The treaty for which the alliance is named has 14 articles, by which all NATO members must abide. One of the most important articles in the treaty is Article 5, which declares that an attack against one member state is an attack against them all.Updated March 7, 2022, 7:36 a.m. ETThat article placed Western Europe under U.S. protection in the face of a Soviet Union that was cementing its domination over Central and Eastern Europe and appeared then only to be growing in power and ambition.After the Soviet Union’s collapse in the early 1990s, the alliance took on a wider role. NATO forces — made up of troops volunteered by member states — operated as peacekeepers in Bosnia in the 1990s, and bombed Serbia in 1999 to protect Kosovo, where the alliance still has troops.
Which countries are in NATO?
In addition to the United States and Canada, 10 other countries became part of NATO in 1949: Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Britain.
Russia-Ukraine War: Key Things to Know
Card 1 of 3Protests in Russia. Amid antiwar rallies across Russia, the police said more than 3,000 people were arrested Sunday, the highest nationwide total in any single day of protest in recent memory. An activist group that tracks arrests reported detentions in 49 different Russian cities.Since then, 18 more European powers have joined: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Turkey, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.Other European countries have, over the years, avoided joining NATO, including Sweden and Finland.