The Washington Treaty runs to 14 paragraphs. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg brought that up with a smile on April 4, 2024, as hundreds of staffers gathered in the atrium of the alliance’s Brussels headquarters to mark 75 years since it was signed.
“I like the Washington Treaty. Not least because it is very short,” he said. “Never has a single document with so few words meant so much to so many people.”
The original document had been brought to Brussels for the occasion, and Belgian and Dutch military bands played the NATO Hymn in front of it. The treaty was signed on April 4, 1949, in Washington.
Ukraine in the background
The mood among foreign ministers was shaped by the war next door. Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said Ukraine was “under heavy attacks, like daily, 24-seven,” and asked allies to hand over air defense systems, drones and artillery shells. Ukraine, short of ammunition, had that week lowered its conscription age from 27 to 25.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking the evening before, said the peace of the past seven decades was “once again being threatened by those who believe that might makes right.”
Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen offered a contrast with Moscow. “Democratic nations, free people chose to join,” she said. “Unlike how Russia expands its by aggression or by illegal annexation.” Sweden, which became the 32nd ally the month before, sent Foreign Minister Tobias Billström to his first ministerial meeting as a member. Its entry and Finland’s followed Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Ukraine itself wants a seat, but the alliance decides by unanimity and has no consensus. Most allies oppose membership while the fighting continues, so NATO says only that its door stays open. As an organization it supplies non-lethal aid such as fuel, combat rations, medical supplies and demining equipment, though many members send weapons on their own or in groups.
Spending and the Article 5 pledge
Article 5, the promise that an attack on one member must be met with a united response, has been invoked once, after the 2001 attacks on U.S. soil. Under Donald Trump’s presidency it faced perhaps its hardest test: he suggested Washington might not defend allies that fell short of spending 2% of gross domestic product on defense, a target agreed in 2014. He has repeated the warning during this year’s campaign. NATO expects 18 of its 32 members to reach the level this year, up from three a decade earlier.
The July summit
The bigger celebration was set for Washington. Leaders of the 32 members, along with partner countries and the European Union, were to meet there from July 9 to 11, 2024. It was to be the fourth NATO summit held in the United States, after Washington in 1978 and 1999 and Chicago in 2012. It was also to be the first since Sweden joined, and the last with Stoltenberg as Secretary General.
Sources
- NATO marks its 75th birthday as Russia's war in Ukraine gnaws at its unity
- 2024 Washington NATO summit
