What is NATO?

• US President Donald Trump said he was strongly considering pulling the United States out of NATO, after allies failed to back US military action against Iran.

• He described the Western alliance as a “paper tiger”.

• NATO had rejected Trump’s calls to help secure the Strait of Hormuz.

• The Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, has effectively been shut following the US and Israel attack on Iran and Tehran’s sweeping retaliation that began on February 28.

• Trump claimed significant progress had been made towards achieving his goals in the war with Iran, which are to destroy the country’s missile production and Navy, ensure its proxies can no longer destabilise the region and guarantee Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon.

• Trump said the US had destroyed Iran’s navy and air force, and crippled its ballistic missile and nuclear programs.

• But he declined to lay out a concrete plan to wind down the war, beyond saying that the US would finish the job “very fast”.

What is NATO?

• North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was formed in 1949 with the signing of the Washington Treaty. 

• NATO is a security alliance of 32 countries from North America and Europe. 

• In 1949, there were 12 founding members of the alliance: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States. 

• The other member countries are: Greece and Turkey (1952), Germany (1955), Spain (1982), the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland (1999), Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia (2004), Albania and Croatia (2009), Montenegro (2017), North Macedonia (2020), Finland (2023) and Sweden (2024).

• These countries, called NATO Allies, are sovereign states that come together through NATO to discuss political and security issues and make collective decisions by consensus.

• NATO brings together sovereign countries from Europe and North America, consulting and cooperating in the field of security and defence.

• NATO’s fundamental goal is to safeguard the Allies’ freedom and security by political and military means.

• NATO enables members to consult and cooperate on defence and security-related issues to solve problems, build trust and, in the long run, prevent conflict.

• NATO is committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes. If diplomatic efforts fail, it has the military power to undertake crisis-management operations. 

• These are carried out under the collective defence clause of NATO’s founding treaty — Article 5 of the Washington Treaty or under a United Nations mandate, alone or in cooperation with other countries and international organisations.