1949 On April 4th, 12 countries, including the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Portugal and Italy, signed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Washington, D.C.. As of March 29th, 2004, NATO has 26 member countries. The Secretary-General is Jaap de jaap de hoop scheffer, who took office in June 2004.

Article 14 of the North Atlantic Treaty aims at "collective defense" among the contracting States. When any contracting state goes to war with another country, member States must give assistance, including the use of force. The founding members of NATO include the United States, Canada, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Britain, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Portugal and Italy.

The basic framework of NATO

NATO was once called North Atlantic Alliance or North Atlantic Group. The highest decision-making body of NATO is the NATO Council. The Council is composed of heads of state and government, foreign ministers and defense ministers of member States, and the Standing Council is composed of ambassadors of member States. Headquartered in Brussels. Greece and Turkey joined the organization on 1952, and the Federal Republic of Germany and Spain joined on 1955 and 1982 respectively.

In the 1990s, with the dissolution of Warsaw Pact, which was established in May 1955, and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the political and security situation in Europe changed greatly, and NATO began to transform into a political and military organization.

1in July, 1990, 1 1 NATO summit announced the end of the cold war in London. 19911February, NATO decided to establish the North Atlantic Cooperation Council with some Central and Eastern European countries at the Rome Summit. Since 1992, Poland and other eastern European countries have put forward the requirements of joining NATO. In the same year, NATO approved a principle that allowed its troops to leave the territories of member States and participate in peacekeeping operations elsewhere. At the end of that year, NATO decided to intervene in the Yugoslav crisis by force.

1994 in June, 5438+ 10, NATO Brussels Summit adopted a plan to establish a "partnership for peace" with Central and Eastern European countries and Russia, and began to send peacekeeping troops to Bosnia and Herzegovina in February. 1In September 1996, NATO published a research report on its eastward expansion plan. 1In May 1997, the Euro-Atlantic Cooperation Council, which replaced the North Atlantic Cooperation Council and aimed at strengthening the security relations between NATO and non-NATO member countries in Europe and Eurasia, was formally established. The Madrid Summit in July decided to admit Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary as NATO members. 1March 1999, these three countries formally became new members of NATO. So far, NATO members have grown to 19. In June 2002, NATO Prague Summit decided to admit Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria to NATO. This is the largest expansion of NATO since the establishment of 1949. In March, 2004, the above seven countries formally submitted the legal texts of their own accession to NATO, thus becoming new NATO members, expanding the number of NATO members from the current 19 to 26.

In June 2003, the meeting of defense ministers of NATO member States decided to improve NATO's emergency response capability by streamlining its military command structure. According to the plan, NATO's future military command system is divided into three levels: strategic command, theater command and tactical command. The current 20 NATO military command structures will be reduced to 1 1 in the future. At the strategic level, NATO's European Allied Command and Atlantic Allied Command will be merged into the Allied Combat Command, which will be NATO's "only" highest military operation command, headquartered in Mons, Belgium. In addition, NATO will establish a functional Allied Reform Command, which will be responsible for promoting and supervising military reform, with the goal of strengthening training, improving military capabilities, testing and developing military principles, and evaluating new concepts through experiments. Headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia, USA. At the theater level, the existing five theater headquarters will be streamlined into two permanent Coalition headquarters, directly under the Allied Operations Command. The headquarters of these two theaters are located in brunson, the Netherlands and Naples. In addition, a "lean" permanent Coalition headquarters was established in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, only responsible for maritime deployment tasks. At the tactical level, the existing 13 subordinate operational command will be reduced to six, which are distributed in Germany, Britain, Spain and Turkey, and belong to the above two permanent joint force commands. On September 1 day of the same year, the commander of NATO's Supreme Allied Command in Europe was officially renamed NATO Allied Military Operations Command, which was fully responsible for the command and coordination of all NATO military operations.

NATO Summit

After five expansions, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has become the most powerful military group in the world with 26 member countries, and its borders are directly adjacent to Russian territory. The following is a brief introduction of the NATO summit:

1957 12 16, 1 The summit was held in Paris. The meeting reiterated its position on peace and security, stressed the necessity of establishing a nuclear arsenal, and decided to hand over the medium-range missiles to NATO's supreme commander in Europe.

1On June 26th, 974, the second summit was held in Brussels. At that meeting, the Atlantic Declaration was signed, reaffirming the obligation of all Member States to formulate the Convention.

1975 On May 29th, the third summit was held in Brussels. The meeting reaffirmed the obligation of collective defense and mutual assistance in dealing with economic problems.

1May 1977 10, the fourth summit was held in London. The meeting recognized human rights as the basic principle of cooperation between countries and began to study the long-term trend of East-West relations and the needs of national defense.

1978 On May 30th, the fifth summit was held in Washington. The meeting focused on the relationship between NATO and Warsaw Pact, and made a decision on NATO's long-term defense plan.

1982 June 10, the sixth summit was held in Bonn. The meeting discussed the deployment of new medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe and negotiations with the Soviet Union, and adopted the Bonn Declaration, emphasizing the dual strategy of paying equal attention to defense and dialogue.

1985165438+1October 2 1 day, the seventh summit was held in Brussels. American President Ronald Reagan informed his allies of his talks with Soviet President Gorbachev in Geneva.

1on March 2, 988, the eighth summit was held in Brussels. The meeting reiterated its adherence to NATO's threat strategy, maintaining dialogue with the Soviet Union and maintaining a strong defense. After the meeting, a statement entitled "Achieving the goal of conventional arms control" was issued.

1989 On May 29th, the 9th Summit was held in Brussels. The meeting adopted two documents: the overall plan of national defense and arms control policy and the political statement on dealing with East-West relations, and formally confirmed the new proposal of conventional disarmament in Europe put forward by US President Bush at the meeting.

1989 65438+On February 4th, the 10 summit was held in Brussels. The meeting held that NATO and Warsaw Pact are both "pillars for stabilizing Europe" and stressed that under the rapidly changing situation, the West should coordinate its position and maintain the status quo of Europe's borders.

1July 5, 990, 1 1 Summit was held in London. The London Declaration adopted at the meeting, while stressing that NATO will continue to maintain an appropriate number of nuclear and conventional weapons, expressed "peaceful and friendly intentions" to the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries.

1991165438+1On October 7th, the 2nd NATO Summit was held in Rome. The meeting adopted NATO's new strategic concept, the Rome Declaration on Peace and Cooperation, the statement on the Soviet Union and the decision to impose economic sanctions on Yugoslavia.

1994 65438+ 10/0, 13 The Brussels meeting adopted the plan of establishing a "partnership for peace" with Yuan Hua Treaty member countries and other European countries. This is an important strategic step for NATO's eastward expansion.

65438+1July 8, 1997,14th Madrid Conference officially decided to admit Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic to NATO, and NATO's eastward expansion plan was officially launched.

1On April 25th, 1999, the15th meeting was held in Washington. On the occasion of celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of NATO, a new strategy for the 20th century was adopted.

20021October 22nd, 1 16 summit was held in Prague, Czech Republic. The meeting decided to invite Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria to join NATO; We decided to strengthen our defense capabilities and reform NATO's military institutions, and held consultations on international counter-terrorism and Iraq.

On June 28th, 2004, the17th summit was held in Istanbul, Turkey. This is the first summit meeting of NATO after its new round of eastward expansion in March 2004. The meeting will mainly discuss NATO's strategic adjustment, the next round of expansion and the development of new relations with third parties.

On February 22, 2005, NATO summit was held at NATO headquarters in Brussels. Strengthening alliance cooperation within the framework of NATO, especially on Iraq and Afghanistan, is an important topic of this NATO summit.