What is NATO, what countries form it and why does it play a crucial role in the war in Russia and Ukraine

Despite having more than 70 years of history, NATO has returned to the forefront of public opinion as a result of the conflict that broke out between Russia and Ukraine. A military alliance between 30 countries that the president Vladimir Putin has put in the focus of its decision to attack, due to the interest of the Ukrainian Government to be part of it.

After the end of World War II, in 1949and with the beginning of what was later the Cold Warthe West welcomed the establishment of a series of political ties in different institutions, with the clear objective of putting its interests above those of the Soviet Union. In this way, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, or also known as the Atlantic Alliance) emerged.

What is NATO?

A military organization whose clear objective was to defense of any of its members against a possible external attack. Also arising from the need to reach agreements once the Soviet Union, like the United States, had a veto in UN decisions, the April 4 The green light was given to this union between the same North American State, Canada and ten other European states.

A list to which different countries have been added, with Spain entering in 1982 in a decision endorsed in 1986, and that in recent years had been losing weight until Russia has put it back on the map. And it is that in its origin, NATO was vital for the reconstruction of the west as well as for political, social and economic interests during the Cold War.

These have been the functions of NATO since the fall of the USSR

However, with the end of the Soviet Union, NATO’s objectives have been changing until it is currently defined as the “promotion of democratic values, cooperation in matters related to defense and security and the peaceful resolution of disputesalthough with the possibility of using military force in crisis management”.

Based in Brusselsdaily hundreds of experts that make up NATO “make decisions on security matters at all levels”, as defined by the statutes of the organization, whose command falls to Jens Stoltenberg (Norway).

What countries make up NATO?

With incorporations over the years, the different objectives of NATO have varied the entry of one or another Member States until there is currently a list of 30 countries, to which Ukraine has expressed its desire to join on several occasions. :

– 1949. United States, Canada, Belgium, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands, Denmark, Luxembourg, Iceland, and Norway.

– 1952. Greece and Turkey.

– 1955. West Germany.

– 1982. Spain.

– 1999. Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

– 2004. Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania.

– 2009. Croatia and Albania.

– 2017. Montenegro.

– 2020. North Macedonia.

Why is NATO relevant in the war between Russia and Ukraine?

These have been the latest adhesions, more specifically those produced in 2004 on different former soviet republics, which have encouraged Ukraine to join NATO and Russia to avoid it. Considering this, second to the first, a “cultural, sentimental and national part within its borders”, Putin has shown his constant rejection of Ukraine’s entry into the organization since it would be a attack on their interests.

And it is that in recent years, the Ukrainian Parliament has started the entry procedures again in NATO, which has been used by Russia as an excuse for the invasion of its territory. Paralyzed between 2013 and 2014 by the former president Yanukovychwhich provoked demonstrations throughout the country by pro-European Ukrainians that led to the Crimean and Donbas War, since 2017 Ukraine has been taking measures to adapt to the demands for entry into NATO that led in 2020 to the National Security Strategyclear step for entry.

However, NATO has never seriously proposed entry, which has not gone beyond being a mere point of debate, until Russia’s attacks have only increased the position in favor of it. In the last visit of the Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinkto Moscow, he warned of the “high costs” of invading Ukraine, so Russia responded with a condition, now unfulfilled, that NATO not continue its expansion to the east.