News From Antiwar.com
After the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. the North Atlantic Treaty Organization activated its Article 5 mutual military assistance clause for the first time. That action led to the military bloc’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan as well as operations in and deployments to Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
At peak strength NATO had over 100,000 troops from more than fifty countries serving under it in the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.
The Article 5 activation was also used to deploy naval vessels to the Red Sea and Arabian Sea and for the deployment of German AWACS aircraft to the U.S.