HB-ENG-0406 NATO HANDBOOK Public Diplomacy Division NATO 1110 Brussels, Belgium ISBN 92-845-0178-4 HB-ENG-0406 © NATO 2006 NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANISATION (NATO) MEMBER COUNTRIES Belgium Bulgaria Canada Czech Republic Denmark Estonia France Germany Greece Hungary Iceland Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Spain Turkey United Kingdom United States The North Atlantic Treaty, signed in Washington in April 1949, created an Alliance for collective defence as defined in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. The Treaty is of indefinite duration. The NATO emblem was adopted as the symbol of the Atlantic Alliance by the North Atlantic Council in October 1953. The circle is the symbol of unity and cooperation and the compass rose suggests the common road to peace taken by the member countries. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Public Diplomacy Division would like to thank the members of the International Staff who contributed their time and expertise to this edition of the NATO Handbook. The Division would also like to thank Mr Nicholas Sherwen, who was the originator of the NATO Handbook. With his dedication and under- standing of the Alliance, he has guided readers over the years through the intricacies of this ever-changing organisation. The NATO Handbook is published by the NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division under the authority of the Secretary General as a reference book on the Alliance and on Alliance policies. The formulations used reflect as closely as possible the consensus among the member nations which is the basis for all Alliance decisions. However, the Handbook is not a formally agreed NATO document and therefore may not represent the official opinions or positions of individual governments on every issue discussed. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements 4 Preface 9 PART I AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ALLIANCE What is NATO? 15 The origins of the Alliance 16 NATO’s fundamental security tasks 18 Facing the changing security environment 20 Conclusion 29 PART II POLICY AND DECISION-MAKING CHAPTER 1: The principal policy and decision-making institutions 33 CHAPTER 2: Crisis management 43 CHAPTER 3: The defence planning dimension 51 CHAPTER 4: Common-funded resources, budgets and financial 57 management CHAPTER 5: Nuclear policy 65 CHAPTER 6: The economic dimension 67 PART III NATO’S CIVILIAN AND MILITARY STRUCTURES CHAPTER 7: Civilian organisation and structures 73 CHAPTER 8: The International Staff's key functions 77 CHAPTER 9: Military organisation and structures 85 CHAPTER 10: The International Staff's key functions 101 CHAPTER 11: Specialised organisations and agencies 107 CHAPTER 12: Key to the principal NATO committees and policy bodies 111 5 PART IV THE ALLIANCE’S ROLE IN PEACEKEEPING AND PEACE-SUPPORT OPERATIONS CHAPTER 13: NATO’s role in Bosnia-Herzegovina 143 CHAPTER 14: The Kosovo conflict and the role of KFOR 149 CHAPTER 15: NATO’s role in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia* 153 CHAPTER 16: NATO’s role in Afghanistan 155 CHAPTER 17: NATO’s role in Iraq 159 CHAPTER 18: NATO’s role in Darfur 163 PART V COMBATING NEW THREATS AND DEVELOPING NEW CAPABILITIES CHAPTER 19: The Alliance’s role in the fight against terrorism 167 and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction CHAPTER 20: New capabilities 175 PART VI THE OPENING UP OF THE ALLIANCE TO NEW MEMBER COUNTRIES CHAPTER 21: The enlargement process 183 CHAPTER 22: The Membership Action Plan 189 PART VII PARTNERSHIP AND COOPERATION CHAPTER 23: The Euro-Atlantic Partnership: the Euro-Atlantic 193 Partnership Council and the Partnership for Peac CHAPTER 24: NATO and Russia 209 CHAPTER 25: NATO and Ukraine 219 CHAPTER 26: Cooperation with countries in the Mediterranean region 229 and the broader Middle East CHAPTER 27: Cooperation with countries in southeastern Europe 237 6 PART VIII NATO-EU RELATIONS CHAPTER 28: The strategic partnership between NATO 243 and the European Union PART IX THE WIDER INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR SECURITY CHAPTER 29: NATO’s relations with the United Nations 255 CHAPTER 30: NATO and the Organization for Security 259 and Co-operation in Europe CHAPTER 31: Cooperation with other international organisations 263 CHAPTER 32: Cooperation with parliamentary and non-governmental 267 ORGANISATIONS PART X PROGRAMMES, ACTIVITIES, ORGANISATIONS AND AGENCIES CHAPTER 33: Air defence 275 CHAPTER 34: Airborne early warning 279 CHAPTER 35: Airspace and air traffic management 283 CHAPTER 36: Armaments cooperation and planning 285 CHAPTER 37: Arms control and disarmament 289 CHAPTER 38: Civil emergency planning 297 CHAPTER 39: Communication and information systems 303 CHAPTER 40: Education and training 307 CHAPTER 41: Electronic warfare 317 CHAPTER 42: Logistics 319 CHAPTER 43: Meteorology 329 CHAPTER 44: Military oceanography 331 CHAPTER 45: Public Diplomacy communications and information 333 programmes CHAPTER 46: Public Diplomacy scientific and environmental programmes 339 CHAPTER 47: Research and technology 347 CHAPTER 48: Standardization 349 7 APPENDICES APPENDIX 1 Abbreviations 355 APPENDIX 2 The North Atlantic Treaty 371 APPENDIX 3 Index 377 NOTE: References made in this Handbook to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia are marked with an asterisk (*) referring to the following footnote: “Turkey recognises the Republic of Macedonia with its constitutional name”. 8 PREFACE NATO was created through the signing of the Washington Treaty in 1949. The treaty, a model of brevity and clarity, paved the way for the Alliance’s adap- tation to the constantly changing dynamic of international security. It provides built-in flexibility and scope for tackling new problems and applying solutions to them that reflect the changing environment. In Article 9, the drafters provided a flexible organisational structure for the Alliance based on a single, authoritative institutional body in the form of a Council responsible for the implementation of the treaty and for the creation of such subsidiary bodies as might be neces- sary. This foresight has enabled the Alliance to evolve and to adapt itself to new circumstances throughout its history. NATO underwent a series of reforms and reorganisations during the first forty years of its existence, designed to adapt it to the occasional opportunities that presented themselves to move beyond Cold War constraints in order to place the security of member countries on a more positive and stable founda- tion. In the relatively short period since the end of the Cold War, the Alliance has undergone a process of much more fundamental transformation, adapting to changes in the security environment of a scope and intensity that few could have foreseen in earlier years. It was in the 1990s that NATO first responded to the end of the familiar East-West division and its accompanying ideological, political and military adversarial relationships, and to the disappearance of conventional military threats to security in the Euro-Atlantic area. The Alliance defined a new strate- gic concept, embarked on intensive partnerships with other countries, including former adversaries, and embraced new member countries. In addition, and for the first time, NATO undertook peacekeeping tasks in areas of conflict outside the Alliance, opening the way for a lead role in multinational crisis-management operations and extensive cooperative arrangements with other organisations. The 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States placed the fight against terrorism at the top of the international agenda, including that of NATO. As a result, the transformation process that characterised the first ten years after the end of the Cold War era took on a more coherent dimension and greater urgency. Today, the Alliance’s response to the new, post–September 11 security environment is based on a clear set of principles agreed upon by member governments. The Allies agree that they must be ready to help to deter, defend, disrupt and protect themselves collectively against terrorist attacks from abroad and that this may include taking action against terrorists and against those who harbour or protect them. They also agree that the Alliance 9 should not be constrained by predetermined geographical limits: it must have the capacity to act as and where required. Similarly, it may need to provide its assets and capabilities, on a case-by-case basis, to assist with operations conducted by other international organisations or coalitions of countries involv- ing NATO members. These decisions make wide-reaching demands on the Alliance, not only in terms of acquiring the necessary capabilities, but also in terms of the sustained political will of the member countries to draw the consequences of the policies they have adopted and to provide the means to implement them. The need for reviewing and updating policies and structures will not end with the fulfilment of present commitments. Modernisation and rationalisation will remain factors to contend with on a permanent basis, if only because threats to security and stability themselves are not static. How the Alliance has met the challenges of the past and how it has set about preparing itself to be able to fulfil equally challenging roles in the future is the subject of this new edition of the NATO Handbook. It provides a compre- hensive analysis of the evolution of the Alliance up to autumn 2005, and can be consulted alongside the NATO website (www.nato.int), which offers access to information about subsequent developments affecting the Alliance as well as the texts of official statements and communiqués, and articles and speeches by qualified commentators offering independent evaluation and analysis. In brief, Part I of the Handbook offers an introduction to the Alliance and provides a basic explanation of its origins and fundamental tasks as well as the main spheres of its development since its foundation. It includes a summary account of the policy directions taken by NATO member countries with regard to multinational security, focusing on the more recent post–Cold War era, and examines the principal topics on the Alliance’s agenda in the early years of the 21st century.