NATO, The North Atlantic Treaty Organization: NATO

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NATO
Purpose and Structure
NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (OTAN, the Organisation du traité de l’Atlantique Nord in French) is a military organization between the North American and European nations formed after World War II as a way to counter the power of the USSR. Nowadays, it seeks to promote democracy, peace, diplomacy and military protection for its members.
“The United States, obviously, has great interest in maintaining peace and security in Europe, and we have a formal alliance, NATO, to do so”- Hillary Clinton.
NATO originally had 12 members, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, UK and the USA. Now, it has expanded to 28 members: The Czech Republic, Greece, Germany, Spain, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania,
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The war on terrorism began after the 9/11 attacks, which was the first time the ‘attack against one is an attack against all’ (Article 5) policy was used. The Gulf of Aden project included the deployment of battleships to protect the shipping lane from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean from pirates. The Libya Intervention involved enforcing a no-fly zone, ceasefire and air strikes against targets. The war on terrorism was probably the most prominent mission. On 11/9/2001, the extremist group al-Qaeda hijacked and crashed 4 planes into the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon, and one which crashed in a field. The US government demanded that the then Taliban government of Afghanistan shut down al-Qaeda training camps and arrest al-Qaeda leaders. However, the Taliban refused, and NATO invoked Article 5. On October 7, US and British air strikes coordinated with a ground attack began the Afghanistan War. On December 9, the war ended with a NATO victory. NATO then helped with peacekeeping and setting up a democratic