North Atlantic Treaty

Event
Mon, 04/04/1949

The North Atlantic Treaty was signed on 4 April 1949 and became effective on 24 August 1949. The twelve founding states were:

Belgium
Canada
Denmark
France (Withdrew from the military structure in 1966)
Iceland
Italy
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Norway
Portugal
United Kingdom
United States

The treaty was created to collectively defend the alliance of signatories against an armed attack by the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and a further eighteen states joined, the last (North Macedonia) in 2020. The key section of the treaty is Article 5 and commits each member state to consider an armed attack against one member state, in Europe or North America, to be an armed attack against them all.

Following the inclusion of The Federal Republic of (West) Germany, the Warsaw Pact was formed on 14 May 1955 to counter NATO.