Talk:NATO

History of Membership / Original Members

This article does not include anywhere a concise listing of the orginal founding member countries of NATO in 1949. Actually, it is essential for understanding the deep history and nature of any organization to know at a glance what its original members were, and which ones joined soon therafter.
For example, to understand the United States, it is necessary to know what its original members were: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Rhode Island (the last of the 13 to join). Without knowing about this, one does not really understand much about the United States and its history at all.98.67.175.127 (talk) 01:49, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Map

The map includes France, which is not a NATO member. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.229.25.21 (talk) 02:32, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

France has been a NATO member since the Treaty was signed in 1949. It did withdraw from the NATO military command structure in the 1960s, but that was not a withdrawal from the organisation. As you will see from Google News if you check, discussions are now underway to return France to the military command structure as well; they may assume command of Allied Command Transformation and Joint Command Lisbon. Regards Buckshot06(prof) 12:34, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Map

The map of NATO countries needs updated to reflect Albania and Croatia's membership. SpudHawg948 (talk) 20:57, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

They haven't joined yet, though. Buckshot06(prof) 18:36, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Map Image

I know the map of Europe and North America were mashed together to make the map image look better (without a giant ocean between)... by why on Earth does Alaska appear to be as large as 50% of the continental USA?? Alaska may be our biggest state here in the USA, but it is not that huge! Who the heck made this map??

Probably a Mercator projection; distorts the size of land areas near the Poles. Buckshot06(prof) 05:17, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

wouldn’t an orthographic map projection of the member-countries be better? Here’s a roughly-made example I’ve made:

Any suggestions and colaboration on the issue would be welcome.--MaGioZal (talk) 04:34, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Not Just Albania

The article states that " the former Warsaw Pact states - except Albania - joining the alliance in 1999 and 2004", are we forgeting the de facto leader of the Warsaw Pact, Russia? While Latvia and Estonia are NATO members (and Georgia and Ukraine will likely become members); Russia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and other fmr Soviet Republics are not currently members of NATO. LCpl (talk) 01:41, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

He's got a good point there! Dharma6662000 (talk) 23:16, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Kosovo on maps

Two maps within the article disagree on whether there is an independent state of Kosovo, or there is no. Also please consider the South Ossetia and Abkhazia with the same legal state as Kosovo (i.e. recognized by part of UN members). AFAIK, part of NATO members recognize K. as independent, part does not, and none of them recognizes A. and S.O. as independent. Here are the maps in question: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/NATO_expansion.png and http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Location_NATO.svg .FeelSunny (talk) 22:17, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

NATO logo

It would be really nice if we could have a picture of that statue of the NATO logo, the one with iron beams sticking out from it. It's a really impressive piece of industrial art, shame not to have any pictures of it here. Nastykermit (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 09:18, 17 December 2008 (UTC).

Deputy Secretary General

This needs to be updated. Alessandro Minuto Rizzo has been replaced in 2007 by Claudio Bisogniero, who helds this post up to date. (Sebecq (talk) 14:54, 18 December 2008 (UTC))

Confirmed: NATO biography of Bisogniero. Crystal whacker (talk) 14:57, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Updated, will add the other previous deputies to the list as well although will have to dig for nationality. Seems odd that theres been 3 Italians as deputy for over 14 years, anyone know why? BritishWatcher (talk) 15:11, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Request for editing

{{editsemiprotected}} Please, since the appropriate page has been created in Wikipedia, I would kindly ask to redirect the links (both of tehm) of the:

paragraph 7 Organizations and Agencies Third to last bullet - the Research and Technology Agency (RTA),[57] reporting to the NATO Research and Technology Organization (RTO);

to the link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Research_and_Technology_Organisation

Also, as according to the offical definition, I would suggest to change the spelling (in teh above mentioned lines and in the relevant reference at number 57) so to reduce ambiguity.

Thank you. ABwiki 19:11, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

 Done, thanks. I've also added a redirect to that article at NATO Research and Technology Organization so as to assist people who search with the other spelling of organisation. ~ mazca ^t|c 19:40, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

France re-entry into military command

France has re-entered NATO's military command, so everything relating to it's withdrawal needs to be changed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.153.45.67 (talk) 12:06, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

That's not entirely true. Firstly, the official announcement is not yet been made, and second, all the material covering 1966 etc needs to stay; we just add some data saying that in 2009 France reentered and it seems that French officers will take command of Allied Command Transformation and Joint Command Lisbon. But we have to wait for the final formal announcement. - Buckshot06

Sarkozy's proposal must be debated by the French Parliament first, where it is expected pass next week. Regardless, the history will need to be revised.--Patrick «» 19:26, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

The OECD Model

The same way as the OECD was first established between Europe and America and later extended to Australia, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Mexico (Chile, Russia and Israel are candidates) it is expected for NATO to do the same including Australia, Japan, South Korea and probably Mexico. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.18.150.22 (talk) 04:10, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposed NATO Wikiproject

Hi there, I've recently proposed a NATO Wikiproject to cover all things NATO. If you'd be interested in helping get one started, head over to the nomination page and voice your support. Cool3 (talk) 04:53, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

The NATO WikiProject has now been established! Please join us! Cool3 (talk) 21:33, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Future Enlargement section

There is a notice "citation needed" for the following sentence:

Other potential candidate countries include Montenegro and Bosnia & Herzegovina.

I have found two links on NATO official web site to support this claim:

http://www.nato.int/issues/nato-montenegro/index.html

http://www.nato.int/issues/nato-bosnia-herzegovina/index.html

Ravenlord (talk) 02:11, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

The word should be "appease" rather than "appeatise". This sentence could be a bit more formally written too and a citation would be good re the claim for Francee and other "big" countries.

Ozeye 10:48, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Euro-Atlantic Partnership

In this section Bosnia and Herzgegovina, FYR Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia (all as part of Yugoslavia) were not "Other Cold War socialist economies" but "Militarily neutral Cold War socialist economies" because Yugoslavia was the founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement and never a part of the Eastern Bloc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.121.16.218 (talk) 14:46, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

History split

I'm thinking the History section is long enough could be split into a History of NATO article, with a new, perhaps simpler and more chronological, three to five paragraph summary of events used on this page. Thoughts? Anyone interested in creating this summary? I added an official Split Section Template. I also think this would help maintain Good Article status.--Patrick «» 17:29, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Good idea, fully support the suggestion. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:43, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm on second thoughts if we did remove most of the history content and replaced it with 3-5 paragraphs i think this article might be too short. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:54, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, say 10-12, or what it takes. Right now there's 37 paragraphs over 11 subsections. We could try to balance a new section into Beginnings, Cold War, and Post-Cold War. Info on historic enlargements and maybe France's withdrawal could even be in the Membership section. Right now there's lots of good info in History, but some, say the paragraph about weapons gauges or Able Archer 83, are unnecessary for an overview.--Patrick «» 19:33, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I have to disagree. Right now the page is 72k. Before I got on top of the bloat in March it was at times over 100k - 110 at times. I think we can keep adding relevant sourced material - and there's masses missing - until we reach 90k at least. Then we can think about it again. This is also because at some point we'll need Hist of NATO 1948-60s maybe, 60s-1990/91, and Post Cold War/War on Terror whatever we call it. Lets not split without a plan. Thoughts? Buckshot06(prof) 21:19, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, not without a plan. And again, thanks for your work. Perhaps I or one of us could mock up an outline soon. I also think we could split off the section into a new article while keeping most of the important paragraphs intact. While it would be nice to rewrite the section, possibly improving references along the way, there's no really issue with having some of the same information on two pages.--Patrick «» 19:24, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Public attitude towards NATO in Russia

According to Interfax/BNS/Postimees, 58% of Russians have a negative attitude towards NATO. Interestingly, at the same time, NATO's nature is not well known in Russia: for example, 31% of the population thinks NATO's mission consists of "aggressive actions towards other countries". 34% have no idea what NATO is.

Source: Postimees 3 April 2009 13:56: Venelased ei salli NATOt, kuigi ei tea, mis see on. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 13:46, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I think it's fair to say that "aggressive actions towards other countries" are indeed part of NATO's mission. See for example, what they did in Serbia or what the are doing in Afganistan. Or what was their reaction to the 2008 South Ossetia war was. Offliner (talk) 20:51, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Lets not get dragged into pointless political arguments guys. Writers in Chelyabinsk will have different attitudes to writers in Rio, or Sydney, or Lahore, or whatever. Maybe we should add the data above, but not POV posturing. Regards to all, Buckshot06(prof) 21:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

they're lke the crusaders, setting up states whereever they want. bombing serbia was not justifiable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.217.59.87 (talk) 08:49, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Keep it NPOV, NATO, outlined in it's charter, is for collective defense, Afghanistan, was invaded because we were attacked by terrorists being harbored in that nation,I assume Offliner, and 203.217.59.87 are Russians?--Conor Fallon (talk) 01:30, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Controversies and Criticism?

I see bits and pieces of this throughout the article, but there should be a section dealing with the criticism of NATO and enlargement. Most of the article is to the point of being boistrous. MPA146.235.130.52 (talk) 14:56, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Look at Enlargement of NATO. That's the place for enlargement discussions. Controversy and criticism should not be separate but in the relevant section. Buckshot06(prof) 16:22, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Buckshot06. BritishWatcher (talk) 17:31, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Other articles about various subjects and organizations have their own criticism/controversy section and this seems appropriate here as well. This is because sometimes there is a collective argument and because sometimes the scale of the criticism is noteworthy itself (i.e. when tens of thousands riot and burn the French/German border in protest). --Nihilozero (talk) 09:30, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

It doesnt need its own section, the criticism should be included in each of the sections covered. So killing of civilians in Afghanistan covered in the ISAF section etc. There should however be a section or atleast a few sentences talking about NATO summits, and that could include a mention that they often draw large crowds of scum who protest and turn violent. BritishWatcher (talk) 10:29, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Criticism / controversy should always be integrated into the article as a whole. Splitting it to its own section inevitably reduces the quality and neutrality of an article. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:09, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Spelling

I see the article has gone over to US spelling. Considering NATO was set up by the British and itself uses UK spelling this is rather puzzling, especially as the article itself was originally in UK English. Presumably there'll by no objection if I now change US spelling to UK ones in any articles I come across.

NATO uses the spelling "Organization" not "Organisation" - look at its Web site. -- Dougie WII (talk) 19:50, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

How can a military alliance be set up by one nation (the British)? The USA and Canada were also founding members.--Conor Fallon (talk) 01:24, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it is quite dimwitted to suggest that NATO was set up by any ONE country, no matter which one that you name. Also, the Wikipedia is a non-profit corporation set up and governed by the laws of the United States of America, and the Wikipedia itself states that American copyright laws apply to it, and that the Wikipedia is maintained on Internet servers within the United States of America. It is thus an American encyclopedia, and American spellings must apply, regardless of what certain British and Irish people might think. Arguing with this is completely wrongheaded.98.67.175.127 (talk) 01:42, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Please add the British English pronunciation /'neɪ.toʊ/ as an alternative to the US pronunciation given. Andrewgdotcom (talk) 11:27, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Deleted Text

The following sentence is garbled:

This differs from Article IV of the Treaty of Brussels (which founded the Western European Union) which clearly states that the response however often assumed that NATO members will aid the attacked member militarily.

There appears to be a chunk of text missing - could someone trawl the history and restore it? Thanks. Andrewgdotcom (talk) 11:58, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

I have done a GA Reassessment on this article as part of the GA Sweeps project. My reassessment can be found here. I find the article to still meet the GA criteria and I have kept it as GA. H1nkles (talk) 17:10, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

NATO/UN

When NATO goes on a mission, is it similar to a UN mission? Or are countries independently represented by soldiers? Unlike the blue helmets of the UN. I hope that was an English sentence :) Mallerd (talk) 18:02, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Cold War

The initial part of the article should mention NATO's position in the Cold War, that being its founding and fundamental position. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.58.241.190 (talk) 11:24, 31 May 2009 (UTC)