On June 5, the anti-Western political party in the parliament, People’s Power, issued a statement regarding a US Congressional hearing that discussed the Law on the Transparency of Foreign Influence adopted by the Parliament of Georgia. The statement also referred to the North Atlantic Alliance and its collective defense mechanism, in particular, Article 5. People’s Power has claimed that NATO membership does not guarantee one-hundred-percent security and that according to Article 5 of the Alliance’s founding treaty, “the states have the right to assist the object of aggression in the manner and form they deem necessary and to use their armed forces only if they deem it necessary.” The statement of the party also said that the translation of Article 5 of the Treaty into Georgian language was deliberately falsified, with the main part omitted from the original text, which states that each country decides whether or not to use military assistance as they deem necessary.
The above-mentioned part of the statement of the People’s Power regarding NATO Article 5 was disseminated by the pro-government media outlets Imedi, Marshall Press, POSTV, and For.Ge.
The political party People’s Power manipulates a provision of the NATO Treaty and its Georgian-language translation. In fact, Article 5 of the NATO Treaty clearly states that the parties agree that an armed attack against one of them shall be considered an attack against them all. Consequently, NATO member states agree that in the event of such an armed attack, each of them, exercising the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the party or parties attacked by taking such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. The fact that the contribution to collective defense may vary from country to country does not affect the security guarantees created by the invocation of NATO Article 5.
In its statement, the political party People’s Power presents Article 5 of the NATO Treaty in a manipulative way, as if its wording leaves room for maneuvering and gives the right to the member states of the Alliance to pursue their interests in case of an attack against a member state and to avoid involvement in a military conflict, which, as People’s Power claims, means that there are no security guarantees.
In reality, the original text of the NATO Treaty defines Article 5 as follows:
“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all, and consequently, they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”
The translation into Georgian says:
“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all. In such a case, based on the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, the parties will assist the party or parties attacked by taking all necessary actions, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”
People’s Power manipulates the portion of the article that states that the parties agree to assist the party or parties attacked… by taking such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed forces, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area, and based on this, claims that NATO membership does not provide security guarantees. In reality, while Article 5 allows the allies to assist the party or parties under attack as they deem it necessary in a particular situation, NATO specifies that under Article 5, each member state undertakes to respond to an attack on a member state and to provide assistance according to the resources available to each country. This explanation, naturally, takes into account the reality that not all NATO member states have equal military capacities. The members of the Alliance have repeatedly reaffirmed their unity of commitment and decision to defend each inch of Allied territory against any aggressor. This was reiterated by US President Joe Biden in his speech on the occasion of NATO’s 75th anniversary.
To hear a further explanation of NATO’s collective defense principle, the Myth Detector contacted Shota Ghvineria, the head of security direction at the Economic Policy Research Center. According to him, if a NATO member is attacked, the allies first make a political decision to invoke Article 5 and then discuss what is an adequate measure and a proportional response to the attack. Shota Ghvineria explains that it is illogical for all 32 NATO member states to express solidarity with the attacked party identically because among them there are countries, for example, Luxembourg and Iceland, that do not have armed forces at all. Speaking to the Myth Detector, Ghvineria stressed that the invocation of Article 5 means a defense guarantee, and the fact that the contributions of countries to collective defense vary does not change that.
“Luxemburg and the United States of America cannot physically make an equal contribution to any NATO operation… As regards the contribution of member states to a proportional response, this is a completely technical question and has nothing to do with Article 5… While the contribution of some is tanks, the contribution of others is helicopters, or doctors, or financial means, and some will contribute by closing borders or freezing financial assets… This, of course, depends on the willingness, weight, military capabilities, financial capabilities, etc., of the member state,” Shota Ghvineria said.
According to Ghvineria, all crises, even military crises, do not imply the invocation of Article 5 and are a result of political discussion and decision. NATO can also invoke Article 5 in various forms, for example, by carrying out a cyberattack in response rather than an artillery attack.
Ghvineria further noted that the fact that, in 75 years, no country has attempted to attack a NATO member state speaks to the effectiveness of the Alliance. NATO has used the above-mentioned lever of collective defense only once, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States carried out by a non-state actor.
After 9/11, the allies held consultations, and the North Atlantic Council decided to act collectively. On October 4, after it was established that the attacks on US soil were orchestrated from abroad, NATO agreed on eight packages of measures to support the United States. At the request of the United States, the first operation, Eagle Assist, was conducted from mid-October 2021 to mid-May 2002. It involved seven of NATO’s AWACS radar aircraft patrolling the US skies. A total of 360 flights were flown by 830 crew members from 13 NATO countries. This was the first time NATO employed military assets in support of an Article 5 operation.
Although NATO invoked Article 5 only once, the allies have taken collective defense actions on several occasions, including deploying Patriot missiles to the Syria-Turkey border in 2012, and reinforcing its forces in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland in 2014, after Russia illegally annexed Crimea.
Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in order to defend all its allies, NATO has been taking additional steps to further strengthen the deterrence and defense in line with its defense plan. For example, at a special summit held on March 24, 2022, NATO leaders decided to significantly strengthen the Alliance’s deterrence and defense and agreed to form four additional multinational combat groups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. Thus, NATO actually doubled the number of its troops on the ground and expanded NATO’s positions on the eastern flank.
It should be noted that a similar manipulation with regard to Article 5 was actively spread by the Russian propaganda media and circulated on social networks in the past (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7).
Archive links: Imedi, POSTV, Marshal Press, For.Ge.
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