NATO was founded by the North Atlantic Treaty signed on April 4, 1949 in Washington by the foreign ministers of 12 countries "to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area"
NATO has reached a watershed and needs to evaluate both its geographic scope and the spectrum of threats it is willing to address. The Alliance needs to view its capabilities with clarityand sobriety and to approach future missions with realism, bothmilitary and economic. With the survival of our civilization atstake, failure is not an option.
It is time for the U.S. to launch a coordinated policy effort inthe Black Sea area to gain support for addressing such pressingissues as the rise of Iran, WMD proliferation, cooperation in thewar on terrorism, and energy security, but the U.S. also needs totread lightly, offering support where possible and backing offwhere necessary.
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.