[…] Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, which today is widely treated as a U.S. commitment to “defend every inch of NATO territory,” says nothing of the sort. Instead, it stipulates that an attack on one member shall be treated as an attack on all, and that in that event, each signatory will take “such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.” As the historian Marc Trachtenberg has pointed out, the American policymakers who helped found NATO made clear, repeatedly and under oath, that Article 5 did not commit the United States to go to war for the allies. Secretary of State Dean Acheson testified in 1949 that Article 5 did “not mean that the United States would automatically be at war if one of the other signatory nations were the victim of an armed attack.” The United States could hold up its Article 5 legal commitment by sending flowers to the victims of aggression. Läs artikel
NEJ TILL NATO-MEDLEMSKAP OCH DCA-AVTAL!
