Reflections on 9/11: A View from NATO

Abstract

On the evening of 9/11, a few individuals from NATO’s International Staff got together to discuss how NATO should respond to the massive attacks on the United States that had occurred just a few hours earlier. Not yet knowing the full scope of the attacks, let alone their perpetrators, the discussion quickly boiled down to one major question: should the allies invoke Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, NATO’s collective defence commitment, thereby giving the strongest political signal of solidarity that sovereign nations can give each other? Most members of that small group supported such a decision. If this was not a clear case for the ultimate expression of transatlantic solidarity, what else was? NATO could not be seen as dithering, or else it would lose its credibility as a serious defence organization.