Member states of NATO
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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an international military alliance consisting of 32 member states from Europe and North America. It was established at the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949. Of the 32 member countries, 30 are in Europe and 2 are in North America. Between 1994 and 1997, wider forums for regional cooperation between NATO and its neighbours were set up, including the Partnership for Peace, the Mediterranean Dialogue initiative, and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council. The majority of NATO members are also member states of the European Union.
All members have militaries, except for Iceland, which does not have a typical army (but it does have a coast guard and a small unit of civilian specialists 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 states. Three more members joined between 1952 and 1955, and a fourth (Spain) joined in 1982. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has added 16 more members from 1999 to 2024.[1] Article 5 of the treaty states that if an armed attack occurs against one of the member states, it shall be considered an attack against all members, and other members shall assist the attacked member, with armed forces if necessary.[2] Article 6 of the treaty limits the scope of Article 5 to the islands north of the Tropic of Cancer, the North American and European mainlands, the entirety of Turkey, and French Algeria, the last of which has been moot since July 1962. Thus, an attack on Hawaii, Puerto Rico, French Guiana, the Falkland Islands, Ceuta or Melilla, among other places, would not trigger an Article 5 response.
NATO recognizes Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Ukraine as aspiring members as part of their Open Door enlargement policy.[3]
Founding members and enlargement
Script error: No such module "Labelled list hatnote". NATO was established on 4 April 1949 via the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty (Washington Treaty). The 12 founding members of the Alliance were: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States.[4]
The various allies all signed the Ottawa Agreement,[5] which is a 1951 document that acts to embody civilian oversight of the Alliance.[5][6]
Current membership consists of 32 countries. In addition to the 12 founding countries, four new members joined during the Cold War: Greece and Turkey (1952), West Germany (1955) and Spain (1982). Additionally, NATO experienced territorial expansion during this period without adding new member states when Zone A of the Free Territory of Trieste was annexed by Italy in 1954, and the territory of the former East Germany was added with the reunification of Germany in 1990. NATO further expanded after the Cold War, adding 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).[4] Of the territories and members added between 1990 and 2024, all except for Finland and Sweden were either formerly part of the Warsaw Pact (including the formerly Soviet Baltic states) or territories of the former Yugoslavia. No countries have left NATO since its founding, although France withdrew from NATO unified command between 1966 and 2009.
Since the accession of Sweden on 7 March 2024, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization covers a total area of 27,580,492 km2 (10,648,887 sq mi).
List of member states
The current members and their dates of admission are listed below.
Special arrangements
The three Nordic countries which joined NATO as founding members, Denmark, Iceland and Norway, chose to limit their participation in three areas: there would be no permanent peacetime bases, no nuclear warheads and no Allied military activity (unless invited) permitted on their territory. However, Denmark allowed the US to maintain an existing base, Thule Air Base (now Pituffik Space Base), in Greenland.[11]
From the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s, France pursued a military strategy of independence from NATO under a policy dubbed "Gaullo-Mitterrandism".[12] Nicolas Sarkozy negotiated the return of France to the integrated military command and the Defence Planning Committee in 2009, the latter being disbanded the following year. France remains the only NATO member outside the Nuclear Planning Group and unlike the United States and the United Kingdom, will not commit its nuclear-armed submarines to the alliance.[13][14]
Membership aspirations
As of March 2024[update], three additional states have formally informed NATO of their membership aspirations: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Ukraine.[3]
- NATO members agreed at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Georgia and Ukraine "will become members of NATO in the future".[15]
- Bosnia and Herzegovina was invited by NATO to join the Membership Action Plan (MAP) in April 2010.[15]
Withdrawal
No state has ever withdrawn from NATO, but some dependencies of member states have not requested membership after becoming independent:
- File:Flag of Cyprus.svg Cyprus (independence from the United Kingdom in 1960)
- File:Flag of Algeria.svg Algeria (independence from France in 1962)
- File:Flag of Malta.svg Malta (independence from the United Kingdom in 1964)
Military personnel
The following list is constructed from The Military Balance, published annually by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
| Country[16] | Active | Reserve | Paramilitary | Total | Per 1,000 capita | Template:Refh | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| total | active | ||||||
| Albania Albania | 5,350 | 2,100 | 2,150 | 9,600 | 3.1 | 1.7 | |
| Belgium Belgium | 23,500 | 5,900 | 0 | 29,400 | 2.5 | 2 | |
| Bulgaria Bulgaria | 36,950 | 3,000 | 0 | 39,950 | 5.9 | 5.4 | |
| Canada Canada | 62,300 | 29,100 | 5,800 | 97,200 | 2.5 | 1.6 | |
| Croatia Croatia | 16,800 | 21,000 | 3,000 | 40,800 | 9.8 | 4 | |
| Czech Republic Czech Republic | 26,600 | 4,200 | 0 | 30,800 | 2.8 | 2.5 | [17] |
| Denmark Denmark | 13,100 | 44,200 | 0 | 57,300 | 9.6 | 2.2 | |
| Estonia Estonia | 7,100 | 20,000 | 21,200 | 48,300 | 40.5 | 5.9 | |
| Finland Finland | 23,850 | 233,000 | 2,900 | 259,750 | 46.2 | 4.2 | |
| France France | 202,200 | 38,500 | 95,100 | 335,800 | 4.9 | 3 | |
| Germany Germany | 179,850 | 34,100 | 0 | 213,950 | 2.5 | 2.1 | |
| Greece Greece | 132,000 | 289,000 | 7,400 | 428,400 | 41 | 12.6 | |
| Hungary Hungary | 32,150 | 20,000 | 0 | 52,150 | 5.3 | 3.3 | |
| Iceland Iceland | 0 | 0 | 250 | 250 | 0.7 | 0 | |
| Italy Italy | 161,850 | 14,500 | 178,600 | 354,950 | 5.8 | 2.7 | [n] |
| Latvia Latvia | 7,870 | 38,000 | 10,000 | 55,870 | 30 | 4.2 | [18] |
| Lithuania Lithuania | 16,100 | 12,950 | 18,400 | 47,450 | 18.1 | 6.1 | |
| Luxembourg Luxembourg | 900 | 0 | 600 | 1,500 | 2.2 | 1.3 | |
| Montenegro Montenegro | 2,710 | 2,800 | 4,100 | 9,610 | 16 | 4.5 | |
| Netherlands Netherlands | 33,650 | 6,350 | 6,500 | 46,500 | 2.6 | 1.9 | |
| Template:Country data North MacedoniaTemplate:Preview warning North Macedonia | 8,000 | 4,850 | 7,600 | 20,450 | 9.6 | 3.7 | |
| Norway Norway | 25,400 | 40,000 | 0 | 65,400 | 11.9 | 4.6 | |
| Poland Poland | 164,100 | 37,500 | 14,300 | 215,900 | 5.6 | 4.2 | |
| Portugal Portugal | 21,500 | 23,500 | 22,600 | 67,600 | 6.6 | 2.1 | |
| Romania Romania | 69,900 | 55,000 | 57,000 | 181,900 | 10 | 3.9 | |
| Slovakia Slovakia | 12,800 | 0 | 0 | 12,800 | 2.3 | 2.3 | |
| Slovenia Slovenia | 6,200 | 950 | 0 | 7,150 | 3.4 | 3 | |
| Spain Spain | 122,200 | 13,800 | 80,500 | 216,500 | 4.6 | 2.6 | |
| Sweden Sweden | 14,850 | 21,500 | 0 | 36,350 | 3.4 | 1.4 | |
| Turkey Turkey | 355,200 | 378,700 | 160,800 | 894,700 | 10.6 | 4.2 | |
| United Kingdom United Kingdom | 141,100 | 70,450 | 0 | 211,550 | 3.1 | 2.1 | |
| United States United States | 1,315,600 | 797,200 | 0 | 2,112,800 | 6.2 | 3.8 | |
| NATO NATO | 3,240,410 | 2,233,850 | 688,800 | 6,163,060 | 6.3 | 3.3 | |
Military expenditures
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The defence spending of the United States is more than double the defence spending of all other NATO members combined. (Note that this is total U.S. defense spending, not spending specifically for NATO)[19] Criticism of the fact that many member states were not contributing their fair share in accordance with the international agreement by then US president Donald Trump caused various reactions from American and European political figures, ranging from ridicule to panic.[20][21][22] While NATO members have committed to spending at least 2% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defence, most of them did not meet that goal in 2023.[23]
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| Member state | Population[o] | GDP (nominal) ($billions)[p] |
Defence expenditure (US$)[p] | Personnel[p] | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total ($millions) |
% real GDP | Per capita | ||||
| File:Flag of Albania.svg Albania | 2,872,849 | 29.89 | 598 | 2.00 | 157 | 6,600 |
| File:Flag of Belgium (civil).svg Belgium | 12,055,794 | 725.00 | 14,465 | 2.00 | 1,085 | 22,100 |
| File:Flag of Bulgaria.svg Bulgaria | 6,670,476 | 128.97 | 2,755 | 2.14 | 317 | 26,600 |
| File:Flag of Canada (Pantone).svg Canada | 40,086,114 | 2,282.50 | 45,562 | 2.00 | 1,051 | 70,900 |
| File:Flag of Croatia.svg Croatia | 4,026,339 | 104.04 | 2,182 | 2.10 | 453 | 13,600 |
| File:Flag of the Czech Republic.svg Czech Republic | 10,745,564 | 388.03 | 78,194 | 2.01 | 574 | 29,100 |
| File:Flag of Denmark.svg Denmark | 5,936,566 | 458.55 | 15,299 | 3.34 | 2,416 | 18,000 |
| File:Flag of Estonia.svg Estonia | 1,301,740 | 47.42 | 1,623 | 3.42 | 909 | 7,800 |
| File:Flag of Finland.svg Finland | 5,712,138 | 316.95 | 9,095 | 2.87 | 1,497 | 27,700 |
| File:Flag of France.svg France | 67,065,327 | 3,367.43 | 68,905 | 2.05 | 940 | 201,700 |
| File:Flag of Germany.svg Germany | 83,982,479 | 5,042.75 | 120,747 | 2.39 | 1,257 | 182,300 |
| File:Flag of Greece.svg Greece | 10,186,705 | 282.57 | 7,871 | 2.79 | 651 | 104,100 |
| File:Flag of Hungary.svg Hungary | 9,479,265 | 247.43 | 5,130 | 2.07 | 416 | 19,900 |
| File:Flag of Iceland.svg Iceland | 355,437 | 38.34 | Template:Screen reader-only | Template:Screen reader-only | Template:Screen reader-only | Template:Screen reader-only |
| File:Flag of Italy.svg Italy | 60,775,803 | 2,549.38 | 51,197 | 2.01 | 798 | 193,700 |
| File:Flag of Latvia.svg Latvia | 1,760,090 | 47.70 | 1,782 | 3.74 | 790 | 8,200 |
| File:Flag of Lithuania.svg Lithuania | 2,472,510 | 94.84 | 3,797 | 4.00 | 1.019 | 19,000 |
| File:Flag of Luxembourg.svg Luxembourg | 711,892 | 66.20 | 1,408 | 2.13 | 1.750 | 1,000 |
| File:Flag of Montenegro.svg Montenegro | 632,886 | 9.18 | 188 | 2.05 | 235 | 1,700 |
| File:Flag of the Netherlands.svg Netherlands | 17,494,438 | 1,329.13 | 30,498 | 2.59 | 1,618 | 45,100 |
| Template:Country data North Macedonia | 2,103,765 | 18.89 | 402 | 2.13 | 183 | 6,000 |
| File:Flag of Norway.svg Norway | 5,843,854 | 518.84 | 16,598 | 3.20 | 3,026 | 26,700 |
| File:Flag of Poland.svg Poland | 37,912,247 | 1031.96 | 44,360 | 4.30 | 891 | 252,900 |
| File:Flag of Portugal (official).svg Portugal | 9,927,058 | 345.50 | 6,911 | 2.00 | 546 | 21,500 |
| File:Flag of Romania.svg Romania | 18,362,627 | 420.57 | 9,300 | 2.21 | 361 | 69,800 |
| File:Flag of Slovakia.svg Slovakia | 5,482,699 | 153.63 | 3,162 | 2.06 | 480 | 13,500 |
| File:Flag of Slovenia.svg Slovenia | 2,097,913 | 79.55 | 1,624 | 2.04 | 637 | 5,900 |
| File:Flag of Spain.svg Spain | 46,141,946 | 1,897.02 | 37,940 | 2.00 | 691 | 117,400 |
| File:Flag of Sweden.svg Sweden | 10,603,412 | 663.33 | 16,601 | 2.50 | 1,531 | 25,700 |
| File:Flag of Turkey.svg Turkey | 93,157,395 | 1,563.43 | 36,414 | 2.33 | 265 | 370,300 |
| File:Flag of the United Kingdom (1-2).svg United Kingdom | 70,422,211 | 4,020.45 | 92,875 | 2.31 | 1,146 | 126,100 |
| File:Flag of the United States.svg United States | 345,949,138 | 30,674.37 | 980,000 | 3.19 | 2,460 | 1,291,300 |
| File:Flag of NATO.svg NATO | 992,328,677 | 58,943.84 | 1,637,108 | 2.77 | 1,434 | 3,326,200 |
Political and popular support
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[[File:Template:Ambox globe current red|42px|link=|alt=]] | This section needs to be updated. (April 2022) |
Pew Research Center's 2016 survey among its member states showed that while most countries viewed NATO positively, most NATO members preferred keeping their military spending the same. The response to whether their country should militarily aid another NATO country if it were to get into a serious military conflict with Russia was also mixed. Roughly half or fewer in six of the eight countries surveyed say their country should use military force if Russia attacks a neighboring country that is a NATO ally. And at least half in three of the eight NATO countries say that their government should not use military force in such circumstances. The strongest opposition to responding with armed force is in Germany (58%), followed by France (53%) and Italy (51%). More than half of Americans (56%) and Canadians (53%) are willing to respond to Russian military aggression against a fellow NATO country. A plurality of the British (49%) and Poles (48%) would also live up to their Article 5 commitment. The Spanish are divided on the issue: 48% support it, 47% oppose.[27][28]
YouGov, a market research company that is mainly active in the UK also hosts a regularly updated public opinion polling for NATO. As of 6 January 2025, 45% of UK citizens strongly support NATO, 31% Tend to support NATO, 18% Don't know, 3% Tend to oppose and 3% Strongly oppose. Older people (65+) Strongly support NATO at 59%, whilst in younger demographics (18-24), Tend to support ranks the highest at 34%, and Don't know is at 33%.[29]
A 2025 poll found that support for NATO membership was 52%, compared to the 66% of Slovenians who voted for NATO membership in a referendum in 2003.[30][31]
Notes
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- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Founding member of NATO.
- ^ Officially referred to by the name Czechia. (See Czech Republic#Name.)
- ^ Including the Faroe Islands and Greenland.
- ^ including Faroe Islands and Greenland.
- ^ Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty does not cover overseas territories of France apart from Saint Pierre and Miquelon.
- ^ Germany initially joined NATO as West Germany. The former country of East Germany became part of NATO after German reunification.
- ^ Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty covers only the European part of The Netherlands.
- ^ Figure includes the islands of Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius, but they don't fall under the NATO treaty.
- ^ Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty does not cover Bouvet Island.
- ^ Excluding the Plazas de soberanía region.
- ^ Officially referred to by the name Türkiye. (See Name of Turkey.)
- ^ Including Bermuda, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Isle of Man, and Jersey. Other overseas territories are not covered under Article 5.
- ^ Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty covers neither Hawaii nor any of the US territories.
- ^ The paramilitary forces of Italy consist of the Carabinieri and the Guardia di Finanza.
- ^ Population data is based on a 2026 estimate by countrymeters.info [25]
- ^ a b c GDP, Defence expenditures and Personnel data is based on a 2026 estimate by nato.int [26]
References
Citations
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Currently, five partner countries have declared their aspirations to NATO membership: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Finland, Georgia, Sweden and Ukraine.
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Really, the Agreement on the Status of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, National Representatives and International Staff signed in Ottawa
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- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Chodil, Jakub. "Jak fungují aktivní zálohy? Armáda v nich chce do roku 2030 mít deset tisíc lidí". ct24.ceskatelevize.cz (in čeština). 5 April 2024. Retrieved 12 May 2025.
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- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Mortimer, Caroline (19 March 2017). "Ex-US ambassador in withering criticism of Trump on Nato". The Independent. Archived from the original on 3 April 2023. Retrieved 29 January 2024.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Ridgwell, Henry (25 January 2017). "Shaken by Trump's Criticism of NATO, Europe Mulls Building Own Military Force". Voice Of America. Archived from the original on 3 April 2023. Retrieved 29 January 2024.
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Bibliography
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