The North Altantic Treaty

The North Atlantic Treaty signed April 4, 1949 in Washington is NATO's basic and founding document. The crucial Article 5 enshrines the principle of collective defense. Intertwined with collective defence is the Article 3, in which Allies agree to maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack. Article 4 establishes the institute of security consultations if a threat emerges to any Ally. Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty enacts NATO's open-door policy.

• North Atlantic Treaty 
• North Atlantic Treaty (original document in PDF)

 

The 2022 Strategic Concept: 

At the 2022 Madrid Summit, Allies embraced a new NATO Strategic Concept. It defines the role of the Alliance and its tasks for about a decade with regard to the development of the security environment and new security challenges, influenced mostly by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The 2022 Strategic Concept establishes Russia and terrorism as the two most significant threats to the Alliance and emphasizes a 360-degree approach. The concept maintains three core tasks of the Alliance, namely; deterrence and defence, crisis prevention and management, and cooperative security. An important part of the Concept is also resilience building against military, paramilitary and non-military threats, and countering hybrid interference. In relation to cyber and hybrid threats, the Alliance acknowledges their potential to trigger the invocation of Article 5 by the North Atlantic Council. The Concept also emphasizes the importance of the Indo-Pacific for NATO, since the development in this region could directly influence Euroatlantic security. The activities of the People’s Republic of China are viewed as a strategic challenger by NATO.

• The 2022 Strategic Concept (PDF)

 

Conclusions of NATO Summits

Declarations adopted by heads of states and governments of NATO countries at NATO summits, also called communiqués, offer a comprehensive information source on policies of the Alliance. In a structure of numbered paragraphs Allies express their collective stance on the whole range of political issues in which the North Atlantic Alliance is involved. A communiqué is considered the main output of the summit, occasionally accompanied by other documents of similar importance.

• Madrid Summit 2022
  • Declaration (EN)
• Brussels Summit 2022
  • Statement (EN)
• Extraordinary Virtual Summit 2022
• Brussels Summit 2021
  • Communiqué (EN)
  • NATO 2030 Agenda (EN)
  • Strengthened Resilience Commitment (EN)
  • NATO Climate Change and Security Action Plan (EN)
• Brussels Summit 2018
  • Communiqué
  • Brussels Declaration on Transatlantic Security and Solidarity
• Warsaw Summit 2016
  • Communiqué
  • The Warsaw Declaration on Transatlantic Security
• Wales Summit 2014
  • Communiqué
  • The Wales Declaration on the Transatlantic Bond
• Chicago Summit 2012 Communiqué
• Lisbon Summit 2010 Communiqué
• Strasbourg/Kehl Summit 2009 Communiqué
• Bucharest Summit 2008 Communiqué
• conclusions from earlier NATO summits are available at NATO website.

 

Security and defence strategic documents of the Czech Republic

Security Strategy of the Czech Republic is the main conceptual document of the Czech Republic that describes security threats and ways and means to counter them. The current Security Strategy of the Czech Republic was adopted by the Government in February 2015.

• Security Strategy of the Czech Republic 2023 (PDF)

Defence Strategy of the Czech Republic is a fundamental strategic document of the Czech government in the domain of defence. Intended by the Czech government to ensure the country's defence in the current decade, it describes basic principles of capacity building and operation of the national defence system and summarizes the main tasks of the Armed Forces and updates the political-military ambitions. The current Defence Strategy was adopted by the Czech government in March 2017.

• Defence Strategy of the Czech Republic 2017 (PDF)