The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a political and military alliance of countries from North America and Europe. It was founded on April 4, 1949, when 12 countries signed the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington. Its headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium.
Why NATO was formed
After the Second World War, Western European countries and the United States wanted to deter expansion by the Soviet Union. NATO was created as a system of collective defence. In response, the Soviet Union and its allies formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955, which dissolved in 1991.
Members
NATO has 32 members. The founding members included the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and others. After the Cold War, many Central and Eastern European countries joined. Finland joined in April 2023 and Sweden in March 2024, both after Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Article 5
The core of NATO is Article 5 of the treaty. It says that an armed attack against one member is considered an attack against all, and each member will take the action it deems necessary to help. Article 5 has been invoked only once, after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
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How decisions are taken
NATO decisions are taken by consensus in the North Atlantic Council, where every member has an equal voice. The alliance is led by a civilian Secretary General. Mark Rutte, a former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, took over the post in October 2024. Military planning is led by NATO’s military structure.
Defence spending
Members agreed in 2014 to aim to spend at least 2 percent of GDP on defence. At the 2025 summit in The Hague, members agreed to a new goal of spending 5 percent of GDP on defence and security related needs by 2035, with at least 3.5 percent on core defence.
How countries join
Article 10 allows other European states to be invited to join. All existing members must agree, and the applicant must meet political, economic and military criteria.
NATO and India
India is not a member and follows a policy of strategic autonomy. It has engaged with NATO in limited ways on issues such as maritime security, but India’s main partnerships in the Indo Pacific are through groupings like the Quad and bilateral ties.
Bottom line
NATO is built on the promise that an attack on one is an attack on all. With 32 members, it remains the largest military alliance in the world.
Source / स्रोत: NATO, Ministry of External Affairs
