NATO turns 75: how was it born and why did Vladimir Putin manage to give it a new look?

On April 4, 1949, exactly 75 years ago, the Treaty of the North Atlantic Organization (NATO), the great military alliance that was to protect Europe of the expansionist desires of the Soviet Union, keeping post-war Germany under control and the United States that, after the First World War, tempted by isolationism, had turned its back on the Old Continent, involved in European security.

75 years later, the chancellors of the 32 member states (the last to enter, in 2023 and 2024, were Finland and Sweden) celebrate the anniversary of an alliance that was losing its reason for being until on February 24, 2022, Russian troops launched an attack in Ukraine.

'All for one and one for all'

NATO is a collective security system, “all for one and one for all.” Its member states promise, upon accession, to come militarily to the aid of any of them that suffer a military attack.

The United States is the most influential member and its opinion is key to the appointment of the secretary general of the organization, currently the social democrat and former Norwegian prime minister Jens Stoltenberg.

Dutch liberal Mark Rutte, also prime minister, is the favorite to succeed him at some point during the second half of this year.

Its political headquarters are in Evere, a district on the outskirts of Brussels., where a huge building debuted last decade. His headquarters are also in Belgium, near the city of Mons, bordering France.

The military spending of these 32 countries is 55 percent of the world total and is increasing

All its armies combined total more than 3.5 million soldiers and their countries have a population of more than 965 million inhabitants. The military spending of these 32 countries is 55 percent of the world total and is increasing. In addition to the Member States, 19 other countries participate in some way in NATO activities or operations.

The Organization was essential for European security during the Cold War, but the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dismemberment of the Soviet Union and with it its equivalent to the east, the Warsaw Pact, began to raise doubts about its future.

The Alliance sought activities to stay active, from the fight against terrorism to the surveillance of the Mediterranean as a deterrent force against the mafias that traffic migrants, but it had not been designed for that but to contain the Soviet Union.

His situation worsened when President Donald Trump came to the White House. Their summits in Brussels were nightmares and the American even threatened to remove hi
s country from the organization.

Beyond Trump and his outbursts, since the time of the first Obama Administration the US government looked more towards the Pacific than towards Europe, where there were no major threats of conflict. The situation in NATO became so serious that French President Emmanuel Macron went so far as to say that the organization was “brain dead.”

The war that gave new life to the Alliance

On February 22, 2022 everything changed. When tens of thousands of Russian soldiers and hundreds of tanks began the invasion of Ukraine, unleashing the first war of aggression in Europe since World War II (the Balkan conflicts were a civil war after the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia), NATO found its reason for being again.

That is why Finland and Sweden, fearful of Moscow, urgently requested its entry. Since then, The Atlantic Alliance has returned to the front line of politics and the media in Europe and its summits once again have the importance they once had. during the Cold War and that they had lost in recent decades. NATO owes its political resurrection to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

This conflict also caused NATO to put aside its divisions, close ranks on the side of Ukraine and strengthen its eastern flank, closest to Russia.

Stoltenberg's speech at NATO

At NATO headquarters in the Belgian capital, The foreign ministers of the 32 countries gave brief speeches this Thursday, They cut a cake and celebrated the achievements of the powerful military alliance but without forgetting the threats that stalk it.

In his speech for the anniversary, the secretary general of the alliance referred to one of those concerns: a distancing between Europe and the United States in matters of defense and security. “I don't believe in America alone, just as I don't believe in Europe alone. I believe in America and Europe together in NATO, because together we are stronger and safer,” he said.

In his vision, Europe “needs the United States for its security. But the United States,” Stoltenberg added, “also needs Europe,” because European countries provide “a vast intelligence network and a unique diplomatic influence, which amplifies American power.” “.

“Through NATO, the United States has more friends and more allies than any other great power in the world,” he noted.

The ceremony, held in the central square of the new headquarters of the Alliance and enlivened with the music of the royal orchestras of the Belgian Air Force and the Dutch Navy, was preceded by a tribute to those who fell in NATO missions with the laying of a wreath.

Faced with the original Washington Treaty, signed this very day in 1949 by the 12 founding members and which has crossed the Atlantic for the first time to be displayed today, Stoltenberg assured that NATO reaches its 75th year “bigger, stronger and more united than ever.”

“I like the Washington Treaty and not only because it is very short, only 14 paragraphs on a few pages. Never has a document with so few words meant so much to so many people,” he stated.

This ceremony also commemorated the 25th, 20th and 15th anniversary of the integration into NATO of various countries from Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

On the sidelines of the ceremony, Democratic President Joe Biden issued a statement this Thursday in which he said that The United States must maintain its “sacred commitment” to NATO.

“We must remember that the sacred commitment we make to our allies – to defend every inch of NATO territory – also makes us safer,” Biden stressed in a statement.

While the Kremlin accused NATO this Thursday of continuing to be an “instrument of confrontation” in Europe at the service of the United States.

“NATO continues to demonstrate its essence, since NATO was conceived as an alliance, configured, created and directed by the US as an instrument of confrontation, especially on the European continent. And in this regard, it continues to fulfill its role,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said during his daily telephone press conference.

Although this Wednesday's meeting was aimed at celebrating those 75 years, It also had a specific political agenda. The ministers will begin to hand over to NATO the coordination of the delivery of weapons to Ukraine, which until now was carried out by the United States from its German base in Ramstein. It is about taking steps to prevent an eventual victory by Donald Trump from hindering these processes.

Besides, They will have on the table Secretary General Stoltenberg's proposal to create a fund of 100 billion dollars for five years to finance weapons for Ukraine, which would also help Trump, if he returned to the White House, to protest less about what he considers little European funding for its defense.

IDAFE MARTÍN PÉREZ – FOR TIME – BRUSSELS