BRUSSELS, July 6 — Against the backdrop of a continent reshaped by war, NATO marks its 75th anniversary this week at a summit in Washington, an alliance born in the early years of the Cold War and now grappling with the most serious conflict on European soil since 1945. The North Atlantic Treaty was signed on April 4, 1949, in Washington, D.C., by 12 founding members: the United States, Canada, and ten European nations.
Its core principle, collective defense, is enshrined in Article 5 — the commitment that an attack on one member is an attack on all. What is at stake today is the very architecture that has underpinned Western security for three-quarters of a century.
The alliance expanded during the Cold War, adding Greece and Turkey in 1952, West Germany in 1955, and Spain in 1982. After the Cold War, NATO admitted former Warsaw Pact countries: Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic joined in 1999, followed by the Baltic states in 2004. The alliance now counts 31 member states.
In the corridors of power across Europe, the wider picture is unmistakable. Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has jolted the alliance into a new posture.
NATO has provided military aid to Kyiv and enhanced its eastern flank, a shift that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. The alliance has been central to Western security operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Libya. Each mission tested the limits of the collective defense framework, but none has demanded the kind of sustained reinforcement now underway along NATO’s eastern border.
The Washington summit comes at a moment of profound uncertainty. The original 12 signatories could scarcely have imagined an alliance that would stretch from the Arctic to the Black Sea, or one facing a revanchist Russia armed with nuclear weapons. What to watch next is whether the alliance can maintain unity as the war in Ukraine grinds on.
The 31 member states must reconcile divergent threat perceptions, defense spending commitments, and the political pressures at home. The gathering in Washington will be a test of whether NATO’s founding promise still holds.
