On 12 September 2001, less than 24 hours after the terrorist attacks against the United States, NATO declared the attacks to be an attack against all NATO member countries within the terms of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.

This landmark decision was followed by practical measures aimed at assisting the United States in different fields, in relation to its campaign against terrorism.

For more information, please see: NATO and the fight against terrorism

Yes. A NATO-led mission called Resolute Support was launched on 1 January 2015 to provide further training, advice and assistance for the Afghan security forces and institutions.

It followed on from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which was led by NATO from 2003 to end 2014 and helped establish the conditions for Afghanistan to enjoy a representative government and self-sustaining peace and security.

For more information, please see: NATO in Afghanistan

NATO-Russia relations started after the end of the Cold War, when Russia joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (1991) and the Partnership for Peace programme (1994). The two sides made a reciprocal commitment to work together to build a stable, secure and undivided continent on the basis of partnership and common interest in 1997.

Cooperation was suspended in April 2014 in response to Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine, which the Allies condemn in the strongest terms. Political channels of communication remain open.

For more information, please see: NATO-Russia relations

NATO is an intergovernmental organization to which member nations allocate the resources needed to enable it to function on a day-to-day basis. There are three budgets: one civil and two military. Each NATO member country pays an amount into the budgets based on an agreed cost-sharing formula. Taken together, these budgets represent less than half of one percent of the total defence budget expenditures of NATO countries.

For more information, please see: Funding NATO

Publications from the NATO Public Diplomacy Division provide useful information and are available on the e-Library page, under “Publications”.

Those who are interested in the history and the beginnings of the Organization can read:

• NATO : The First Five Years : 1949-1954 by Lord Ismay, which is in fact the first NATO handbook.

  This text has been digitised by the NATO Archives and is available at this URL : http://www.nato.int/archives/

Even if a real history of the Organization is still to be written, two books can be of interest :

• A History of NATO : The First Fifty Years / edited by Gustav Schmidt. – Houndmills, UK : Palgrave, 2001. – 3 vol.
• Histoire de l’OTAN / Charles Zorgbibe – Bruxelles : Complexe, 2002. – (Questions Histoire de l’OTAN / Charles Zorgbibe – Bruxelles : Complexe, 2002. – (Questions à l’Histoire)

and also:

• L’Alliance atlantique et l’OTAN, 1949-1999 : un demi-siècle de succés / sous la direction de Pierre Pascallon. – Bruxelles : Bruylant, 1999. – (Organisation internationale et relations internationales ; 51)

On the relationship between NATO and the United States:

• The Long Entanglement : NATO’s First Fifty Years / Lawrence S. Kaplan. – Westport, CT : Praeger, 1999.

On NATO enlargement:

• Almost NATO : Partners and Players in Central and Eastern European Security / edited by Charles Krupnick. – Lanham, MD : Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.
• Opening NATO’s Door : How the Alliance Remade Itself for a New Era / Ronald D. Asmus. – New York : Columbia University Press, 2002.

For information on how to apply for an internship at NATO, please visit the NATO Internship Programme Web site.