The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) :: New Secretary

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), also called the (North) Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defense whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. NATO's headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium, one of the 28 member states across North America and Europe, the newest of which, Albania and Croatia, joined in April 2009. An additional 22 countries participate in NATO's Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the world's defense spending.

Article Five of the treaty states that if an armed attack occurs against one of the member states, it should be considered an attack against all members, and other members shall assist the attacked member, with armed forces if necessary.

Of the 28 member countries, two are located in North America (Canada and the United States) and 25 are European countries while Turkey is in Eurasia. All members have militaries, although Iceland does not have a typical army (it does, however, have a military coast guard and a small unit of soldiers for NATO operations). Three of NATO's members are nuclear weapons states: France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. NATO has 12 original founding member nation states and through April 2009 it has added 16 more member nations.

NATO countries have agreed that former Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg will become NATO's next leader at a time when the Western military alliance faces a new challenge in dealing with a resurgent Russia, will succeed current secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen as decided on Friday the Mar 28, 2014 w.e.f. 1st October, 2014.

Stoltenberg, who served for nearly 10 years in total as Norway's prime minister before losing power in elections last September, was backed by the United States, NATO's dominant power, Germany and British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Rasmussen, a former Danish prime minister who took office in 2009, is due to step down at the end of September 2014 after a September 4-5 NATO summit in Wales which will mark almost the end of NATO's combat mission in Afghanistan.

Stoltenberg will take over at a time when NATO, seen by some as a Cold War relic, has gained new relevance because of Russia's occupation and annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region.

NATO foreign ministers are expected to discuss at a meeting next week how they can reinforce NATO's military presence in eastern European countries such as the Baltics and Poland which are nervous about heightened tensions with Russia.