75th anniversary of NATO and 25th anniversary of Poland’s accession to the Alliance

4^th April marked the 75^th anniversary of the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, the founding document of NATO. A little earlier, on 12^th March, Poland celebrated the 25^th anniversary of its accession to the Alliance.

The North Atlantic Treaty was signed by 12 countries: the USA, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, France,

Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and the UK in Washington in 1949. The reason for the creation of the organisation was the continuing threat from the USSR and the emergence of a bloc of communist states, posing a threat to the process of creating post-war order in Europe.

”The commitment on which NATO was founded is one: an attack on one ally is an attack on all. On this foundation we have built the most powerful and most effective alliance in history”, said Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. He added, however, that ”while we celebrate NATO’s achievements, we do not stop there. Europe is now facing a war on a scale that we thought was history”, – he stressed.

The commitment referred to in Jens Stoltenberg’s speech was contained in Article 5 of the Treaty. It directs the other member states of the Alliance to provide assistance “to a country under attack by taking immediately, individually or with other countries, such action as they deem necessary, including the use of military force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area”. Article 5, which was created in the Cold War context with Russia in mind, has so far only been triggered once and in very different circumstances – after the terrorist attacks perpetrated by Al-Qaeda in the United States on 11^th September, 2001. NATO unanimously recognised it as an attack on the entire Alliance just one day later.

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