro (2017)
19. Netherlands (1949)
20. North Macedonia (2020)
21. Norway (1949)
22. Poland (1999)
23. Portugal (1949)
24. Romania (2004)
25. Slovakia (2004)
26. Slovenia (2004)
27. Spain (1982)
28. Turkey (1952)
29. United Kingdom (1949)
30. United States (1949)
Who controls NATO?
NATO’s Command Structure falls under the authority of the Military Committee, NATO’s highest military authority composed of the Chiefs of Defence of all twenty-nine member countries. The NCS consists of two strategic commands: Allied Command Operations (ACO) and Allied Command Transformation (ACT).