Member states of NATO

Current NATO members highlighted in blue

Timeline of countries becoming NATO members. Dark blue marks countries that were already NATO members at the given time. Light blue marks new members.

NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is an international alliance that consists of 28 member states from North America and Europe. It was established at the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949. Article Five of the treaty states that if an armed attack occurs against one of the member states, it should be considered an attack against all members, and other members shall assist the attacked member, with armed forces if necessary.^[1]

Of the 28 member countries, two are located in North America (Canada and the United States) and 25 are European countries while Turkey is in Eurasia. All members have militaries, except for Iceland which does not have a typical army (but does, however, have a coast guard and a small unit of civilian specialists for NATO operations). Three of NATO's members are nuclear weapons states: France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. NATO has 12 original founding member nation states, and from 18 February 1952 to 6 May 1955, it added 3 more member nations, and a fourth on 30 May 1982. After the end of the Cold War, NATO added 12 more member nations (10 former Warsaw Pact members and 2 former Yugoslav republics) from 12 March 1999 to 1 April 2009.

Original and joining members

Main article: Enlargement of NATO

NATO has added new members six times since its founding in 1949, and since 2009 NATO has had 28 members. Twelve countries were part of the founding of NATO: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 1952, Greece and Turkey became members of the Alliance, joined later by West Germany (in 1955) and Spain (in 1982). In 1990, with the reunification of Germany, NATO grew to include the former country of East Germany. Between 1994 and 1997, wider forums for regional cooperation between NATO and its neighbors were set up, including the Partnership for Peace, the Mediterranean Dialogue initiative and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council. In 1997, three former Warsaw Pact countries, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland, were invited to join NATO. After this fourth enlargement in 1999, the Vilnius group of The Baltics and seven East European countries formed in May 2000 to cooperate and lobby for further NATO membership. Seven of these countries joined in the fifth enlargement in 2004. Albania and Croatia joined in the sixth enlargement in 2009.

Member states by date of accession

Date^[2]	Country	Enlargement	Notes
4 April 1949	Belgium	Founders
	Canada
	Denmark		Denmark's NATO membership includes the Faroe Islands and Greenland.
	France		Founded as the Fourth French Republic, became the modern Fifth French Republic in 1958. France withdrew from the integrated military command in 1966 to pursue an independent defense system but returned to full participation on 3 April 2009.
	Iceland		Iceland, the sole member that does not have its own standing army, joined on the condition that it would not be expected to establish one. However, its strategic geographic position in the Atlantic made it an invaluable member. It has a Coast Guard and has recently contributed a voluntary peacekeeping force, trained in Norway for NATO.
	Italy
	Luxembourg
	Netherlands
	Norway
	Portugal
	United Kingdom
	United States
18 February 1952	Greece	First	Greece withdrew its forces from NATO's military command structure from 1974 to 1980 as a result of Greco-Turkish tensions following the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus.
18 February 1952	Turkey	First
6 May 1955	Germany	Second	Commonly known as West Germany when it joined; it later reunited with Saarland in 1957 and with the Berlin territories and East Germany on 3 October 1990. East Germany was a member of the rival Warsaw Pact 1956–1990.
30 May 1982	Spain	Third
12 March 1999	Czech Republic	Fourth	Member of the rival Warsaw Pact 1955–1991 as part of Czechoslovakia.
	Hungary		Member of the rival Warsaw Pact 1955–1991.
	Poland		Member of the rival Warsaw Pact 1955–1990.
29 March 2004	Bulgaria	Fifth	Member of the rival Warsaw Pact 1955–1991.
	Estonia		Member of the rival Warsaw Pact 1955–1991 as part of the Soviet Union.
	Latvia		Member of the rival Warsaw Pact 1955–1991 as part of the Soviet Union.
	Lithuania		Member of the rival Warsaw Pact 1955–1991 as part of the Soviet Union.
	Romania		Member of the rival Warsaw Pact 1955–1991.
	Slovakia		Member of the rival Warsaw Pact 1955–1991 as part of Czechoslovakia.
	Slovenia		Previously part of Yugoslavia 1945–1991 (Non-aligned)
1 April 2009	Albania	Sixth	Member of the rival Warsaw Pact 1955–1968.
1 April 2009	Croatia	Sixth	Previously part of Yugoslavia 1945–1991 (Non-aligned)

Military personnel

Country	Active personnel	Reserve personnel	Total
Albania	100,500	5,000	105,500
Belgium	24,500	100,500	125,000
Bulgaria	46,712	302,500	349,212
Canada	68,000	27,000	95,000
Croatia	18,000	180,000	198,000
Czech Republic	21,057	2,359	23,416
Denmark	20,003	63,000	78,000
Estonia	3,209	60,000	63,209
France	222,215	100,000	322,215
Germany	180,676	145,000	325,676
Greece	180,000	280,000	460,000
Hungary	29,700	8400	38,100
Iceland	210	170	380
Italy	180,000	41,867	220,867
Latvia	6,000	11,000	17,000
Lithuania	15,839	4,550	20,389
Luxembourg	1,057	278	1,335
Netherlands	47,660	57,200	104,860
Norway	26,200	56,200	82,400
Poland	120,000	515,000	635,000
Portugal	44,900	210,930	255,830
Romania	73,350	79,900	153,250
Slovakia	16,000		16,000
Slovenia	7,300	1,500	8,801
Spain	123,000	16,200	139,200
Turkey	620,473	429,000	1,041,900
United Kingdom	205,851	181,720	387,571
United States	1,369,532	850,880	2,220,412
NATO	3,585,000	3,745,000	7,330,000

Military expenditures

Country	Population (2014)	GDP (nominal) (2015, US$ millions)	Military expenditures (2015, US$ millions)	Military expenditures (2015, % of GDP)	Defence expenditures, (2014, US$ per capita)	Deployable military (2013)
Albania	3,020,209	11,543	155	1.1	42.2	8,000
Belgium	10,449,361	454,687	4,953	0.9	468	31,000
Bulgaria	6,924,716	48,957	797	1.4	116	26,000
Canada	34,834,841	1,552,386	17,210	1.0	492	70,000
Croatia	4,470,534	48,850	904	1.6	204	16,000
Czech Republic	10,627,448	181,858	2,099	1.0	189	21,000
Denmark	5,569,077	294,951	4,130	1.2	796	19,000
Estonia	1,257,921	22,704	546	2.0	392	6,000
France	66,259,012	2,421,560	60,747	2.1	964	213,000
Germany	80,996,685	3,413,483	47,046	1.2	562	184,000
Greece	10,955,000	195,320	6,104	2.6	479	109,000
Hungary	9,919,128	120,636	1,225	0.8	118	18,000
Iceland	317,351	16,718	4.5	0.03	14.2	0^a
Italy	61,680,122	1,815,757	28,460	1.3	506	186,000
Latvia	2,165,165	27,048	341	1.0	150	5,000
Lithuania	2,866,935	41,267	566	1.8	126	9,000
Luxembourg	520,672	57,423	362	0.5	594	900
Netherlands	16,877,351	738,419	10,476	1.2	600	43,000
Norway	5,147,792	389,482	7,377	1.5	1,328	21,000
Poland	38,346,279	474,893	12,603	2.2	275	100,000
Portugal	10,813,834	199,077	4,380	1.9	396	35,000
Romania	21,729,871	177,315	2,980	1.4	118	66,000
Slovakia	5,443,583	86,629	1,164	1.1	180	15,000
Slovenia	1,988,292	42,768	489	1.0	233	7,000
Spain	47,737,941	1,199,715	16,929	1.2	270	122,000
Turkey	79,463,663	733,642	17,669	2.1	298	494,000
United Kingdom	64,105,700	2,849,345	59,730	2.0	952	174,000
United States	318,892,103	16,348,875	595,472	3.3	1,891	1,370,000
NATO	906,002,051	36,211,501	904,913	2.9	934	3,515,000
Population data from CIA World Factbook GDP data from IMF^[3] Expenditure data (except Iceland) from SIPRI Military Expenditure Database,^[4] Icelandic data (2013) from Statistics Iceland^[5] Military personnel data from NATO^[6] ^a Iceland has no armed forces.

Heads of State and Government of the NATO member states, as of 2016

References

↑ "The North Atlantic Treaty". North Atlantic Treaty Organization. 1949-04-04. Retrieved 2008-06-16.
↑ "North Atlantic Treaty" (PDF). United States Department of State. 2009-04-01. Retrieved 2015-09-02.
↑ "World Economic Outlook Database April 2016". International Monetary Fund. International Monetary Fund. April 2015. Retrieved 2016-10-23.
↑ "SIPRI Military Expenditure Database 2015" (XLS). Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. 2016. Retrieved 2016-10-23.
↑ "Central government total expenditure by function 1998-2013". Statistics Iceland. Statistics Iceland. 2014-09-23. Retrieved 2015-06-08.
↑ "Financial and Economic Data Relating to NATO Defence" (PDF). NATO. NATO. 24 February 2014. Retrieved 8 June 2015.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

History	North Atlantic Treaty Summit Operations Enlargement

Structure	Council Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe Allied Command Transformation Parliamentary Assembly

People	Secretary General Chairman of the Military Committee Supreme Allied Commander Europe Supreme Allied Commander Transformation

Members	Albania Belgium Bulgaria Canada Croatia Czech Republic Denmark Estonia France Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Spain Turkey United Kingdom United States

Multilateral relations	Atlantic Treaty Association Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council Major non-NATO ally Mediterranean Dialogue Istanbul Cooperation Initiative Partnership for Peace

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 12/3/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.