The only time in the history of NATO that article 5 was invoked was on September 12, 2001.
NATO countries sent soldiers to Afghanistan in support of the US. A two decades long war. I’m personally from a NATO country and have two family members that have PTSD because my country honored the agreement and supported the US after it was attacked.
The US has never engaged in a war to support any NATO members. NATO members have engaged in a war to support the US.
Recruitment numbers are down in my country in large part because of how the war in Afghanistan turned out. That was in large part due to the US going on a little side adventure into Iraq. Because of this, even though my country is purchasing equipment from the US defense Industrial complex (which if we’re being real, is what the goal is) we don’t have enough military personnel to operate that equipment.
So with all that, shitheads in the US complain about my countries “not pulling their weight”. We’ve been sending our people to fight in a US war for two fucking decades because that’s what allies do, but then shitheads in the US don’t care about that, they only care about how much money is coming from NATO to the US defense industrial complex? It’s craven.
And Russia propaganda and election interference is happening in every NATO country. For the same reason that there are many in the US don’t think the US should support Ukraine, there’s many people in other NATO countries that think the same because of the same Russian propaganda effort. Instead of being hyper-focused on the revenues of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, maybe think a little more about who the real enemy.
While this is very obvious just putin expressing his control over the us republican party:
The Vietnam War was very much the US trying to speedrun Mama Britain’s history of atrocities. But it also has direct links to supporting France’s own atrocities and colonialism in the region.
The Falklands War very much was one of the prototypes for the modern conflict in Ukraine. The UK and Argentina went to not-war for Reasons. And nations on both sides didn’t want to get involved because “escalation” but sent weapons and other support in the process
While overly reductive and diminishing the agency of the region, basically all the “peacekeeping operations” by the blue hats in Africa boil down to the long lasting impact of colonialism by western european powers. And most (all?) of nato contribute to that. We just tend to not care because they actively limit the scope of operations and nobody really cares if some black people get raped and murdered by the soldiers that are “protecting” them.
And there are a lot more “not support” situations like that. In large part because WW1 taught humanity about the dangers of… actually being in military agreements. WW2 and The Cold War very much demonstrated the need to have those unified fronts but there is still the fear of one flashpoint plunging the entire world into war. Hence “Oh yeah. We are buddies. Uhm… could you NOT declare war because we will totally tell you to go fuck yourself rather than help”
Which is also why actually declaring war is so rare these days. Its not a war. Its a peacekeeping operation or a conflict or whatever. So we’ll pressure you to help us commit atrocities but you’ll also kind of just be in the area shooting some brown people and not be at war or anything.
And, just to be clear: I think the NATO support of Ukraine is excellent. I actively wish we had done more rather than use it as a way to bleed russia dry by a thousand cuts. But putting “boots on the ground” is how you get an Iraq/Afghanistan where all nations involved are actively wishy-washy on what their actual goals are and are trying to avoid committing out of fear of triggering “a real war”
Your bullet points are listing military action that were explicitly not NATO missions.
The Vietnam war was not a NATO operation, since neither the US nor France was attacked. NATO is a defensive alliance.
The Falklands War was an attack on UK territory, but since the territory in question was outside of Europe it didn’t count for Article 5. That’s because of limitations defined in Article 6. Article 6 does mention Algeria (because of France doing France things) but since Algeria is no longer under French control it’s been rendered moot. There is some debate that Spain’s little exclaves in Morocco may fall under NATO protection, but that’s a big stretch. But no, NATO does not protect overseas territories that are holdovers from colonial times.
UN peacekeeping operations are UN Peacekeeping operations. While NATO members often contribute to these operations (just as non-members of NATO do) they are UN operations. You’ll be surprised to learn many African countries contribute soldiers to UN peace keeping operations. You may also want to read up on the African Union which is way more prominent in African peacekeeping operations. Also note that the Wagner group (Russia) is very relevant in a lot of shenanigans going on in Africa. China is fairly relevant to Africa these days as well.
Which is also why actually declaring war is so rare these days. Its not a war. Its a peacekeeping operation or a conflict or whatever. So we’ll pressure you to help us commit atrocities but you’ll also kind of just be in the area shooting some brown people and not be at war or anything.
No one declares war anymore because a declaration of war is going from 0 to 100 with a stroke of a pen. Probably not a good thing to be doing after the invention of nuclear weapons. Probably wasn’t ever a good thing, given it made war seem like something that was legal and civilized. Atrocities have always existed in wars and entangling alliances and declarations of war represented automatic expansion of atrocities. This is now widely seen as a bad thing.
Now we generally use the concept of escalation towards war. This allows for the potential to deescalate before it becomes an all out war. Yes atrocities can occur during escalation and deescalation. But it’s significantly less than the 0 to 100 scenario that was happening when declarations of war was commonplace. Look to the cities of Germany at the end of WWII if you want to see the results of an all out war in modern times. Or look at Gaza right now. Look to the cities of Japan at the end of WWII if you want to see what all out war looks like after nuclear weapons came into existence.
So no, we probably should try to avoid the all out war scenarios that declarations of war represents. Especially since we’re transitioning to being a more multi-polar world, which means there will be more wars going forward.
The only time in the history of NATO that article 5 was invoked was on September 12, 2001.
NATO countries sent soldiers to Afghanistan in support of the US. A two decades long war. I’m personally from a NATO country and have two family members that have PTSD because my country honored the agreement and supported the US after it was attacked.
The US has never engaged in a war to support any NATO members. NATO members have engaged in a war to support the US.
Recruitment numbers are down in my country in large part because of how the war in Afghanistan turned out. That was in large part due to the US going on a little side adventure into Iraq. Because of this, even though my country is purchasing equipment from the US defense Industrial complex (which if we’re being real, is what the goal is) we don’t have enough military personnel to operate that equipment.
So with all that, shitheads in the US complain about my countries “not pulling their weight”. We’ve been sending our people to fight in a US war for two fucking decades because that’s what allies do, but then shitheads in the US don’t care about that, they only care about how much money is coming from NATO to the US defense industrial complex? It’s craven.
And Russia propaganda and election interference is happening in every NATO country. For the same reason that there are many in the US don’t think the US should support Ukraine, there’s many people in other NATO countries that think the same because of the same Russian propaganda effort. Instead of being hyper-focused on the revenues of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, maybe think a little more about who the real enemy.
While this is very obvious just putin expressing his control over the us republican party:
And there are a lot more “not support” situations like that. In large part because WW1 taught humanity about the dangers of… actually being in military agreements. WW2 and The Cold War very much demonstrated the need to have those unified fronts but there is still the fear of one flashpoint plunging the entire world into war. Hence “Oh yeah. We are buddies. Uhm… could you NOT declare war because we will totally tell you to go fuck yourself rather than help”
Which is also why actually declaring war is so rare these days. Its not a war. Its a peacekeeping operation or a conflict or whatever. So we’ll pressure you to help us commit atrocities but you’ll also kind of just be in the area shooting some brown people and not be at war or anything.
And, just to be clear: I think the NATO support of Ukraine is excellent. I actively wish we had done more rather than use it as a way to bleed russia dry by a thousand cuts. But putting “boots on the ground” is how you get an Iraq/Afghanistan where all nations involved are actively wishy-washy on what their actual goals are and are trying to avoid committing out of fear of triggering “a real war”
Your bullet points are listing military action that were explicitly not NATO missions.
No one declares war anymore because a declaration of war is going from 0 to 100 with a stroke of a pen. Probably not a good thing to be doing after the invention of nuclear weapons. Probably wasn’t ever a good thing, given it made war seem like something that was legal and civilized. Atrocities have always existed in wars and entangling alliances and declarations of war represented automatic expansion of atrocities. This is now widely seen as a bad thing.
Now we generally use the concept of escalation towards war. This allows for the potential to deescalate before it becomes an all out war. Yes atrocities can occur during escalation and deescalation. But it’s significantly less than the 0 to 100 scenario that was happening when declarations of war was commonplace. Look to the cities of Germany at the end of WWII if you want to see the results of an all out war in modern times. Or look at Gaza right now. Look to the cities of Japan at the end of WWII if you want to see what all out war looks like after nuclear weapons came into existence.
So no, we probably should try to avoid the all out war scenarios that declarations of war represents. Especially since we’re transitioning to being a more multi-polar world, which means there will be more wars going forward.
100% agree (am American).