On 19-20 July 2022, the Chair of the NATO Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer visited Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he met with members of the Presidency, the Minister of Defence, Mr Sifet Podzic and the Chief of Defence, Lieutenant General Senad Mašović.
Incumbent
The current Chair of the NATO Military Committee is lieutenant admiral Rob Bauer, former Chief of Defence of the Netherlands, who took office on 25 June 2021.
NATO's Command Structure is under the authority of the Military Committee, NATO's highest military authority composed of the Chiefs of Defence of all twenty-nine member countries.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday (30 June 2022) said NATO leaders signed off on key decisions, including a fundamental strengthening of NATO's deterrence and defence, an invitation to Finland and Sweden to join NATO and long-term support to Ukraine.
In 2021, the United States had the largest number of military personnel out of all North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries, with 1.35 million troops.
The 12 founding member countries of NATO are Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The Power of NATO. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is known throughout the globe as the world's strongest and most powerful Alliance; but where does NATO's power come from?
The United States participates in two commands in Europe, its own and NATO's Allied Command, Europe. The command structures are similarly organized and have basically the same overall mission, to provide a combat-ready force to deter aggression from the Warsaw Pact nations.
NATO has lots of full-time troops — more than three million in all. About two million of those are already in Europe.
It is debateable if the UN or organisations such as NATO are more powerful in the world. The UN likely commands more global influence, but NATO, for example, is more powerful militarily. Inter-governmental organisations, such as the European Union, are hugely powerful globally.
In April this year, the four countries participated in NATO's foreign ministerial meeting and they agreed to continue supporting Ukraine and to step up cooperation given the "global implications" of Russia's war on Ukraine. Australia, Japan and South Korea are all U.S. security allies.
The United States
With a budget of $738 billion and 1,388,000 men and women in the armed forces, it boasts an awe-inspiring 6,125 nuclear weapons, 11 aircraft carriers, 68 nuclear submarines, 3,761 military aircraft, 867 attack helicopters, 6,209 tanks and 113 warships.
Plans for NATO membership were shelved by Ukraine following the 2010 presidential election in which Viktor Yanukovych, who preferred to keep the country non-aligned, was elected President.
The combined total of Nato military personnel currently exceeds 5.4m – around four times as many as Russia, according to Statista.
The Turkish Armed Forces is the second largest standing military force in NATO, after the U.S. Armed Forces, and the thirteenth in the world, with an estimated strength of 775,000 military and paramilitary personnel in 2022.
As of 2022, there were estimated to be approximately 4,178 nuclear warheads belonging to three NATO allies, the United States, France, and the United Kingdom.
The NATO Alliance consists of 30 member states from North America and Europe. Article Five of the treaty states that if an armed attack occurs against one of the member states, it should be considered an attack against all members, and other members shall assist the attacked member, with armed forces if necessary.
In March 2015, Russia, citing NATO's de facto breach of the 1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, said that the suspension of its participation in it, announced in 2007, was now "complete" through halting its participation in the consulting group on the Treaty.
Israel has enjoyed a special relationship with NATO for over three decades and was the third country to gain non-NATO alliance status as early as 1989.
Six EU member states, all who have declared their non-alignment with military alliances, are not NATO members: Austria, Cyprus, Finland, Ireland, Malta, and Sweden. Additionally, Switzerland, which is surrounded by the EU, has also maintained their neutrality by remaining a non-EU-member.
Russia had the most powerful military in Europe according to its PowerIndex score, which compares the strength and capability of different countries. According to this ranking, France had the second strongest military in Europe, followed by the UK, and then Italy.
1. Russia (Overall ranking: 2)
In 2022, China had the largest armed forces in the world by active duty military personnel, with about 2 million active soldiers. India, the United States, North Korea, and Russia rounded out the top five largest armies respectively, each with over one million active military personnel.