What is Nato? Who is in it - and why is it important?
It has been said by Donald Tusk that Europe is “closer to open conflict, closer than at any time since the Second World War”.
The Polish prime minister made the comments after Russian drones which had made incursions into Poland’s airspace were shot down by that country’s air force and allies from Nato on Tuesday night.
There are several obvious flashpoints around the world at the moment, not least with Israel’s attacks on Gaza, but it is the Ukraine war and Russia that will prove the biggest test to Nato - the military organisation which aims to keep peace as well as protecting its member states.
What is Nato?
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) is a military body that was founded after the Second World War.
Before Nato came the Treaty of Dunkirk in March 1947, signed by France and Britain to create a lasting alliance and assurance of mutual assistance should Germany once again threaten them. This was superseded in April 1949 by the North Atlantic Treaty - also known as the Washington Treaty - which established Nato.
Nato became the de facto bulwark against the Soviet Union in the Cold War - although it has only ever been a military grouping and not a political one, it was the counter balance to the Soviet bloc as the Cold War saw east-west relations become... frosty.
Nato’s purpose is to ensure collective security to its member states. So, if a member state is threatened by an external country, all member states would treat it as a threat to their own security and would provide direct military support to that nation.
The organisation is based in Brussels, Belgium and is headed by Mark Rutte, who was the prime minister of the Netherlands from 2010 to 2024. His predecessor was former Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who held the role from 2014 to 2024.
Who is in NATO?
There are currently 32 full member states of NATO:
The 12 founding states who signed the initial 1949 Treaty are:
- United States
- United Kingdom
- Belgium
- Canada
- Denmark
- France
- Iceland
- Italy
- Luxembourg
- The Netherlands
- Norway
- Portugal
On 5 May 1955, West Germany joined Nato- a move which angered the Soviet Union and its satellite states in Eastern Europe given Nazi Germany had only been defeated some 10 years before. It led to the formation of the Warsaw Pact - the USSR-led equivalent of Nato - which was signed on 14 May 1955.
When the Soviet Union’s power began to wane and Germany was reunified, East Germany was assimilated into Nato in 1990.
With the fall of the USSR in 1991, the Warsaw Pact was dismantled. Many of its former members, such as Hungary, Czech Republic and Poland, then sought to join Nato and were allowed in in 1999. Five years later the “second wave of post Cold War enlargement” happened and Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia formally became members.
Albania and Croatia joined in 2009, Montenegro in 2017 and North Macedonia in 2020.
Finland and Sweden had previously considered themselves neutral and sat outside Nato, but after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 both chose to join - Finland in 2023 and Sweden the following year.
Can Ukraine join Nato?
Nato has said that any country can join the organisation as long as it abides by the principles of mutual support. However, Ukraine has never been admitted, even well before the Russian invasion. There has never been any official reason given, but Ukraine has had a history of political corruption, and previously has had Russia-sympathising leaders.
In general, former Soviet states joining Nato enrages Vladimir Putin, and while Volodymyr Zelenskyy has previously accepted it is unlikely his country will be admitted, in recent months its prospects have changed.
The UK Defence Secretary John Healey said in February this year that Ukraine’s “rightful place” was within Nato, although he accepted that the process would “take time”.