Invocation of Article 5: five years on

This issue of NATO Review, entitled Invocation of Article 5: five years on, examines the significance and consequences of NATO’s decision on 12 September 2001 to invoke the Alliance’s collective-defence clause for the first time.

In the first of four articles devoted to this issue’s central theme, Sebestyén L. v. Gorka of the Institute for Transitional Democracy and International Security in Budapest analyses the significance of the invocation of Article 5. Edgar Buckley, former NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defence Planning and Operations, describes how NATO invoked Article 5 on 12 September 2001. Tomas Valasek, until recently director of the World Security Institute in Brussels, examines evolving attitudes to collective defence at NATO. And author Stanley R. Sloan analyses the debate over Article 5 that dominated the Washington Treaty negotiations.