The Contracting Parties may, by common accord, invite any other European State likely to promote the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic region to accede to this Treaty. Any State so invited may become a party to the Treaty by depositing its instrument of accession with the Government of the United States of America. The Government of the United States of America shall inform each Contracting Party of the deposit of each of these instruments of accession. This Treaty shall be subject to ratification and its provisions by the Contracting Parties in accordance with their respective constitutional procedures. The instruments of ratification shall be deposited as soon as possible with the Government of the United States of America, which shall notify all other signatories of any deposit. The Treaty shall enter into force between the Ratifying States as soon as the ratifications of a majority of the Signatories, including the ratifications of Belgium, Canada, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States, have been deposited, and shall enter into force for the other States on the date of deposit of their ratifications. (3) When Article 5 was drafted in the late 1940s, there was consensus on the principle of mutual assistance, but fundamental differences of opinion on how to implement this obligation. The European participants wanted to ensure that the United States automatically came to their aid in the event of an attack by one of the signatories; the United States did not want such a commitment and succeeded in having it reflected in the wording of Article 5. At Turkey`s request, NATO has taken collective defence measures three times: in 1991 with the deployment of Patriot missiles during the Gulf War, in 2003 with the agreement of a set of defence measures and the implementation of Operation Display Deterrence during the crisis in Iraq, and in 2012 in response to the situation in Syria with the stationing of Patriot missiles. On 16 April 2003, NATO agreed to assume command of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, which includes troops from 42 countries.

The decision was taken at the request of Germany and the Netherlands, the two states that led ISAF at the time of the agreement, and the nineteen NATO ambassadors unanimously accepted it. The transfer of control to NATO took place on 11 August, marking the first time in NATO`s history that it has undertaken a mission outside the North Atlantic. [38] This article is supplemented by Article 6, which states that the following twelve states signed the treaty and thus became founding members of NATO. The following leaders signed the agreement as plenipotentiaries of their countries on April 4, 1949 in Washington, D.C.[5][6] The key provision of the treaty was Article 5, which began: “The parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack on all of them… While this commitment to collective defence is at the heart of NATO, it has been left to the judgment of each member state to decide exactly how it would contribute to it. The United States was the target of brutal terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001. The Alliance`s 1999 Strategic Concept had already identified terrorism as one of NATO`s security risks. However, the Alliance`s response to 9/11 called on NATO to actively participate in the fight against terrorism, launching its first operations outside the Euro-Atlantic area and engaging in a profound transformation of its capabilities. In addition, it prompted NATO to invoke Article 5 of the Washington Treaty for the first time in its history. Article 6 provides that the Treaty covers only the territories of the Member States of Europe and North America, as well as the Islands of the North Atlantic north of the Tropic of Cancer and French Algeria. In August 1965, the U.S. State Department, the U.S.

Department of Defense, and the NATO Legal Department estimated that an attack on the U.S. state of Hawaii would not trigger the treaty, but would trigger an attack on the other 49. [37] Article 5 of the NATO Charter is commonly referred to as the “collective defence” clause. It is really the teeth of the Alliance itself that describe how and why Alliance members will come to the military aid of other members. In fact, Article 5 breaks down what NATO is ready to go to war for. Since Russia`s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and rising security concerns from the south, including brutal attacks by ISIL and other terrorist groups on several continents, NATO has implemented the largest increase in collective defence since the Cold War. For example, it tripled the size of the NATO Response Force, established a 5,000-strong spearhead force, and stationed multinational combat groups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. NATO has also stepped up its presence in the south-east of the alliance, which is focusing on a multinational brigade in Romania.

The Alliance has further strengthened the air policing over the Baltic and Black Sea regions and continues to develop key military capabilities such as joint intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. .