• NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte met the US President Donald Trump at the White House on July 14 to advance critical efforts in support of Ukraine’s defence against Russian aggression. 

• Rutte hailed President Trump’s pivotal decision to ensure Ukraine receives essential military resources, with NATO coordinating the effort with funding from Allies in Europe and Canada.

• Later, Rutte warned that countries such as Brazil, China and India could be hit very hard by secondary sanctions if they continued to do business with Russia.

• Rutte highlighted the momentum from the recent NATO Summit in The Hague, where Allies agreed to a 5 per cent GDP defence spending target and increased defence industrial production as well as continued support to Ukraine. 

• NATO is now working on substantial military equipment packages, including air defence systems, missiles, and ammunition. 

What is NATO?

• North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was formed in 1949 with the signing of the Washington Treaty. 

• NATO is a security alliance of 32 countries from North America and Europe. 

• In 1949, there were 12 founding members of the alliance: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States. 

• The other member countries are: Greece and Turkey (1952), Germany (1955), Spain (1982), the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland (1999), Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia (2004), Albania and Croatia (2009), Montenegro (2017), North Macedonia (2020), Finland (2023) and Sweden (2024).

• These countries, called NATO Allies, are sovereign states that come together through NATO to discuss political and security issues and make collective decisions by consensus.

• NATO brings together sovereign countries from Europe and North America, consulting and cooperating in the field of security and defence.

• NATO’s fundamental goal is to safeguard the Allies’ freedom and security by political and military means.

• NATO enables members to consult and cooperate on defence and security-related issues to solve problems, build trust and, in the long run, prevent conflict.

• NATO is committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes. If diplomatic efforts fail, it has the military power to undertake crisis-management operations. These are carried out under the collective defence clause of NATO’s founding treaty — Article 5 of the Washington Treaty or under a United Nations mandate, alone or in cooperation with other countries and international organisations.

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