Lots of people rightfully have mixed feelings about NATO, and they’ve probably seen different terminology and articles thrown about over the past few years following Sweden and Finland joining.
But it’s become pretty clear over the last few weeks that a lot of people don’t know what Article 5 is, and why the US following through on threats to annex Greenland is the end of NATO.
Article 5 can be called by any state under threat, and is considered as ‘An attack on one, is an attack on all’. It’s the cornerstone of NATO as an alliance, and calls on other countries in the alliance to take supportive action, militarily or otherwise.
For Americans, the reason why the reaction from Europe has been so aggressive is because Article 5 has only ever been triggered once, and it was to aid the United States after 9/11 leading to the invasion of Afghanistan.
CAVEAT TIME. Tumblr’s favourite game because if I don’t mention it here, someone uses it as gotcha despite being a different point - Yes, the prolonged invasion of Afghanistan was a clusterfuck. It achieved very little, destabilised the region and was responsible for tens of thousands of civilian deaths caused by direct war, and estimated 430,000 indirect deaths caused by infrastructure collapse and disease.
End of Caveat time.
Regarding the recent threats on Greenland, whether right or wrong - there’s a strong feeling that NATO allies ‘answered the call’ of the United States when it asked for it. Not just in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 but in the prolonged conflict in the aftermath.
So chest-puffing from some Americans about how ‘We can totally take on NATO, Your nothing without us etc’ is generally viewed as spitting in the face of your allies because the US is the only country that NATO has initiated article 5 over.
