NATO has about 3.5 million active military personnel, most of them from the US (about 1.4 million), but is capable of mobilizing about six million troops, in an alliance of 31 countries.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded in 1949 (with 12 members) and became the main pillar of Western defense strategy against the Soviet threat during the Cold War.
With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, NATO significantly expanded its membership, including a number of countries controlled by Moscow after World War II, with the accession of the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary in 1999, and of seven others countries in 2004.
The most recent member is Finland, which submitted its accession process in 2022 and became a full member of the Alliance as of April 4 this year.
Sweden applied for integration at the same time as Finland, but is still waiting for the green light from the parliaments of Turkey and Hungary to integrate.
For the organization’s 3.5 million employees, the United States participates with about 1.4 million active-duty military, the country that contributes the most to NATO forces, followed by Turkey, which has about 450,000 soldiers to participate. participate in the functioning of the organization.
However, the 31 member states are able to mobilize nearly six million military personnel at any given time, which corresponds, for example, to Russia’s approximately 1.5 billion military personnel.
The air force is one of the Alliance’s strengths, with a total of approximately 20,000 vehicles, including 3,400 combat aircraft, 8,500 helicopters and 1,500 military transport aircraft.
Of this total, 13,500 aircraft belong to the United States, with Turkey and France, both with approximately 1,000 aircraft each, ranking second and third respectively.
In recent years, NATO has also invested in its maritime reinforcement. NATO currently has 143 submarines for Allied operations, as well as 295 patrol boats and 135 frigates.
Despite the fact that the United States has diversified its armed forces deployment fronts in recent years (namely by strengthening its position in Asia-Pacific), the number of US military personnel stationed in Europe is significant.
The US has about 35,000 troops in Germany, 12,500 in Italy and 10,000 in the UK, for a total of about 50,000 troops in Europe.
In 2022, the US had 259 soldiers stationed in Portugal.
The statutes of the Atlantic Alliance require each country to invest at least 2% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in defense, but this target has not always been met and in absolute terms the United States spends more than twice as much on defense. defense as it does on defense, all other NATO countries combined.
As NATO celebrates its 70th anniversary, NATO has mobilized approximately 20,000 troops in active operations in various parts of the world, including Afghanistan, Kosovo, Iraq and the Mediterranean.
With growing fears about Russia’s military presence on NATO’s eastern front – which became even more pressing after the annexation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea in 2014 – the Alliance began to strengthen its presence in this area.
In 2017, NATO created four multinational battalions in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
After the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, NATO expanded this reinforcement to the East, with four new battalions in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.
In addition to these battalions, NATO has nine Rapid Action Corps active, each with approximately 60,000 troops.
Source: DN
