What is North Atlantic Treaty?
The '''North Atlantic Treaty''' is the [[treaty]] that founded [[NATO]]. It was signed in [[Washington, DC]] on April 4, 1949. ==Members== The original twelve nations that signed it and thus became the founding members of NATO were the following: {| | * {{flag|Belgium}} * {{flag|Canada}} * {{flag|Denmark}} * {{flag|France}} * {{flag|Iceland}} * {{flag|Italy}} | * {{flag|Luxembourg}} * {{flag|Netherlands}} * {{flag|Norway}} * {{flag|Portugal}} * {{flag|United Kingdom}} * {{flag|United States}} |} Later the following nations joined: {| | * {{flag|Bulgaria}} <br> (2004) * {{flag|Czech Republic}} <br> (1999) * {{flag|Estonia}} <br> (2004) * {{flag|West Germany}} <br> (1955) * {{flag|Greece}} <br> (1952) * {{flag|Hungary}} <br> (1999) * {{flag|Latvia}} <br> (2004) | * {{flag|Lithuania}} <br> (2004) * {{flag|Poland}} <br> (1999) * {{flag|Romania}} <br> (2004) * {{flag|Slovakia}} <br> (2004) * {{flag|Slovenia}} <br> (2004) * {{flag|Spain}} <br> (1982) * {{flag|Turkey}} <br> (1952) |} When [[Germany]] was reunified in 1990, the country as a whole became a member of NATO. ==Article V== The key section of the treaty was Article V which says that each member state has to consider an armed attack against one state to be an armed attack against all states. The treaty was created with an armed attack by the [[Soviet Union]] against Western Europe in mind, but the [[:wikt:mutual|mutual]] self-defense clause was never used during the [[Cold War]]. It was used for the first time in 2001 when the [[September 11, 2001 attacks]] against the [[World Trade Center (1973–2001)|World Trade Center]] and [[The Pentagon]] had taken place. ==US ratification== In the United States, the treaty was approved by the [[United States Senate|Senate]] in a vote of 82 to 13 on July 21, 1949. ==Related pages== *[[NATO]] *[[Warsaw Pact]] ==Other websites== {{wikisource}} *[http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/treaty.htm Text of the North Atlantic Treaty] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/19980130060520/http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/