Talk:NATO

Number of NATO troops?

Zelensky said only 1 % of NATO's tanks, could suffice to Ukraine. Can someone include the number of tanks, troops etc. Can also include a 2022 section? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.193.35.108 (talk) 11:58, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

The information on troops is already present at Member states of NATO. As for tanks, we would need sources to add it. LongLivePortugal (talk) 14:30, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Great, anyone who has edit privilege should add this number within the infobox I suppose. And for tanks, I suppose we have sources, for each country, they simply need to be gathered into an aggrgate number.--194.199.143.58 (talk) 09:29, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 February 2022

Please correct the spelling of "The NATO Commander can issues" to "The NATO Commander can issue". This appears at the beginning of the second paragraph under the "Legal authority of NATO Commanders" section. Rthenage (talk) 23:57, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

 Done Loafiewa (talk) 00:10, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Eurasian?

Should it be included that Turkey is an Eurasian member of NATO? It says that there are 28 European countries although Turkey is geographically part of Western Asia and only marginally part of Europe. CollectiveSolidarity (talk) 15:27, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Good question. Since it is currently the only NATO member from Asia, I personally think it should depend on context; if it is being used in a generalization of "Europe", I would include it as a part of Europe. NDfan173 (talk) 00:22, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Excluding Turkey from Europe is a realatively new phenomenon. She has always been mentioned as one in official sources included official NATO sources. Klevehagfd (talk) 15:02, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Probably not. The separation between Europe and Asia is mostly political than geographical and, when political, it is rather debatable. Yes, most of Turkey is geographically in Asia, but its presence in Asia has nothing to do with its presence in NATO. (If the argument for the 'Eurasian' mention is purely geographic, it can be quickly refuted by reminding that Spain has territory in Africa [as well as Portugal, in a sense, as Madeira is clearly a geographically African archipelago] and that France also has the French Guyana in South America, and suddenly you have a North-and-South-American-Afro-Asian-European NATO, which I think is ridiculous.) As it stands, NATO is an alliance of North American and European countries; it has never been meant to include Asia (the name explicitly says 'North Atlantic'), which makes its mention not very relevant. In other words, yes, it is true that Turkey is in a position that enables it to lean politically to Europe or to Asia; but its presence in NATO is a result of leaning to Europe. Mentioning Asia is irrelevant here. LongLivePortugal (talk) 00:42, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

The promise by James Baker (US Secretary of State) to Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9 1990: “NATO will not move one inch further east”

Shortly after the fall of the Berlin wall, Germany was included into NATO. As multiple declassified documents, notes and cables show, together with newspaper articles by Der Spiegel, The New York Times (NYT) and Russia Beyond (the latter being referenced by the NYT), the inclusion of Germany into NATO followed a cascade of assurances to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev given by Western leaders about the limits of NATO’s expansion.

Even at a distance of many years, on 2014, Mikhail Gorbachev confirmed in an interview that in 1990 “The agreement on a final settlement with Germany said that no new military structures would be created in the eastern part of the country; no additional troops would be deployed; no weapons of mass destruction would be placed there. [..] The decision for the U.S. and its allies to expand NATO into the east was decisively made in 1993. I called this a big mistake from the very beginning. It was definitely a violation of the spirit of the statements and assurances made to us in 1990.”, etc.

Following the interview of Yanis Varoufakis on Febryary 24 2022, where he said that “We have to create international solidarity [..] for NATO to keep out of Europe, and especially Eastern Europe, as, let’s not forget, George Bush — the senior George Bush — had promised Mikhail Gorbachev”, I was surprised that there is no mention about this promise on the Wikipedia page of NATO.

After a short investigation, however, it turned out that there have been several attempts indeed to insert this information, but many of these were reverted by the same user, Patrickneil, for example here, here, and here. His argument is essentially that this event is not notable, or not factual, without however engaging into a discussion (or at least not on his talk page).

On the other side, the Baker-Gorbachev Pact is well covered on a dedicated page of Wikipedia, but this page is very hard to find for someone who just visits the NATO article.

Given the key role that this event may be playing in the Ukraine war, which has been compared even to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 when the Soviet Union vice-versa entered the sphere of influence of the US, I will proceed to reintroduce this event in the NATO page directly. If anybody want to discuss in more details, let’s please do it here.Morgoonki (talk) 22:18, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

What you tell is not the full story. Reading Treaty_on_the_Final_Settlement_with_Respect_to_Germany#Eastward_expansion_of_NATO reveals that the issue of eastward expansion was never formally discussed. Gorbachev himself admitted it. The alleged promise was made in a rather secret pact, solely between the US and the USSR. It is easy to see how that makes it irrelevant: how would these two countries (one of which doesn't even exist anymore) have the legitimacy to permanently keep 14 European countries from ever joining NATO, when neither the 14 nor NATO were consulted on the matter? And isn't this addition being driven by WP:RECENTISM, aggravated by the fact that such a line of reasoning is currently being used to support the brutal and hedious ongoing invasion of Ukraine by the dictatorial regime of Vladimir Putin? Finally, the article you have cited of the alleged pact is not well-covered: it was created yesterday! And I find it non-neutral for the same reasons, having also initiated a discussion there. Therefore, it is my belief that your proposed addition to this article makes no sense and should be rejected. LongLivePortugal (talk) 23:57, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Answer to “was never formally discussed”: the wiki page that you cite says in fact the opposite. For example it says: “In 2005, historian Stephen F. Cohen said that a commitment was given that NATO would never expand further east”, “In 1993, then Russian president Boris Yeltsin wrote: "The spirit of the treaty precludes the option of expanding the NATO zone into the East.”, and “On 7 May 2008, the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev [..] stated [..] that [..] the Americans promised that NATO wouldn't move beyond the boundaries of Germany after the Cold War but now half of central and eastern Europe are members”. I agree that there are some disputes on which agreement exactly has been discussed, but that’s different than claiming that it was never formally discussed.

Answer to “solely between the US and the USSR”: this is contrast with the declassified documents. Quoting again the National Security Archive: “The first concrete assurances by Western leaders on NATO began on January 31, 1990, when West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher opened the bidding with a major public speech at Tutzing [..]”, “The Tutzing formula immediately became the center of a flurry of important diplomatic discussions over the next 10 days in 1990, leading to the crucial February 10, 1990, meeting in Moscow between Kohl and Gorbachev when the West German leader achieved Soviet assent in principle to German unification in NATO, as long as NATO did not expand to the east.”, “The former idea about closer to the Soviet borders is written down not in treaties but in multiple memoranda of conversation between the Soviets and the highest-level Western interlocutors (Genscher, Kohl, Baker, Gates, Bush, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Major, Woerner, and others) ”.

Answer to “this line of reasoning is currently being used to support the brutal and hedious ongoing invasion of Ukraine”: it is not up to Wikipedia to support or not support the invasion. On the contrary, all encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (WP:NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. Purging references to historical facts just because they may have political implications is violating the Wikipedia policies.

Answer to “the article you have cited of the alleged pact is not well-covered: it was created yesterday!”: I have cited four references on the pact: 1. Der Spiegel (February 18 2022), 2. NYT (January 9 2022) and Russia Beyond (October 16 2014). The only link of “yesterday” was to Democracy Now about the Cuban Missile Crisis parallelism.

If you don’t see these points, I kindly invite you to support them with concrete references. Please also kindly double-check your comments before uploading them: mistakes (like the dates of the references above) cause a lot of overhead to rectify. In the meantime, I think it is urgent to restore some WP:NPOV. Thank you! Morgoonki (talk) 10:00, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

You have only quoted from Treaty_on_the_Final_Settlement_with_Respect_to_Germany#Eastward_expansion_of_NATO the parts that interested to your position. Read it completely and you will find also that, "according to Robert Zoellick, then a US State Department official involved in the Two Plus Four negotiating process, this [the commitment that NATO would not expand east] appears to be a misperception, as no formal commitment of the sort was made." And: "In a 2014 interview, Gorbachev reversed himself by saying that the topic of 'NATO expansion' as such was 'not discussed at all'." And even: "In 1997, NATO and Russia signed a treaty stating that each country had a sovereign right to seek alliances." So, as you can see, the available information is very contradictory about whether the issue was discussed or not; what we know for sure is that no treaty containing that was formally signed and made public for all to see. Whatever happened in all those meetings is unclear. (You recognise that it is all written only in memoranda and declassified documents.) And yet you want to write in the lead of the article that an alleged informal pact was breached by 14 nations? I find it unreasonable; spoken and informal agreements are not relevant for the history of NATO. (A written treaty made public would be.)

That answers your first two paragraphs. About the third one, you are right in saying that we are not to decide what belongs in Wikipedia based on political implications. But I didn't say that was the main breach of policy here: the main problem is WP:RECENTISM, which remains a problem of your line of reasoning, because we are not supposed to be looking into historical events from the heat of a current war (my mention that your line of reasoning is supporting Putin's stance was made only as an aggravating factor, whose dismissal I accept, the main issue being WP:RECENTISM instead).

Finally, there must have been a misunderstanding about the dates: what I said was that the article was created two days ago. Someone wrote an article about that alleged historical event from the heat of this war. I don't think we're supposed to do that. LongLivePortugal (talk) 13:57, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

@LongLivePortugal: I am sorry, but I find your way of thinking not consistent. You pass from “the non-expansion was never formally discussed”, to “yes it was discussed, but only in memoranda”, to “informal agreements are not relevant”. In my opinion you are just trying to erase from Wikipedia this part of history with whatever arguments, and in contrast with standard WP policies. I hope that somebody else, some one neutral and not involved in the serial deletion of this part of history (see here in 2014, here in 2015, here in 2018 and here ongoing) will chime in.

It is since 2014 (see links above) that someone does not want this part of the history to exist (which is perfectly understandable given the political impact of this page), hence WP:RECENTISM is in my opinion just and excuse. Morgoonki (talk) 16:30, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

@Morgoonki: There is no contradiction among the three statements you quoted from me: yes, the expansion issue was not formally discussed; it was discussed in informal conversations which were recorded only in memoranda and which paved the pay for the formal 2+4 Agreement, which made no mention of the NATO issue; this makes the informal preliminary conversations about NATO expansion irrelevant, as no agreement was reached and signed about that issue, which would have made it relevant if it had happened. Finally, it is also irrelevant for you to bring up past discussions when talking with me, given that you can see that I wasn't editing at that time. Thus, when confronted with these edits right now, my accusation of WP:RECENTISM still stands. LongLivePortugal (talk) 23:35, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

The problem with your assertions is that nothing was ever codified into law. And the parties involved have made conflicting statement in the many years since German reunification. In the same interview with Gorbachev, he said

"The topic of “NATO expansion” was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. I say this with full responsibility. Not a singe Eastern European country raised the issue, not even after the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist in 1991. Western leaders didn’t bring it up, either. Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO’s military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces from the alliance would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker’s statement, mentioned in your question, was made in that context. Kohl and [German Vice Chancellor Hans-Dietrich] Genscher talked about it."

When we get into the realm of 'promises' in global political discourse, we fall into the exact same realm of vagaries as Mr. Putin's 'promises' that the troops massed on Ukraine's border were merely "military exercises, drills, are purely defensive and are not a threat to any other country."

Truth tends to be rather fluid at this level. Regardless, no legal commitment not to expand further east was ever made; Mr. Putin is merely making ex post facto justifications for his beligerence.

Since 1990, the Soviet Union dissolved - the body that any pact was made with - and fourteen nations 'east' of Germany have joined NATO. Putin is doing what Putin does best: hanging pretext on anything he can grasp at.

Beyond that, the 'pact' is discussed in the body of the article. Adding yet another of Putin's prevarications to the lede as suggestive that something was "violated" doesn't stand muster under WP:WEIGHT. Anastrophe (talk) 00:02, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Answer to “The problem with your assertions is that nothing was ever codified into law”: of course the Baker-Gorbachev Pact was not voted by a parliament (if this is what you mean). Still, quoting again the National Security Archive: the idea “is written down not in treaties but in multiple memoranda of conversation between the Soviets and the highest-level Western interlocutors (Genscher, Kohl, Baker, Gates, Bush, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Major, Woerner, and others) ”. You may argue that “memoranda” are not worth being respected. For what that matters, NATO countries haven’t respected even written and signed documents, like the Charter of the United Nations for example when NATO bombed Yugoslavia. Anyhow, it is not up to Wikipedia to judge what should or not be respected.

You cite the Wikipedia policy “Due and undue weight” WP:WEIGHT, but this says, quote: “Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources”. Are you claiming that the Baker-Gorbachev Pact is not significant? Please kindly keep the full WP:NPOV in mind when answering. Thank you! Morgoonki (talk) 10:03, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

The critical wording in what you highlight above is not "all significant viewpoints" but "all significant viewpoints". Significant. Again, and I don't intend condescension, focus on that word: SIGNIFICANT. The significance of informal promises made in the geopolitical tableau, during other negotiations, with a defunct state, more than thirty years ago, is LOW with regard to NATO as a whole. That is not to say that DURING the interval whence German reunification was taking place, it may have some significance. This why elsewhere at the Baker-Gorbachev Pact I (will be, haven't yet, need more coffee intervention) voting against deletion, and will attempt to copyedit for better clarity and wording (it has a number of textual errors). I'm 62 - this all occurred during my lifetime, and I was unaware of these alleged 'promises' - it's an interesting historical matter, and coverage belongs in the encyclopedia, regardless of it having become prominent due to the current Ukraine conflict. But the 'pact' is only "significant" relevant to Putin's ex post facto justifications; to the history of NATO? A footnote.

And please stop edit warring. As above, the 'pact' is interesting, but it is not a SIGNFICANT matter to this NATO article, and Putin's reliance upon it is not a justification for giving it prominence in the lede of the article. Cheers. Anastrophe (talk) 19:25, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

The legal status is irrelevant. The question is not whether this has legal force - we are not qualified to answer and it would be OR anyway. What matters is whether reliable sources mention it when describing the history of NATO during and after the breakup of the USSR. Alaexis_¿question? 10:16, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

That's a good point, too. The statement on the Baker-Gorbachev Pact may be added if we find information about it in reliable sources within the context of the history of NATO. If we add the pact based on other kinds of sources in order to conclude that it was broken, we may be violating the WP:SYNTH policy. LongLivePortugal (talk) 13:57, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

@LongLivePortugal: Are you seriously claiming that the references to the declassified documents, to Der Spiegel or of the New York Times are not reliable sources or are not within the context of the NATO?? Morgoonki (talk) 15:53, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi, I just wanted to agree that no, mentioning of any promises during the 2+4 negotiations in 1990 is not significant enough to be included in the lead, which is intended as a summary of the article's major points, and I don't think this is a major point in the 73 years of history it covers. I understand how important the idea of a "broken promise" is to many editors, but it just hasn't had any actual effect on NATO nor its enlargement. And to clarify a bit, the neutrality policy at WP:NPOV doesn't mean I get to state my viewpoint and then you get to state your viewpoint, it means that no viewpoints get stated. We can describe a dispute, which is what I believe we already do in the Enlargement section. I also should mention that I nominated this "Baker-Gorbachev Pact" article that was created earlier this week for deletion, so interested editors could make their opinions known on the relevant AfD page. Lastly, just a friendly reminder not to edit war, just take your points to the discussion pages. Thanks!-- Patrick Neil, _oѺ^∞/Talk 17:59, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

@Morgoonki: None of the three sources you mention describe the history of NATO, which is why I say that they present the agreement outside the context of the history of NATO. For this context to occur, you would have to find a source focused on the history of NATO which would also mention this alleged pact. If you take sources that discuss only the pact and use them to conclude that there was a relevant pact that was breached later throughout the history of NATO, that sounds to me like synthesis of material. LongLivePortugal (talk) 23:35, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Is the demand of President Vladimir Putin a major point? M.Bitton (talk) 23:59, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

@LongLivePortugal: Saying that the declassified documents, the article of Der Spiegel or the article of New York Times are not about NATO (or its history -whatever your unclear sentence means) is just blatantly false and ridiculous. It is impossible to continue a discussion under these circumstances. The misconducts happening in this page need urgent and broader attention. Morgoonki (talk) 07:37, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

@Morgoonki: They are not about NATO in the sense that they do not focus on it. If you find sources about the whole history of NATO which mention this "Baker-Gorbachev Pact" within them, then that would prove that the pact is actually relevant for the history of NATO, thence sufficiently relevant for us to include it here. Otherwise, it is as "a footnote" to history, as another editor wrote here, because the sources describe a specific conversation that occurred and not the history of NATO in general (which is what@Morgoonki: this article is trying to cover). I believe that this was the point of User:Alaexis, if I understood it correctly. LongLivePortugal (talk) 00:13, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

LongLivePortugal, I've just checked Jan Eichler's NATO’s Expansion After the Cold War written in 2021 and he does mention Baker's promise:

“ On 9 February 1990, in Moscow, Mr James Baker presented to Gorbachev and Shevardnadze his famous formula “not one inch eastward” (Gorbachev and Baker 1990a). And during his negotiations with Shevardnadze, on 4May 1990, he promised that the role of the CSCE would be strengthened and reassured him that the new international order would not yield winners and losers. Instead, it would produce

a new legitimate European structure—“one that would be inclusive, not exclusive” (Gorbachev and Baker 1990b).

”

It's worth checking other sources too but this would indicate that it's considered important. Alaexis_¿question? 20:50, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

@Beland: Your edit introduces two inaccuracies: 1. there was not just a commitment by two people (Genscher and Baker as you wrote), but (as already discussed few lines above in this talk page) there are multiple memoranda of conversation between the Soviets and the highest-level Western interlocutors, including also Genscher, Kohl, Baker, Gates, Bush, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Major, Woerner; and 2. since the publication on December 12 2017 of the declassified documents and cables by the National Security Archive, there is no longer a matter of dispute among historians and international relations scholars as you wrote: in fact, the references you cite to support this thesis (the two publications by the same author Kramer) are dated earlier (2009 and July 2017). See also the comments few lines above by Alaexis. I bring therefore the text to its previous version. Morgoonki (talk) 21:39, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

@Morgoonki: I did not write the material; I copied it from Enlargement of NATO. After your revert, this article and that article now contradict each other. The text from that article does seem like a more neutral summary. It's not disputed now so much what was said but as to whether it represents a non-binding promise, a binding promise, or a potential promise.

Baker-Gorbachev Pact has been renamed Baker-Gorbachev Negotiations because there seems to be consensus that there was not a definitive agreement or pact. Certainly this did not result in a formal treaty. The U.S. and Russia are currently loudly disputing the strength of this promise, and Wikipedia should not take sides when there's not a clear academic consensus in favor of any particular interpretation. The text I copied in does link to other articles with more information so readers can get the full back-and-forth and decide for themselves. It's fine if you want to add a bit more detail about who said what, but the text should clearly indicate the disputed nature of the outcome. -- Beland (talk) 22:47, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Sorry to step on your feet, Beland, if you do want to use that sentence from Enlargement of NATO feel free to re-add it. I did write it as an attempt balance the issue and follow WP:IMPARTIAL, which suggests describing disputes without endorsing their arguments. Personally, I'd love to keep the Enlargement section here short and summary style, but know it's a bit of a magnet for this 1990 issue (see above), so some mention might be needed to satisfy other users. I fear a bit that any mention will grow quickly into a paragraph that would be undue again. But if you do add more, perhaps try to build it into the end of first sentence of the second paragraph there?-- Patrick Neil, _oѺ^∞/Talk 02:12, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Alaexis: I see you put the "Despite assurances" phrase back in this morning, which now has four sources after the comma. As I've said, I don't think the 1990 2+4 negotiations had any affect on the 14 countries that joined NATO since then, so prefacing the whole section about them joining with this phrase seems to give it an inordinate amount of undue weight. And we have always mentioned Russian opposition to enlargement in the second paragraph anyways. I do just want to discuss those sources for a second, because I feel like I'm the only one reading them.

• The New York Times article from January is titled "In Ukraine Conflict, Putin Relies on a Promise That Ultimately Wasn't". It's a good overview of the history of Russia's grievance, but utterly debunks the idea, calling it "a selective account of what really happened, used to justify Russian aggression for years."
• The 2021 book by Jan Eichler says, in the pages you cite, that "The USA gave no explicit promise in this regard: all conclusions that there was a promise that NATO would not expand are only political myths."
• The Der Spiegel article is an opinion piece, which we generally discourage on Wikipedia, but it too makes clear "Allerdings traf der Westen keine völkerrechtlich bindende Vereinbarung mit dem Kreml, die eine Nato-Osterweiterung ausschließt." Put that in Google Translate if you need to, but it say "However, the West did not meet an international agreement with the Kremlin excluding NATO eastward enlargement." I'm happy to share the article's text if the paywall is an issue for anyone.
• Then the 2017 website from "National Security Archive", with its primary sources (again, discouraged on Wikipedia), says what I feel like I've been pointing out for years here on these talk pages. Yes, Gorbachev believed he had assurance, "But inside the U.S. government, a different discussion continued, a debate about relations between NATO and Eastern Europe. Opinions differed, but the suggestion from the Defense Department as of October 25, 1990 was to leave “the door ajar” for East European membership in NATO."

In the specific memo of the conversation between James Baker and Mikhail Gorbachev, you can go to Vladimir Putin's favorite line, the "one inch" line, it's on page 6. The important part for me is the sentence after: "We could have discussion in a two plus four context that might achieve this kind of outcome." And the key there, is that they didn't, they didn't have negotiations that achieved that kind of outcome. So I'm kind of baffled why folks keep using these specific sources to say the opposite. All of this is, of course, on top of the idea that James Baker and Hans-Dietrich Genscher aren't NATO, that they weren't speaking on behalf of NATO, and so why their back-room negotiations would be binding for the organization such that this section on this article would need to start with a mention of their conversations is a big, on-going problem for me.-- Patrick Neil, _oѺ^∞/Talk 13:40, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Patrickneil, I think the question is not whether there were explicit promises but rather how reliable sources treat these events. The Eichler's book on the NATO expansion dedicates a whole chapter to the matter, contrasting the open declarations and secret negotiations. He clearly considers it important, see the conclusions p. 37

“ The negotiations waged between 1990 and 1991 are seen not only as a part of recent history but also in the light of their consequences for the ISR in the Northern Hemisphere. The leading Western politicians of that period are often celebrated as the respected winners and founders of a radically new international order. On the other hand, some critical authors see the above-mentioned behaviour of the West as cynical hypocrisy and a merciless egoism which sowed the seeds of many future problems, especially the great bitterness among the Russian elites, which resulted in their determination to get revenge for the unjust end of the Cold War. ”

Alaexis_¿question? 14:02, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Btw I'm not wedded to this particular wording and placement, possibly we need to mention other things to provide a proper context. E.g, we can add that no explicit promises were given by anyone who had the authority to do so, or something along these lines. Alaexis_¿question? 14:08, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

So we agree, the idea of a 1990 commitment is an important myth. Clearly its among the rationals Vladimir Putin is using to incinerate children fleeing from Kyiv, so yes, important and worth filling newspaper articles, magazines, and libraries of books. But an infinite amount of sources still doesn't mean their topic needs to be mentioned here, on this article, on Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia, particularly being presented as a fact. There is certainly a direct line between James Baker and current NATO/Russian tensions, but there just isn't a direct line between James Baker and the history of NATO enlargement in 1999, 2004, etc, which is what this section is about. Show me where Montenegro, after completing it's treaty ratification process, said "oops, James Baker promised NATO wouldn't expand, nevermind." In the second paragraph of this section, we do have a sentence summarizing the issue: "Russia continues to politically oppose further expansion, seeing it as inconsistent with informal understandings between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and European and US negotiators that allowed for a peaceful German reunification." I think that is accurate and sufficient coverage for this tangential issue, but that prefacing the section with it is undue. If you are open to different wording and different placement, what did you think about Beland's suggestion of using the wording from Enlargement of NATO, perhaps in that second paragraph?-- Patrick Neil, _oѺ^∞/Talk 16:06, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

On the second thought, the discussion on the assurances and their impact belongs more properly to the history section. If you don't mind I'll move it there. For the Members section the sentence you mentioned is sufficient. Alaexis_¿question? 18:57, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

@Alaexis: I have just attempted to rephrase, in order to contextualise this event, as you suggested. LongLivePortugal (talk) 22:31, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

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: Not delisted per Moxy's rationale above. Hanif Al Husaini (talk) 10:30, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Specific historical facts are routinely censored in this page as highlighted here. The quality of the discussion in the talk page has reached very low levels making it impossible to hold a conversation. The page is also a theater of edit-warring, which should cause immediate failure of being considered a good article. Morgoonki (talk) 10:47, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

The problem is that you are mischaracterizing both the material and the discussion.

First - it is historical information. Characterizing it as 'facts', when parties involved have made multiple contradictory claims (found in reliable sources) is a conflation. This is easily exemplified by Gorbachev's vaccilation in discussing the matters.

Second, you have grossly mischaracterized the material in creating Baker-Gorbachev Pact. The word Pact has a specific meaning. The negotiations were in no way, shape, form, characterization, or context, a "pact". Please read up on the definition if necessary.

Third, jumping to the "censorship" argument is facile. You have already violated 3RR in your attempts to push a narrative that you are fond of. That's not censorship, that's ensuring that editors don't push their POV to the top of an article, giving the material greater weight than it holds.

Fourth, you have characterized in your edit summaries justifying your additions that there was an 'emerging consensus' on the talk page - unfortunately, the emerging consensus was that the material was not appropriate to the lead. The Baker-Gorbachev (Shevardnadze,Kohl, Genscher, etc etc) discussions - not even formal negotiations - are an interesting footnote in the history of what took place. Assigning it the importance of a violated legal pact is over the top.

As I have stated elsewhere, these matters are interesting, and deserve coverage; they don't necessarily warrant their own separate article, and more importantly, they are not critical to the body NATO itself, not such that they need to be relitigated in the lede of the article.

The discussion on the talk page has been largely civil. Characterizing it as being 'very low' quality is a misrepresentation, the rationales of all parties have been stated very clearly. That you dislike that you have little agreement doesn't make the discussion 'low quality', it simply means that the consensus thus far doesn't support your additions, specifically in the lead of the article.

There is no need for reassessment. Anastrophe (talk) 23:38, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

The page you linked to specifically says that a page being the subject of an edit war should result in the immediate failure of a Good Article Review, only when the edit war is prior to the article being made a good article. It should be obvious that anything Good or higher isn't immediately delisted as soon as an edit war starts. Loafiewa (talk) 13:31, 3 March 2022 (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.

“Expenses”

It doesn’t make sense to me that the “expenses” line in the info box refers to the combined military expenditures of the member states. This article is about the organization itself, so “expenses” ought to refer to the expenses of the organization, which are obviously well under a trillion dollars. To be clear, I think this information should be retained in the infobox, but I’m wondering what a more accurate heading would be. Wallnot (talk) 05:12, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Geopolitics missing

NATO is a military alliance and, so, a fundamentaly a geopolitical entity. All discussion of geopolitics is missing from this article. The Soviet Union, the raison d'etre for the creation of NATO does not even find a mention in the lead. Nor does the article explain why NATO continues to exist even after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The debates surround the expansion of NATO after the end of Soviet Union are not discussed either. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:04, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Key material is sourced to NATO itself (WP:SPS), and historical coverage of the 1940–2000 period is often sourced to contemporary news articles from recent decades, which are only reliable for "news", not history. (See WP:NEWSORG and WP:HISTRS) -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:07, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Needless to say almost all the sources are from NATO member countries, which can be expected to take a pro-NATO line. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 12:10, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

The lead can be easily fixed, which I've just done (removing a claim someone had snuck in blaming NATO for the invasion of Ukraine for good measure). I've removed the POV tag, as it seems exessive for easily-addressed concerns to a high profile (especially at the moment) article. Nick-D (talk) 22:48, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Correction on the promise of "East" by Baker to Russia.

The specifics of the private discussion were as it related to East Germany, because that was what concerned Russia. Baker assured Russia that no foreign military bases would be built even one inch across the Berlin Wall into East Germany. We upheld that agreement, as evident by maps of military installations in Germany.

This was also confirmed by Gorbachev, as well as others present that day. Gorbachev was not even in negotiations at the time, the Soviets had ceased negotiations and resumed them 10 days later. Presumably, Baker's offer reached Gorbachev.

Of course, we all know that none of this was written at the time of the signing of the agreement by either party, and neither party even brought it up.

Thank you. My sources: Declassified documents of specific conversations between Baker and Russia, Gorbachev himself, Baker's assistant, several articles including a 2009 The Washington Quarterly article and a Nov 6, 2014 Brookings.edu article by Steven Pifer. 107.77.169.24 (talk) 08:51, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Benefits

What are the benefits. 103.157.186.226 (talk) 04:20, 15 March 2022 ? UTC)

read me....I am a source from this article.Moxy- 04:45, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

North of the Tropic of Cancer

@Wallnot: well, I'm ready to discuss this. I see that there were various discussions in archives as well. This is not original research, we're making map based on the text NATO provides. It doesn't say that those two are under NATO protection. [1] even their own map doesn't show it. Again, art. 6 [2]:

For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:

on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France 2, on the territory of Turkey or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer; on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.

Similarly see North_Atlantic_Treaty#Article_6: Article 6 states that the treaty covers only member states' territories in Europe and North America, Turkey and islands in the North Atlantic north of the Tropic of Cancer, plus French Algeria. It was the opinion in August 1965 of the US State Department, the US Defense Department and the legal division of NATO that an attack on the U.S. state of Hawaii would not trigger the treaty, but an attack on the other 49 would.

References

So I am saying that, instead putting member countries, describe it like that. It's misleading.

Beshogur (talk) 15:05, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

this absolutely is original research. See WP:SYNTH. NATO article 6 is a primary source document, and by combining its text with another source (eg, one saying Puerto Rico is south of the Tropic of Cancer), you are conducting original research. I encourage you to look for a reliable secondary source that says what you are hoping to add. Wallnot (talk) 15:11, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Funny that you have no comment on texts about article 5 in this article below. All cite NATO. Those are OR as well. How did you come to conclusion that Puerto Rico and Guyana are under NATO? Beshogur (talk) 15:21, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

primary sources can be used as references in some circumstances. That doesn’t mean they can be synthesized. If what you say is correct, I’m sure there’s a reliable source out there to support it, and I encourage you to find it. Wallnot (talk) 15:25, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm not editing something important in the lead or body, I showing member states' overseas territories is misleading, and doesn't reflect the NATO treaty. Beshogur (talk) 15:29, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

@Wallnot: @Beshogur: it is also important to note for this discussion that Beshogur has removed the discussed territories from the Map image in Wikipedia commons. I’m reverting that move until a consensus has been reached here. Garuda28 (talk) 16:01, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Fine. Beshogur (talk) 16:06, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

@Beshogur: For what it's worth, as a gesture of good faith, I just spent about 15 mins looking for a reliable secondary source to back up your claim (which, based on the text of article 6, seems to be correct, though as I said, we can't cite that proposition to Article 6, we need an RS to interpret Article 6 for us). I wasn't able to find any. Wallnot (talk) 16:27, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

This is not my claim. If you read article 6, it says what it says. It's obvious that north of Tropic is Cancer is included only, see NATO's interactive map as well. There is no source either that UK/USA/France's overseas departments are under NATO protection. Beshogur (talk) 16:44, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

@Wallnot: found this[3]. See 7-5. Beshogur (talk) 16:50, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Article 6 does not say that Puerto Rico et al. are not included. However obvious it is that they are north of the Tropic of Cancer, If a single source says "A" in one context, and "B" in another, without connecting them, and does not provide an argument of "therefore C", then "therefore C" cannot be used in any article. See WP:SYNTH. We don't need a source stating that UK/USA/France's overseas departments are under NATO protection, because the caption presently reads "Land controlled by member states shown in dark green"—not "Land protected by alliance". Wallnot (talk) 17:03, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

However obvious it is that they are north of the Tropic of Cancer Nope, they're south of it. That's what I'm saying. see map. Well, instead we can say with a note tag that territories south of Tropic of Cancer isn't under NATO protection, and change the main sentence as "Member states", instead of "Land controlled". Beshogur (talk) 19:48, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Right, north, south, whatever you said. I don't see that there's a need to change to change the note. "Land controlled by member states" is accurate. If you edit the map to remove land south of the tropic of cancer, "Member states" would be inaccurate, because that would exclude Hawaii (not to mention fact that territories are arguably part of the states themselves. Wallnot (talk) 20:00, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 21 March 2022

Please add on the expenses column in pounds GBP £736.19 billion 192.175.42.246 (talk) 20:58, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

 Not done I don't think it makes sense. Exchange rates are constantly changing. Either we have a source for a specific value in different currencies or we just use the value in the currency given in the source used. In this case, since the source appears to give us the value in US dollars only, I have chosen to actually remove the value in euros and keep it only in USD. LongLivePortugal (talk) 14:43, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

There needs to be country identifiers in the map. Anyone know how to do this.