Accession of Macedonia to NATO
Following an agreement in June 2018 to rename the country the Republic of North Macedonia, NATO agreed to consider extending an invitation to the country to join at its summit on 11–12 July. On 11 July 2018, NATO invited Macedonia to begin membership talks, saying the country could join the organization once the naming issue was resolved. Formal accession talks began on 18 October 2018. Greece is expected to be the first NATO member state to ratify Macedonia’s NATO accession protocol.
NATO
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany in 1989, the organization conducted its first military interventions in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995 and later Yugoslavia in 1999 during the breakup of Yugoslavia. Politically, the organization sought better relations with former Warsaw Pact countries, most of which joined the alliance in 1999 and 2004. , requiring member states to come to the aid of any member state subject to an armed attack, was invoked for the first and only time after the September 11 attacks, after which troops were deployed to Afghanistan under the NATO-led ISAF. The organization has operated a range of additional roles since then, including sending trainers to Iraq, assisting in counter-piracy operations and in 2011 enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1973. The less potent Article 4, which merely invokes consultation among NATO members, has been invoked five times following incidents in the Iraq War, Syrian Civil War, and annexation of Crimea.