Talk:NATO

GA Reassessment

NATO

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: No consensus to delist. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 08:35, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Editor added {{GAR request}} tag on t/p last month. 2006 listing has valid cleanup banners and citation issues. Unusually, updating doesn't seem to be an issue. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:39, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm so confused. Why was this listed for review, who performed the review, and who decided "not enough improvement"? What does "not enough improvement" even mean? What did the article need to improve? Which specific sections should we be looking at? I don't even understand the English in this section, what does "unusually, updating doesn't seem to be an issue" mean? You made zero effort to contact editors, or engage with the large community on this page and related WikiProject. This is terrible! -- Patrick Neil, _oѺ^∞/Talk 18:50, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Patrickneil, this was listed for review because the article "has valid cleanup banners and citation issues". Relevant sentence of the GA criteria: An article can be failed without further review (known as a quick fail) if, prior to the review it has, or needs, cleanup banners that are unquestionably still valid ... All content that could reasonably be challenged ... must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph.

I decided "not enough improvement", because the article still has "cleanup banners and citation issues". Relevant sentence of the GAR instructions: After at least one week, if the article's issues are unresolved and there are no objections to delisting, the discussion may be closed as delist.

The sections you should be looking at are the ones with the "cleanup banners and citation issues" i.e. Kosovo intervention, Membership, and Structure. "Unusually, updating doesn't seem to be an issue" means that the article is well-updated, which not an issue but is unusual. Are any other of my English phrases unclear?

"You made zero effort to contact editors, or engage with the large community on this page and related WikProject. This is terrible!" This is a verifiably incorrect claim: see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Vital Articles, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject NATO, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 170, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject International relations, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Organizations, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics, User talk:Morgoonki, User talk:Fw-us-hou-8.bmc.com, User talk:FutureTrillionaire, and User talk:H1nkles. I would appreciate if you would strike this unjustified accusation, Patrickneil.

You have reverted my closure of this discussion against the GAR instructions: A GAR closure should only be contested if the closure was obviously against consensus or otherwise procedurally incorrect...Before disputing a GAR closure, first discuss your concerns with the closing editor on their talk page. Am I to understand that you wish to improve the article back to GAR standard? In the future, please leave a note on the relevant GA reassessment page; that would save us all a lot of bother. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:15, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

There is one clean up banner and five Template:Cns, yes, I see that. If that's the issue, then say that. I'll work on finding citations today, or removing the unsourced claims, but "Not enough improvement" is not a GA review.

How on earth did you pick those editors to notify? User:Fw-us-hou-8.bmc.com has 14 edits total, from two days in 2001, none of which have anything to do with this topic. User:H1nkles and User:FutureTrillionaire have both been inactive for around four years, and again, have never edited this article. And User:Morgoonki was only active for a month, just enough to engage in a pro-Vladimir Putin edit war. And when you say "Editor added {{GAR request}} tag" again, I have to question how much you looked into this, because by "editor" you mean User: Real4jyy, an editor whose only Wikipedia activity so far has been to indiscriminately list GAs for review and add talk page headers.

Here is a list of active editors. If you want good faith here, the best I can give you is that, in this specific scenario, you weren't doing some basic due diligence with this GAR and the users involved. -- Patrick Neil, _oѺ^∞/Talk 19:48, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

The GAR script automatically notifies all previous GA reviewers (if it can find any), in addition to previous reassessers, Patrickneil. I then notified six WikiProjects, in addition to linking on the the article talk page (and tidying that up, incidentally). I don't particularly know why User:Fw-us-hou-8.bmc.com was notified, however.

"There is one clean up banner and five Template:Cns, yes, I see that. If that's the issue, then say that." I ... did?

"by "editor" you mean User: Real4jyy, an editor whose only Wikipedia activity so far has been to indiscriminately list GAs for review and add talk page headers" I don't see anything in there that requires the word editor to be put in scare quotes? If they want to gnome around, I don't see why they should be denigrated for that. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:02, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Maybe you shouldn't be using a GAR script then. What percent of the article did you read prior to delisting? What percent of the talk page and it's archive? Which of the five Template:Cns did you feel were the issue that put the article over the top? -- Patrick Neil, _oѺ^∞/Talk 20:14, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

I read all of the article personally Patrickneil, hence I could say "no update needed". Same could be said for the talk page (diff of my archiving), even though that is not necessary. If you look at the structure section, you will see the citations needed banner; a large percentage of this section is uncited and grounds for delisting. Is anything else unclear? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:24, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

This article is no where near Good article status. Only 5000 words on a topic this important? There is a massive lack of deep coverage. Every source, but one, in the Works cited is cited only a single time. There is a large Further reading which doubtlessly has content that should be in the main article. There are at least 30 sources published by NATO itself instead using any of the works cited or the vast amount of scholarship on this topic no where in the article. The Military operations section is a mess, with rambling paragraphs and no clear division of weight on its respective subsections. I see numerous topics in List of NATO operations not even mentioned.

This article became good status in 2006, when standards for GAs were considerably lower and more lenient. It has since had three article reassessment requests. Any article with that much repeated concern over its quality will need a substantial reconfiguration to remain good status, and not just end up at GAR again next year. An obvious delist Aza24 (talk) 20:56, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, that's at least something we can work on. I'll say that since 2006, the subarticles History of NATO and Enlargement of NATO have been created out of those sections when they became too sprawling. I might quibble with describing nine items in Further reading as "large", and that, yes, more citations than I would like are sourced to NATO itself. Those do tend to be uncontroversial statements, to source things more routine like "the Chair of the Military Committee is the head of the Military Committee." I'm not sure which operation from List of NATO operations needs to be added, but I'm happy to help if there is something major that's getting left out of the current sections and subsections. -- Patrick Neil, _oѺ^∞/Talk 21:10, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't think Operation Display Deterrence is mentioned and I really think Resolute Support Mission and International Security Assistance Force should be separate. These last two being conflated into one section makes both of their scopes confusing, and disrupts the otherwise chronological layout of the operations.

It is not the exact size of the further reading section itself, or specifically the preponderance of NATO citations which worries me, it is simply the lack of academic scholarship used in general. (As I mentioned) the single citations from the Works cited section are particularly concerning, and representative of this article's biggest fault. The thing with uncontroversial statements is that sure, we could cite them to NATO, but wouldn't it be better to cite them to reliable independent sources? Either way, the Military operations section is really the core of the article, and what needs to be better sourced. The Gulf of Aden anti-piracy section, for instance, is solely cited to NATO, which is certainly inappropriate – Aza24 (talk) 21:48, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

I hear that. I do though want to keep this is as an overview article. I think that's always been an element here, that the scope can't go into too much detail given the 75 years of institutional history that need to fit in its sections. We do have these two reservoirs of sources, published international policy books and news articles about a NATO-related event that just happened somewhere, the trouble being that neither type of source is actually all that great at being a source for the basic questions readers come here for, like, "what is NATO?" or "why is NATO expanding?", that the article tries to give answers for.

Lastly, if I am a bit defensive, it might be somewhat that there is a literal cyberarmy out to manipulate Wikipedia, and we've been dealing with it for years on this topic. The most recent GAR request, last year, was because a user wanted to include a chunk what I see as pro-Russian propaganda. They were asked politely to not disrupt Wikipedia to make a point. The two previous GARs were 14 years ago, all three have, I would note, resulted in speedily keeping it as a GA. I'm well aware the article needs attention, perhaps WP:PR is more what the article needs or at least a thorough section by section review, because there are large chunks that are at a high quality, but other parts that let it down. It's just difficult to see almost 20 years of maintenance here boiled down to three words, "not enough improvement." -- Patrick Neil, _oѺ^∞/Talk 01:04, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Your defensiveness is certainly understandable. But I'm fairly certain where Airship is coming from. The GA process & community was only recently reinvigorated and prior to which although the standards had risen, older GAs had not. Thus, there is a lot of cleanup now taking place with older GAs, huge numbers of which are far below standards. See here for instance, where one author of 100+ GAs was discovered to frequently be using copyrighted material. Certainly the NATO article is nothing like the articles delisted by the now-banned user, but its importance as a topic gives it further scrutiny, since its so important to get right! Aza24 (talk) 03:44, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I'll note that all the citation needed instances have been resolved. The article is a bit on the short side, but that's not necessarily a bad thing - there are plenty of links to other articles that cover sections in greater depth, like Structure of NATO and Enlargement of NATO. I could understand the argument that the main article could use a bit more material, but for such a complex topic I think it's better to keep a relatively concise article and allow readers easy access to more in-depth and narrowly focused articles. To pick a topic I'm intimately familiar with, Train was promoted to GA in 2021 and is currently at 4273 words, 27331 characters, and I'd argue it could be expanded but is still comprehensive enough and gives sufficient links to other articles that it meets the criteria. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 22:28, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I tend to agree with this concept of an overview article. It's also better in my view to keep it this way because it's easier to update, change, or remove supporting articles than it is to hack through a massive parent article. So long as the citation issues have been addressed and there's solid overview information, I see no real reason to delist. Intothatdarkness 14:23, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

I maintain a habit of avoiding closing GARS where I have opined, but I do not see a consensus to delist. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 15:37, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Explain this

Can somebody explain why Finland and Sweden are not dark green on the map?130.41.62.253 (talk) 04:58, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Sweden has yet to finish their entry into NATO, but Finland does appear dark green already. WelpThatWorked (talk) 13:44, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 13 October 2023

NATO member states make up 956m people (12% of the worlds population) and 16% of the worlds habitable land area. Asto77 (talk) 06:01, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Nobody (talk) 07:46, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

just wanted to add the sentence; so people can see what % of humanity is NATO Asto77 (talk) 07:09, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

References

"Membership" Section (Portugal is missing from the description of the 31 countries)

"Membership" Section (Portugal is missing from the description of the 31 countries). The description and the map are correct in showing 31 members. But after Poland there should be Portugal on the list. 46.189.238.123 (talk) 13:31, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. Fixed. (Hohum ^@) 13:46, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

F-16 "taking off" is incorrect

It is landing. If you open the Operation Deliberate Force page, it is correct. If anybody needs proof, the air brakes are deployed(open). Tb-3000 (talk) 17:27, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

 Done Fixed! -- Patrick Neil, _oѺ^∞/Talk 17:26, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Article 6 Map

Could it be helpful to add a map of Article 6, such as this one? 2600:1002:B012:ABB2:9554:4E1C:1C34:6CC3 (talk) 04:21, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Putin's sneaky edit

After just having watched the rather recent interview with Putin, this final part of the lead sounds like it could have been sneaked into the article by Putin himself. It indirectly puts the blame on NATO for tensions with Russia (Wikipedia:Undue weight). And unlike almost everything in the lead, this part doesn't have a reference. It sounds like weasel words to me.

Enlargement has led to tensions with non-member Russia, one of the twenty additional countries participating in NATO's Partnership for Peace programme. Another nineteen countries are involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes with NATO.

Torr3 (talk) 01:17, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Torr3, according to WP:LEAD, it is common for citations to appear in the body and not the lead, so there is nothing unusual about that. I see no glaring problems with the sentences you quoted. It is indisputable that tensions exist between NATO and Russia. The Neutral point of view is a core content policy on Wikipedia. Cullen328 (talk) 01:25, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

I figured since it's a contentious topic, it must be especially important with citations. The sentences I quoted seems to me like an ad-hoc statement to make Nato appear more culpable than Russia for their conflict. Torr3 (talk) 01:42, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Sweden in NATO

Could someone with access update the article to reflect Sweden joining NATO. TheOrigamiAnalysis (talk) 15:54, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

They aren't officially in yet but we'll add them once they are. Tuna^VeniVidi_Vici 16:03, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

The top of the article says they "added new members... most recently when Sweden joined the alliance on 26 February 2024"... Shouldn't someone either remove that until its officially in, or add it to the list of members? Otherwise, it's contradictory. Ära Śävûlø (talk) 17:32, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Though some news outlets are calling it official there is still one last step. A NPR story says that it is "Sweden is now close to becoming NATO's 32nd member". Elsewhere I have read it become official when notice is given to the U.S. State Department. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 18:02, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 26 February 2024

Hungary ratifies Sweden's entry Octilllion (talk) 18:20, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: Not officially a member yet. Elli (talk | contribs) 21:35, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Sweden in NATO

Sweden has joined NATO earlier today after finally being accepted by Hungary.

This article needs to be updated accordingly to appropriate with reality. Please remain focused and quick. 87.120.102.13 (talk) 18:46, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

From NATO’s website: “7. Upon depositing their instruments of accession with the US State Department, invitees formally become NATO members”

There’s no doubt Sweden will complete this last step, but they’re not an official member till then. Just one bit of bureaucracy left. Radio Adept (talk) 19:46, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Even after depositing the "instruments of accession" with the U.S. State Department, there will be a formal ceremony in Brussels to make it all official. It might be worth looking at how all this played out with Finland in the talk page archives. But don't worry, Wikipedia won't miss it. -- Patrick Neil, _oѺ^∞/Talk 20:15, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

The ceremony is recognition, it doesnt confer anything. 2001:48F8:3022:75D:5A12:BD0B:AF56:9919 (talk) 23:45, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

The ceremony will likely be a mirror to Finland's last year. It'll be at the NATO headquarters outside Brussels, and a representative of Sweden, probably Foreign Minister Tobias Billström, but maybe PM Ulf Kristersson, will hand over a fancy folder to a representative of the U.S. State Department, probably Anthony Blinken, while a representative of NATO, probably Secretary Jens Stoltenberg, will acknowledge the receipt. That's the process, recognition is what confers anything. Let me blow your mind though: It's all ceremony, the whole premise of the organization is built on ceremony! Finland's ceremony happened to be timed for NATO's 74th birthday, 4 April 2023, and while Sweden's could happen in March, I wouldn't be shocked if it takes Orbán a few weeks to do his formal submission to the U.S. Dept of State so that Sweden joins on NATO's 75th birthday on 4 April 2024. But until then, it is inaccurate to include Sweden as a "member" on this article or related ones. -- Patrick Neil, _oѺ^∞/Talk 13:43, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Update, looks like noon CET on Monday, 11 March 2024 is when they'll making it official. -- Patrick Neil, _oѺ^∞/Talk 21:09, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. Whenever someone has added Sweden recently, I keep checking the news to confirm status. It gets mildly tiresome ;-) CAVincent (talk) 05:08, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 27 February 2024 Suggestion

Change

"NATO is a deterrent intergovernmental military alliance".

to

"NATO is an intergovernmental military alliance".

Calling it a "deterrent" is unsourced and at the very least WP:UNDUE for the first sentence. As far as I can tell it got shoehorned into the article without consensus. 22090912l (talk) 23:23, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

 Done Agreed. -- Patrick Neil, _oѺ^∞/Talk 23:49, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Puerto Rico and French Guiana

Why are Puerto Rico and French Guiana in dark green? I thought that there were outside the Treaty, since they are south of the Tropic of Cancer (and Guiana not being an island.). Alexander K. Cox (talk) 21:12, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

These areas are outside the mutual defense area defined by the NATo charter, but they are still integral territory of member states. An attack on these areas does not invoke the treaty obligations. This also applies to other overseas territories not shown on the map, such as French Polynesia, Guam, or the Falkland Islands. Mediatech492 (talk) 03:23, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 7 March 2024

"Finland is the newest member; it joined on 4 April 2023, spurred on by Russia's invasion of Ukraine" is no longer an accurate statement as Sweden, for similar reasons as Finland, has joined the alliance on 3/7/2024 after Turkiye and Hungary dropped their dissent against it. S22N (talk) 16:36, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

 Done -- Patrick Neil, _oѺ^∞/Talk 17:13, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 7 March 2024 (2)

Under the "Membership" section, it still mentions NATO having thirty-one members three different times. This should be changed to saying thirty-two instead:

"NATO has thirty-one members, all in Europe and North America"

"Twelve of these thirty-one are original members"

"Membership has subsequently grown to 31 through several enlargements"

In addition to this, it mentions Finland being the newest member under the Enlargement subsection of Membership. This should be changed to Sweden. Lowkschwonz (talk) 17:08, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

 Done -- Patrick Neil, _oѺ^∞/Talk 17:26, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Membership map needs updating

The map in the Membership section needs to be updated to show Sweden as a member.—Anita5192 (talk) 17:32, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

About the map

I checked the new map and saw that an old problem is back again :p There's some kind of a border in Romania showing Transylvania. I know it's very very nitpicky, but I just had to mention it, haha. Seems to be something with the base map

Here's a link to a picture of what I mean (though you can see it by zooming in on the map). https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/603624028237725730/1215405891654910092/T1.png?ex=65fca1f1&is=65ea2cf1&hm=3ea8b26e2bdde5adce03e3e2193d378b5404adb808941aeef1ff14487a4f5ed9&

Sorry for the link being a discord one, but it's just a picture. It seemed to be the easiest way to share it.

Once again, I know that it's very nitpicky but had to mention the weird border. Thanks! (Also, there's some green parts at Alaska and Puerto Rico I think it is?) But thanks! MeManBlaze (talk) 21:16, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 7 March 2024 (3)

=== Enlargement === {{Main|Enlargement of NATO}} {{stack|[[File:History of NATO enlargement.svg|thumb|upright=1.0|right|NATO has added 15 new members since [[German reunification]] and the end of the [[Cold War]].|alt=A map of Europe with countries labelled in shades of blue, green, and yellow based on when they joined NATO.]]}}

Sweden has joined. Can you please change "15" to "16"? Human Transistor (talk) 22:42, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

NATO Member Territory outside Aritcle 5

Upon reviewing the map representation of NATO members, I noticed that territories like Hawaii (USA) and others such as French Guiana (France) and the Falkland Islands (UK) are depicted similarly to mainland territories. While these territories are integral parts of NATO countries, there exists a significant nuance concerning Article 5's mutual defense commitments that might not be immediately apparent from the map.

Article 5 is the cornerstone of NATO's foundation, stipulating that an armed attack against one or more members is considered an attack against all members. However, the application of Article 5 is geographically limited.

Specifically, it applies to the territories of member states in North America, Europe, the Turkish Straits, and the Mediterranean Sea islands. This definition excludes certain territories like Hawaii, which, despite being a part of the United States, falls outside the geographic scope of Article 5's mutual defense commitment.

Given this, I propose that the map could benefit from a visual differentiation between territories where NATO's Article 5 commitment is applicable and those where it is not. This adjustment would not only provide clarity but also align with the factual geographical limitations of Article 5, enhancing the map's informational precision. Implementing such a distinction could prevent misunderstandings about the exact scope of NATO's mutual defense obligations and accurately represent the geographical coverage of Article 5. Would it be possible to revisit the map's design to reflect these critical distinctions?

- Atfyfe (talk) 23:59, 7 March 2024 (UTC)