NATO

NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states. They consist of 28 European and two North American countries. It was established after World War II, the organization applied the North Atlantic Treaty, signed in Washington, D.C., on 4 April 1949. NATO is a collective security system where its independent members agree to defend each other against attacks by third parties.

 During the Cold War, NATO operated as a check on the perceived threat posed by the Soviet Union. The alliance remained in place after the breakup of the Soviet Union. They have been involved in military operations in the Balkans, the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. NATO formed with twelve founding members and has added new members eight times. NATO's main headquarters are located in Brussels, Belgium, while NATO's military headquarters are near Mons, Belgium. The North Atlantic Treaty was largely dormant until the Korean War initiated the establishment of NATO to implement it with an integrated military structure.

From 1992-1995, Bosnia-Herzegovina was embroiled in an armed conflict. In its first use of military force, NATO actively entered the conflict in 1995, launching airstrikes near Sarajevo against Bosnian Serb strongholds and deploying roughly 60,000 soldiers. Iceland is the only member state which doesn’t have a standing army. This is likely because of its small population and the funds required to sustain one. Instead, Iceland maintains a militarized coast guard, peacekeeping forces and air defense systems.

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Facts:

NATO members are supposed to spend 2% of their GDP (Gross domestic product) on defense.

Also, over the last three years, European Allies and Canada have spent almost 46 billion US dollars more on defense. 

 The defense spending of the United States is more than double the defense spending of all other NATO members combined.

The response to whether their country should militarily aid another NATO country if it were to get into a serious military conflict with Russia was mixed.

NATO also has cyber defense experts that can be sent to help Allies under attack.

 As well as having members across North America and Europe, NATO utilizes a network of security partners around the world. 

Enemies of NATO include people or countries who are enemies of NATO countries but not officially NATO itself. The only enemy of NATO itself was the Soviet Union.

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Currently NATO is operating in Kosovo after ending the violence in the country, suppressing terrorism in the Mediterranean Sea, carrying out training missions in Iraq, supporting the African Union in it’s peacekeeping mission in the continent, and boosting it’s air policing missions along with many other extra precautions for Nato members close to Russia after it’s illegal annexation of Crimea and war on Ukraine.

NATO has an arsenal of 6,065 nuclear warheads, 3,750 of them provided by the US.NATO has an estimated 5,405,700 ground troops, with each troop having between 1 and 2 dozen people. NATO has 5,040 self-propelled artillery, 5,495 tower artillery and 2,803 self-propelled rocket launchers, and has 14,682 battle tanks and 115,855 armored vehicles. Compared to Russia, NATO has less artillery, and more vehicles and ground troops, but Russia’s command structure is in a jumble.

However, Russia is outmatched in every air force category compared to NATO. NATO has nearly five times as many units, with 20,723 jets, 3,527 of which are fighters, 1,048 ground attack aircraft, 543 transport aircraft, 678 tanker aircraft and 1,048 special units for tasks like reconnaissance. The alliance also has 8,485 helicopters to Russia's 1,543.