Answers: The Expansion of NATO
NATO foreign ministers gathered at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels on Thursday, April 4 to mark 75 years after its founding in 1949. This comes just weeks after Sweden’s flag was raised at NATO headquarters, as the Nordic country became the 32nd member of the military alliance. Earlier in 2023 Sweden’s neighbour Finland joined NATO, doubling the length of alliance members’ borders with Russia. Sweden and Finland ended decades of military neutrality in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 as public opinion shifted dramatically.
The expansion of NATO in Europe comes amid questions surrounding the future of the United States in the alliance, depending on the presidential election this November.
Answers
1) NATO opened its first air base in the Western Balkans on March 4, on the site of a Soviet-era base. Which country? (joined NATO in 2009)
Albania. More here and here. The base was built with Soviet help in the 1950s in what was then known as Stalin City. Albania’s longtime communist dictator Enver Hoxha remained committed to Stalinism while the Soviet Union under Khrushchev moved away. Albania withdrew from the Warsaw Pact communist security bloc in 1968 and isolated itself under Hoxha. Communist control collapsed in 1990. More here and here.
2) The U.S. Congress approved a measure linked to NATO as part of the annual defence spending bill in December 2023. What was the provision? (connected to Donald Trump)
The president cannot unilaterally withdraw the U.S. from NATO. Any withdrawal plan has to be approved by two-thirds of the senate or a separate legislation has to be passed by both houses of the U.S. Congress.
3) NATO has invoked Article 5, its principle of collective defence only once. Article 5 labels an attack against one member as an attack against all the members of the alliance. Which military offensive?
The provision was invoked after the September 11 attacks to support the U.S. but not directly for the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan as pointed out here. The International Security Assistance Force was created in December 2001 through the United Nations to maintain security after the fall of the Taliban. NATO took charge of the international force in 2003 with the approval of the UN and the Afghan government. It was the alliance’s first deployment outside Europe and North America. More here.
NATO’s first combat action came after the Cold War, as the alliance carried out air strikes in 1994 against ethnic Serb positions in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as Croatia to enforce a no-fly zone under a UN Security Council resolution.
In 1999 NATO bombed Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) to protect ethnic Albanians in Kosovo from a government crackdown, bypassing the United Nations. Two years later NATO oversaw a ceasefire deal between Macedonia and minority ethnic Albanian rebels. More here and here.
In 2011 a NATO-led international force intervened to ‘protect civilians’ in Libya against Colonel Gaddafi’s forces, following a UN Security Council resolution. Gaddafi was toppled that year but political instability has become a recurring theme with two rival governments operating. More here, here, here and here.
4) A colonised region controlled by a NATO member was attacked in December 1961 and the NATO member’s troops quickly surrendered. But NATO did not intervene. The U.S. had earlier cited Article 6, which geographically limited where NATO could intervene. Name the formerly colonised region and the NATO member that had to withdraw
Goa and Portugal. India took over Goa in December 1961 in a quick offensive. More here, here and here. The U.S. took the position in the 1950s that Portugal could not under the NATO treaty expect other members to come to Goa’s defence. More here from the New York Times in 1954.
5) Which NATO member spends the largest share of its GDP on defence at nearly 4 percent (More than the U.S. share in percentage, not absolute terms)?
Poland. More here, here and here. While Poland spent 3.9 percent of its GDP on defence in 2023, the U.S. was second at 3.49 percent of GDP among NATO members. In February former U.S. president and Republican presidential contender Donald Trump said he would encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO members who fall short of defence spending guidelines. In 2006 NATO members had agreed to commit at least 2 percent of GDP to defence spending. Only 11 countries out of 30 (excluding new members Finland and Sweden) met that threshold in 2023. Germany and France are among those who fell short. Both say they will meet that target this year. More here and here.
Poland’s president called on NATO allies in March to raise defence spending to 3 percent of their GDP.
6) The island of Gotland on the Baltic Sea was demilitarised in 2005. Permanent troops returned in 2018 in the aftermath of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Since then air defence systems have been reactivated and additional reinforcements moved since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Which country controls Gotland?
Sweden. More here, here and here. Gotland lies in the Baltic Sea between mainland Sweden and Latvia and is seen by NATO as important to the defence of its members Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
7) This Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea is sandwiched between NATO members Poland and Lithuania. Name the region that was part of Germany until 1945.
Kaliningrad. It is the headquarters of the Russian navy’s Baltic Fleet. The collapse of the Soviet Union led to NATO members Lithuania and Latvia coming between the rest of Russia and Kaliningrad.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Lithuania cited European Union sanctions to restrict goods heading for Kaliningrad through its territory, mainly by rail. After Moscow threatened retaliation, the EU prevailed on Lithuania to allow the passage of sanctioned goods, except weapons.
Kaliningrad was the easternmost region of Germany until 1945 and was known as Konigsberg. The German population was expelled after the Soviet takeover. Konigsberg’s most famous resident is the philosopher Immanuel Kant.
8) In 2008 NATO promised which two countries they would eventually be able to join the alliance, angering Russia?
Ukraine and Georgia. Months later Russia fought a short war with Georgia and ousted Georgian forces from the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Ukraine has continued to pursue NATO membership. A 2019 constitutional amendment enshrines its commitment to becoming a member of NATO and the European Union. On April 4, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Ukraine will eventually join NATO.
9) Which country joined NATO in 2020, two years after ending a dispute with Greece over its name?
North Macedonia. The country that was known as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia changed its name under the terms of an accord with Greece in 2018.
10) Which two NATO members have long had tense relations involving maritime disputes that required Washington to mediate? Ethnic divisions surrounding an island are also part of the strained ties.
Turkiye and Greece. More here, here, here and here.
The tense ties with Turkiye is a key factor in Greece being one of the highest military spenders among NATO members relative to the size of its economy. Only Poland and the U.S. spend more in percentage terms. More here and here.
11) Which country withdrew from NATO’s integrated military structure in 1966 and ordered foreign troops to leave? But it stayed in NATO and rejoined the integrated military command in 2009.
France. More here, here and here.
12) Two U.S.-backed efforts in the 1950s inspired by the formation of NATO to create collective security organisations failed. Both groups were disbanded in the 1970s. Name them.
SEATO and CENTO. The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was formed in 1954 by the U.S. along with France, UK, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand and Pakistan. It was intended to halt the spread of communism in Southeast Asia, though only Thailand and the Philippines were from the region. More here, here, here and here. Pakistan left SEATO in 1973 after not getting the organisation’s backing in its conflict with India. The organisation was dissolved in 19777 in the wake of the U.S. military disaster in Vietnam.
The Baghdad Pact of 1955 and its replacement the Central Treaty Organization (after Iraq’s exit in 1959) was an anti-communist alliance for the Middle East. The UK, Iran, Pakistan and Turkiye were the remaining members. It folded up in 1979 after the Shah was toppled in Iran and Pakistan’s decision to leave as well.
13) During the Cold War, NATO had only two land borders with the Soviet Union. One of the NATO members was Turkiye which shares a border with what is now Armenia and Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan. Which is the other country that shared a 198-km-long border with the Soviet Union and now Russia? Two-thirds of the border follows two rivers.
Norway. More here, here and here.
Courtesy: Google Maps
14) Which country’s entry in 2017 has given NATO full control over the Adriatic Sea? The others with an Adriatic Sea coastline were already in the alliance (with the exception of Bosnia and Herzegovina which has a short 20-km-long coastline)
Montenegro. More here, here and here.
It was the first time a region bombed multiple times by NATO joined the alliance (Montenegro became independent in 2006). While part of Yugoslavia, Montenegro along with Serbia was targeted by NATO planes in 1999 as the alliance backed ethnic Albanians in Kosovo facing a crackdown. More here, here, here and here
15) This country joined NATO in 1982. In the first such referendum by a NATO member, a majority of voters chose to stay with the alliance in 1986. The referendum was based on a campaign pledge by the socialist prime minister back in 1982, when he had opposed NATO membership. While he now supported NATO, he included conditions in the referendum such as barring nuclear weapons from the country and refusal to be part of the integrated command structure. Which country? (it joined the integrated command structure in 1999)
16) In 2019 Turkiye started taking delivery of Russia’s S-400 air defense system, in a first for a NATO member despite U.S. opposition. But there was an earlier instance of a NATO state from outside the former Soviet bloc getting Soviet weapons. In 1998 Greece acquired Soviet-made S-300 air defense missile systems from a non-NATO country following a missile crisis there. They were stored in the island of Crete and not integrated with Greece’s broader air defense network. What was the missile crisis that was resolved by the transfer of the S-300s to Greece?
Cyprus had signed an agreement to buy the air defence missiles from Russia, angering Turkiye which threatened to strike if the missiles arrived on the divided island, More here and here. Greece agreed to install the missiles in Crete to defuse the situation. More here.
17) The Suwałki Gap stretches about 100 kilometers along the border separating which two NATO members? On its west likes Russian territory while Belarus is to the east. It's often written about as a huge vulnerability for NATO.
Poland and Lithuania. The Suwałki Gap comes between Russia’s exclave of Kaliningrad and Russia’s ally Belarus. More here, here, here, here and here.