NATO: Joint Operations

NATO: Joint Operations

In the years following the Second World War, a new superpower began to emerge that had conflicting ideals with the United States and Western Europe, the Soviet Union. As a result of Soviet military might, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 to counter and deter Soviet military aggression. The original treaty included 12 nations from North American and Western Europe, today, the number of member nations has grown to 29 with the three largest contributors being the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. NATO is a strategic military alliance with a specific mission set and through its 69 years of history, has utilized joint operations between nations to prevent war and when need be, used

This means that even during times of peace, NATO maintains a powerful joint military force to prevent war and if need be, bring a swift destruction to an aggressive nation or military group. Another mission of NATO is the protection of the North Atlantic region through large standing armies and navies. Recently, NATO’s missions have grown out of just the North Atlantic region, the Global War on Terror and other conflicts have expanded NATO’s domain but the original missions are still a top

The two main ways that these two groups work together is through deployed training and assisting of local security forces, particularly in Afghanistan and through joint military exercises around the world. Although the exact number is not known, there are currently about 17,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan with about 11,000 of these being US troops and a majority of that number, US Army soldiers. US soldiers and NATO troops are partnered together in the joint operation known as Resolute Support. Together, both groups utilize the principles of joint operations such as security, legitimacy, restraint, perseverance, and unity of command in order to successfully training Afghan security forces for the eventual total withdrawal of US and NATO forces from Afghanistan. Other than in Afghanistan, the US Army and NATO forces are currently operating together in military exercises in the Central and Eastern European countries of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve. The US Army is able to partner with NATO militarily, however, the US Army can also work with NATO in peacekeeping and humanitarian