Sweden’s flag was raised at NATO headquarters on Monday as the Nordic country became the 32nd member of the military alliance. This comes nearly a year after its 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.
March 12, 2024 marks the 25th anniversary of Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary joining NATO in 1999. They were the first three countries from the former Soviet bloc to join the alliance.
Questions
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)
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)
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?
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.
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)?
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?
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.
8) In 2008 NATO promised which two countries they would eventually be able to join the alliance, angering Russia?
9) Which country joined NATO in 2020, two years after ending a dispute with Greece over its name?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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?
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.
1. Croatia?
3. Nuclear Attack?
4. I'm guessing Goa
5. France?
6. Sweden
7. Kaliningrad
8. Georgia and Ukraine
9. North Macedonia
10. Greece and Turkey? (over Cyprus)
11. France
12. One was SEATO, don't know the other
14. Albania?