Talk:NATO

North Atlantic?

I understand most people here have no power to change this but does anyone know why they still use the obviously outdated monoker "North Atlantic" Treaty Organiztion? Many member states do not have coastlines on the North Atlantic and some are even land locked?216.19.236.129 (talk) 22:05, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

The intention was never to be a club of coastal states; rather a club of states with particular political alignment, and which happened to be on either side of the Atlantic. It's no biggie. The European Union includes components that are in the Caribbean and even the Indian Ocean; the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor roman, nor an empire; and so on. bobrayner (talk) 22:50, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

The name refers to the fact that these countries have signed the North Atlantic Treaty, which is NATO's foundational document. Italy was a founding member of NATO and it has no territory on or near the North Atlantic. Their unifying purpose was a common ideology, not geography.Mediatech492 (talk) 19:07, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry if this kills the article but why is Venezuela on the NORTH ATLANTIC treaty organisation, it's to the south atlantic and has never had membership of any kind. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tincanmansiimon (talk • contribs) 18:47, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Cooperation with non-member states

Partnership for Peace (PfP)			Map of NATO Partnerships
Commonwealth of Independent States	Other Cold War socialist economies	Militarily neutral Cold War capitalist economies
Armenia	Yugoslavia	Austria
Azerbaijan	Bosnia & Herzegovina	Finland
Belarus	Macedonia	Ireland
Kazakhstan	Montenegro	Malta
Kyrgyzstan	Serbia	Sweden
Moldova	Soviet Union	Switzerland
Russia	Georgia
Tajikistan	Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan	Ukraine
Non-PfP agreements
Mediterranean Dialogue	Istanbul Cooperation Initiative	Contact countries
Algeria	Bahrain	Australia
Egypt	Qatar	Japan
Israel	Kuwait	New Zealand	NATO member states
Jordan	United Arab Emirates	South Korea	Partnership for Peace
Mauritania			Mediterranean Dialogue
Morocco			Istanbul Cooperation Initiative
Tunisia			Contact countries

I think this table needs some rework. I have just added ICI countries to the mix and the end result is an even wider table. So, to fix this I have restructured the table a bit but am not sure if this really is an improvement. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 10:35, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Also I propose the above table as a replacement since colors can be better expressed in this form (I am not too happy with the MD color btw). The legend can even be removed or simplified. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 10:46, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Nice approach, but I have a couple of minor concerns:

• I think the MD colour is too dark to be used as background for text.
• I think the difference between MD and ICI colours is not clear enough on the map.
• Unfortunately, colours which look good on a map may not be the same colours that are easy on the eye as a background for text in a table. bobrayner (talk) 13:24, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Fair points. I am not necessarily happy with the color pallet, it can be swapped for different colors. The main idea here is the colorful table idea. :)

• I am not sure which colors should be used. ICI and MD are more or less the same thing so I think it would be better if they had similar colors
• Map could be made larger with scroll bars or a hide/show structure. It is impossible to see ICI members unless really closely zoomed
• I think PfP could also be colored maybe. I have added this.

-- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 19:56, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

A slightly more radical suggestion: Instead of having a key below the map and a table of countries to the left of the map, could we just list countries in the key below the map? I think this is simpler, and avoids the awkward table (which is hard to read if coloured, and hard to relate to the map if not coloured). A simple comma-separated list after each colour chip is sufficient, I think - we don't need a formal array with rows and columns &c. No? bobrayner (talk) 18:32, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

The updated table and map I've created in the last week is now done. Its very wide, so I am concerned how it might appear in situations that don't have a widescreen option. However, I did take the suggestion and moved the Template:Legend colors into the headers themselves, to save space. I also recreated the map as a SVG, with new colors that matched the one above it, for some consistency. I was somewhat concerned that there isn't actually a legend for "NATO Members" in this new table, but I hope that is implied. If not, we might be able to add it in the header above the map. Any other concerns?-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 22:55, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I've been working this week on a new setup for the table, in part based off of Bobrayner's suggestion above that we have the countries under the map. In order to do that, we need some crazy setup, and almost 100% of the horizontal space. The length of the list also led me to use Template:Collapsible list, which we also use in the infobox when listing NATO members. I also thought that this could replace the list in the "Independent Partnership Action Plan" section, and combine the map from the "Membership" section, since they're all next to each other on the page. Here's what I came up with:

Map of NATO partnerships globally	Map of NATO affiliations in Europe
Members of NATO   Membership Action Plan   Individual Partnership Action Plan   Partnership for Peace   Mediterranean Dialogue   Istanbul Cooperation Initiative   Contact countries 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 Bosnia and Herzegovina Macedonia Montenegro Armenia Azerbaijan Bosnia and Herzegovina Georgia Kazakhstan Moldova Montenegro Ukraine Armenia Austria Azerbaijan Belarus Bosnia and Herzegovina Finland Georgia Ireland Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Macedonia Malta Moldova Montenegro Russia Serbia Sweden Switzerland Tajikistan Turkmenistan Ukraine Uzbekistan Algeria Egypt Israel Jordan Mauritania Morocco Tunisia Bahrain Kuwait Qatar United Arab Emirates Australia Japan New Zealand South Korea

I'd like suggestions before I try to fit it on the page. This map also removes the color for "Intensified Dialogue", which has always been a bit ambiguous. Thanks!-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 04:14, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

One question I have for others is whether the maps should be flipped. The legend at the bottom (which could also be rearranged) has the global partnerships (Mediterranean, Istanbul, Contact countries) on the right side, but the global map that shows these is on the left. Is that confusing? I chose to instead put the Europe map on the right for appearances; the map's right edge looked better when it hit the table's right border. However I have an example of how this setup looks when flipped on my sandbox at User:Patrickneil/NATO. I also made a version where each legend has its own dropdown list, though the trouble with the show/hide link there should be obvious.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 15:37, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

It does look much better flipped, at least for me, as my eye can follow the connections to the colours. CMD (talk) 15:46, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I implemented a setup with the Europe map on the left on this page. This also allows us to reduce the number of lists used in the page, so I've removed the lists in the IPAP and Contact countries subsections.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 06:54, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

This is nice but the image is two wide. I think the Europe portion should grow out below the world image. That way it would properly display on the side. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 19:55, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Its the space that the legends take up that pushes it to be so wide. I included both the World and European maps in part because we had the space for them above the legend. I think we could do an smaller option where the legend is hidden too, and have it expand horizontally when the reader clicks "show", if people prefer. I'd note however that the previous version of the map/table setup were also very wide, and didn't have room for text on the sides.-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 22:23, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

That may be a problem as well but the width of the whole thing remains to be a problem. :/ On computers with smaller screens and phones this would look bad. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 06:31, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Clarity error in the table under NATO#Euro-Atlantic Partnership

Other Cold War socialist economies listing members of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was a Single-party state Marxism–Leninism government. To state socialism is overly vague, as many European countries at the time had socialism but not single-party or marxist-leninism. 99.19.45.48 (talk) 03:46, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Missing Sections on Active Current Events

There is no section on alleged war crimes by NATO despite allegations by Libya and others. Also before the invasion of Libya, Libya was invited to join the Union of the Mediterranean. After the NATO invasion, does that mean that NATO is now a member of the Union of the Mediterranean?

Chemical Weapons

Chemical weapons are frowned upon in the North Atlantic. There is no section detailing heroic captures of chemical weapons by NATO. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.16.190.164 (talk) 02:55, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Criticism

Why is there no criticism section attributed? There are many groups that Criticize NATO — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.54.68.69 (talk) 02:26, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Criticism sections are generally considered to not be a good idea: please see WP:CSECTION. However, feel free to propose neutrally-written material referenced to reliable sources on criticisms of NATO here, or you can register an account and add them yourself.Nick-D (talk) 02:54, 29 January 2012 (UTC)