After the rocket attack on Poland and two deaths, will NATO activate Articles 4 and 5 to defend the alliance?
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What are NATO Articles 4 and 5?
Soon after two people were killed by a missile on Polish territory, the Polish government announced that it would consider whether it was necessary to invoke Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which requires emergency consultations in the event threat to a Member State.
AndIn the event that Moscow is found to be responsible for the explosion, this could lead to the launch of NATO’s collective defense principle known as “Article 5”, as an attack on one member of the Western alliance is considered an attack on all .
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance is carefully assessing the situation in Poland and awaits clarity on facts and figures.
Returning to the NATO Charter, “Article 4” differs from “Article 5”, in that the latter specifies military assistance from the entire alliance in the event of an attack on one of the member states.
Article 4 of the NATO Treaty gives the right to any member state of the alliance that feels threatened by another country or a terrorist organization, to submit a request that the thirty member states enter into formal consultations to decide whether the threat exists and how to deal with it, while reaching unanimous decisions.
Under this article, the parties must consult together, at the request of any of the member states, on the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the allied states.
Article 5 is the cornerstone of NATO’s founding treaty, created in 1949 with the US military as a mainstay of its strength primarily to counter the Soviet Union and its satellites in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.
The Charter states that NATO members agree that an armed attack against one or more of them “shall be regarded as an attack against all of them”.
In the event of such an attack, each NATO member would assist the attacked country in whatever action it “deems necessary”. This could include the use of armed force to restore and maintain security in the North Atlantic region.
