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{{|Malta}}
Albania
Bosnia and Herzegovina (as part of Yugoslavia)
Croatia (as part of Yugoslavia)
Montenegro (as part of Yugoslavia)
Serbia (as part of Yugoslavia)
FYRO Macedonia (as part of Yugoslavia)
Ukraine (as part of the Soviet Union)
Georgia (as part of the Soviet Union)
Individual Partnership Action Plans
Launched at the November 2002 Prague Summit, Individual Partnership Action Plans (IPAPs) are open to countries that have the political will and ability to deepen their relationship with NATO.
Currently IPAPs are in implementation with the following countries:
- Georgia (29 October 2004)
Azerbaijan (27 May 2005)
Armenia (16 December 2005)- Ukraine (9 July 1997)
Moldova (19 May 2006)- Bosnia and Herzegovina (10 January 2008)
- Montenegro (June 2008)
Contact Countries
Since 1990-91, the Alliance has gradually increased its contact with countries that do not form part of any of the above cooperative groupings. Political dialogue with Japan began in 1990, and a range of non-NATO countries have contributed to peacekeeping operations in the former Yugoslavia.
The Allies established a set of general guidelines on relations with other countries, beyond the above groupings in 1998. The guidelines do not allow for a formal institutionalization of relations, but reflect the Allies’ desire to increase cooperation. Following extensive debate, the term Contact Countries was agreed by the Allies in 2004. Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Japan currently have this status.
Structures
The NATO website divides the internal NATO organization into political structures, military structures, and agencies & organizations immediately subordinate to NATO headquarters. The main headquarters of NATO is located on Boulevard Léopold III, B-1110 Brussels, which is in Haren, part of the City of Brussels municipality. A new headquarters building is currently in construction nearby, due for completion in 2012. The current design is an adaptation of the original award-winning scheme designed by Larry Oltmanns and his team when he was a Design Partner with SOM.
Political structure
Like any alliance, NATO is ultimately governed by its 26 member states. However, the North Atlantic Treaty, and other agreements, outline how decisions are to be made within NATO. Each of the 26 members sends a delegation or mission to NATO’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. The senior permanent member of each delegation is known as the Permanent Representative and is generally a senior civil servant or an experienced ambassador (and holding that diplomatic rank).
Together the Permanent Members form the North Atlantic Council (NAC), a body which meets together at least once a week and has effective political authority and powers of decision in NATO. From time to time the Council also meets at higher levels involving Foreign Ministers, Defence Ministers or Heads of State or Government (HOSG) and it is at these meetings that major decisions regarding NATO’s policies are generally taken. However, it is worth noting that the Council has the same authority and powers of decision-making, and its decisions have the same status and validity, at whatever level it meets. NATO summits also form a further venue for decisions on complex issues, such as enlargement.
The meetings of the North Atlantic Council are chaired by the Secretary General of NATO and, when decisions have to be made, action is agreed upon on the basis of unanimity and common accord. There is no voting or decision by majority. Each nation represented at the Council table or on any of its subordinate committees retains complete sovereignty and responsibility for its own decisions.
NATO Military Committee
The second pivotal member of each country's delegation is the Military Representative, a senior officer from each country's armed forces. Together the Military Representatives form the Military Committee (MC), a body responsible for recommending to NATO’s political authorities those measures considered necessary for the common defence of the NATO area. Its principal role is to provide direction and advice on military policy and strategy. It provides guidance on military matters to the NATO Strategic Commanders, whose representatives attend its meetings, and is responsible for the overall conduct of the military affairs of the Alliance under the authority of the Council. Like the council, from time to time the Military Committee also meets at a higher level, namely at the level of Chiefs of defence, the most senior military officer in each nation's armed forces. The Defence Planning Committee excludes France, due to that country's 1966 decision to remove itself from NATO's integrated military structure. On a practical level, this means that issues that are acceptable to most NATO members but unacceptable to France may be directed to the Defence Planning Committee for more expedient resolution. Such was the case in the lead up to Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The current Chairman of the NATO Military Committee is Giampaolo Di Paola of Italy (since 2008).
NATO Parliamentary Assembly
The NATO Parliamentary Assembly, presided by José Lello, is made up of legislators from the member countries of the North Atlantic Alliance as well as thirteen associate members. It is however officially a different structure from NATO, and has as aim to join together deputies of NATO countries in order to discuss security policies.
Subordinate to the political structure are the International Staff and International Military Staff, which administer NATO programmes and carry out high-level political, military, and also civil emergency planning.
Over the years, non-governmental citizens' groups have grown up in support of NATO, broadly under the banner of the Atlantic Council/Atlantic Treaty Association movement.
List of officials
| 1 | General Lord Ismay |  United Kingdom
|
4 April 1952–16 May 1957 |
| 2 | Paul-Henri Spaak |  Belgium
|
16 May 1957–21 April 1961 |
| 3 | Dirk Stikker |  Netherlands
|
21 April 1961–1 August 1964 |
| 4 | Manlio Brosio |  Italy
|
1 August 1964–1 October 1971 |
| 5 | Joseph Luns | Netherlands
|
1 October 1971–25 June 1984 |
| 6 | Lord Carrington | United Kingdom
|
25 June 1984–1 July 1988 |
| 7 | Manfred Wörner |  Germany
|
1 July 1988–13 August 1994 |
| 8 | Sergio Balanzino | Italy
|
13 August 1994–17 October 1994 |
| 9 | Willy Claes | Belgium
|
17 October 1994–20 October 1995 |
| 10 | Sergio Balanzino | Italy
|
20 October 1995–5 December 1995 |
| 11 | Javier Solana |  Spain
|
5 December 1995–6 October 1999 |
| 12 | Lord Robertson of Port Ellen | United Kingdom
|
14 October 1999–1 January 2004 |
| 13 | Jaap de Hoop Scheffer | Netherlands
|
1 January 2004–present |
| # | Name | Country | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sergio Balanzino | Italy
|
1994–2001 |
| 2 | Alessandro Minuto Rizzo | Italy
|
2001–present |
Military structure
See also: Category:Military units and formations of NATO
NATO's military operations are directed by the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, and split into two Strategic Commands both commanded by a senior US officer assisted by a staff drawn from across NATO. The Strategic Commanders are responsible to the Military Committee for the overall direction and conduct of all Alliance military matters within their areas of command.
Before 2003 the Strategic Commanders were the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) and the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (SACLANT) but the current arrangement is to separate command responsibility between Allied Command Transformation (ACT), responsible for transformation and training of NATO forces, and Allied Command Operations, responsible for NATO operations world wide.
The commander of Allied Command Operations retained the title "Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR)", and is based in the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) located at Casteau, north of the Belgian city of Mons. This is about 80 km (50 miles) south of NATO’s political headquarters in Brussels. ACO is headed by SACEUR, a US four star general with the dual-hatted role of heading US European Command, which is headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany. SHAPE was in Rocquencourt, west of Paris, until 1966, when French president Charles de Gaulle withdrew French forces from the Atlantic Alliance. NATO's headquarters were then forced to move to Belgium, while many military units had to move.
ACO includes Joint Force Command Brunssum in the Netherlands, Joint Force Command Naples in Italy, and Joint Command Lisbon, all multinational headquarters with many nations represented. JFC Brunssum has its land component, Allied Land Component Command Headquarters Heidelberg at Heidelberg, Germany, its air component at Ramstein in Germany, and its naval component at the Northwood Headquarters in the northwest suburbs of London. JFC Naples has its land component in Madrid, air component at Izmir, Turkey, and naval component in Naples, Italy. It also directs KFOR in Kosovo. JC Lisbon is a smaller HQ with no subordinate commands. Lajes Field, in the Portuguese Azores, is an important transatlantic staging post. Directly responsible to SACEUR is the NATO Airborne Early Warning Force at NATO Air Base Geilenkirchen in Germany where a jointly funded fleet of E-3 Sentry AWACS airborne radar aircraft is located. The C-17s of the NATO Strategic Airlift Capability, to be made operational in the next few years, will be based at Pápa airfield in Hungary, and probably come under SACEUR's control.
Allied Command Transformation (ACT) is based in the former Allied Command Atlantic headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, United States. Allied Command Atlantic, usually known as SACLANT (Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic), after its commander, became ACT in 2003. It is headed by the Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (SACT), a US four-star general or admiral with the dual-hatted role as commander US Joint Forces Command (COMUSJFCOM). There is also an ACT command element located at SHAPE in Mons, Belgium.
Subordinate ACT organizations include the Joint Warfare Centre (JWC) located in Stavanger, Norway (in the same site as the Norwegian NJHQ); the Joint Force Training Centre (JFTC) in Bydgoszcz, Poland; the Joint Analysis and Lessons Learned Centre (JALLC) in Monsanto, Portugal; and the NATO Undersea Research Centre (NURC), La Spezia, Italy.
Organizations and Agencies
The NATO website lists forty-three different agencies and organizations and five project committees/offices as of 15 May 2008. They include:
- nine logistics bodies (including five pipeline and one medical), which include the:
- NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency
- Central European Pipeline System
- NATO Pipeline System
- five production logistics bodies, including the:
- four standardisation bodies, including the NATO Standardization Agency
- three civil emergency planning bodies
- five Air Defence & Air Traffic Control bodies, including the:
- NATO ACCS Management Agency (NACMA), based in Brussels, manages around a hundred persons in charge of the Air Control and Command System (ACCS) due for 2009.
- NATO Programming Centre
- one AEW body, the NATO Airborne Early Warning & Control Programme Management Organization
- eight communications & information systems bodies, including the:
- NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A), reporting to the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Organization (NC3O). The SHAPE Technical Centre (STC) in The Hague (Netherlands) merged in 1996 with the NATO Communications and Information Systems Operating and Support Agency (NACOSA) based in Brussels (Belgium), forming the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A). The agency comprises around 650 staff, of which around 400 are located in The Hague and 250 in Brussels. It reports to the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Board (NC3B).
- NATO Communications and Information Systems Agency (NCSA), based in Mons (BEL), was established in August 2004 from the former NATO Communications and Information Systems Operating and Support Agency (NACOSA).
- one electronic warfare agency
- one meteorological body, the Military Committee Meteorological Group (MCMG)
- one oceanography body, the Military Oceanography (MILOC) Group
- the Research and Technology Agency (RTA), reporting to the NATO Research and Technology Organization (RTO);
- four education & training bodies, including the NATO School and NATO Defence College
- five project committees and offices:
- Alliance Ground Surveillance Capability Provisional Project Office (AGS/PPO)
- Battlefield Information Collection and Exploitation System (BICES)
- NATO Continuous Acquisition and Life Cycle Support Office (CALS)
- NATO FORACS Office
- Munitions Safety Information Analysis Center (MSIAC)
References
- NATO Topics: Individual Partnership Action Plans
- NATO, Relations with Contact Countries, accessed 18 June 2008
- "NATO homepage". Retrieved 2006-03-12.
- "National delegations to NATO What is their role?". NATO. 2007-06-18. Retrieved 2007-07-15.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - Espen Barth, Eide (Spring 2005). "Should NATO play a more political role?". Nato Review. NATO. Retrieved 2007-07-15.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - Fuller, Thomas (2003-02-18). "Reaching accord, EU warns Saddam of his 'last chance'". International Herald Tribune. Retrieved 2007-07-15.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - NATO PA - About the NATO Parliamentary Assembly
- NATO Handbook 2001,
- ^ NATO Who's who? - Secretaries General of NATO
- http://www.nato.int/cv/secgen/brosio.htm
- NURC Home
- NATO, Organizations and Agencies, accessed May 2008
- NATO C3 Agency
- NATO Communication and Information Systems Agency
- NATO Research & Technology Organization
References and Further reading
- David C. Isby & Charles Kamps Jr, Armies of NATO's Central Front, Jane's Publishing Company Ltd 1985
Further Reading - Early period
- Eisenhower, Dwight D. The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower. Vols. 12 and 13: NATO and the Campaign of 1952 : Louis Galambos et al., ed. Johns Hopkins U. Press, 1989. 1707 pp. in 2 vol.
- Gearson, John and Schake, Kori, ed. The Berlin Wall Crisis: Perspectives on Cold War Alliances Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. 209 pp.
- John C. Milloy. North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, 1948–1957: Community or Alliance? (2006), focus on non-military issues
- Smith, Joseph, ed. The Origins of NATO Exeter, UK U. of Exeter Press, 1990. 173 pp.
Further Reading- Late Cold War period
- Smith, Jean Edward, and Canby, Steven L.The Evolution of NATO with Four Plausible Threat Scenarios. Canada Department of Defense: Ottawa, 1987. 117 pp.
Further Reading - Post Cold War period
- Asmus, Ronald D. Opening NATO's Door: How the Alliance Remade Itself for a New Era Columbia U. Press, 2002. 372 pp.
- Bacevich, Andrew J. and Cohen, Eliot A. War over Kosovo: Politics and Strategy in a Global Age. Columbia U. Press, 2002. 223 pp.
- Daclon, Corrado Maria Security through Science: Interview with Jean Fournet, Assistant Secretary General of NATO, Analisi Difesa, 2004. no. 42
- Gheciu, Alexandra. NATO in the 'New Europe' Stanford University Press, 2005. 345 pp.
- Hendrickson, Ryan C. Diplomacy and War at NATO: The Secretary General and Military Action After the Cold War Univ. of Missouri Press, 2006. 175 pp.
- Lambeth, Benjamin S. NATO's Air War in Kosovo: A Strategic and Operational Assessment Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2001. 250 pp.
Further Reading - General histories
- Kaplan, Lawrence S. The Long Entanglement: NATO's First Fifty Years. Praeger, 1999. 262 pp.
- Kaplan, Lawrence S. NATO Divided, NATO United: The Evolution of an Alliance. Praeger, 2004. 165 pp.
- Létourneau, Paul. Le Canada et l'OTAN après 40 ans, 1949–1989 Quebec: Cen. Québécois de Relations Int., 1992. 217 pp.
- Paquette, Laure. NATO and Eastern Europe After 2000 (New York: Nova Science, 2001).
- Powaski, Ronald E. The Entangling Alliance: The United States and European Security, 1950–1993. Greenwood, 1994. 261 pp.
- Telo, António José. Portugal e a NATO: O Reencontro da Tradiçoa Atlântica Lisbon: Cosmos, 1996. 374 pp.
- Sandler, Todd and Hartley, Keith. The Political Economy of NATO: Past, Present, and into the 21st Century. Cambridge U. Press, 1999. 292 pp.
- Zorgbibe, Charles. Histoire de l'OTAN Brussels: Complexe, 2002. 283 pp.
Further Reading - Other Issues
- Kaplan, Lawrence S., ed. American Historians and the Atlantic Alliance. Kent State U. Press, 1991. 192 pp.
External links
- NATO including Basic NATO Documents
- NATO: a Pledge for Peace and Progress - Canadian War Museum
- NATO at 50
- NATO at Fifty: New Challenges, Future Uncertainties U.S. Institute of Peace Report, March 1999
- NATO searches for defining role
- CBC Digital Archives—One for all: The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
- FAES NATO: an Alliance for Freedom
- Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports regarding NATO
- History of NATO – the Atlantic Alliance—UK Government site
- The Globalization of Military Power: NATO Expansion (CRG)
- The Impact of NATO forces in Afghanistan An analysis of the effects of the U.S. led occupation on the political and social climate of Afghanistan.
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- Anti-communism
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- Organizations established in 1949
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