Is NATO a purely defensive organisation, ruling out attacks from NATO?

Question

In July 2024, German chancellor Olaf Scholz controversially approved stationing American cruise missiles in Germany. In an official statement issued by the German armed forces in October 2024, Brigadegeneral Maik Keller (a senior civil servant in the German Federal Ministry of Defence) has said that NATO missiles are not really a threat to Russia because it is "fundamentally ruled out" for an attack to originate from NATO:

„Die NATO ist ein Verteidigungsbündnis. Das heißt einen Angriff, der von der NATO ausgeht, können wir aufgrund der Entscheidungsprozesse und der Grundausrichtung als Verteidigungsbündnis grundsätzlich ausschließen.“

Meaning:

“NATO is a defensive alliance. This means that we can fundamentally rule out an attack originating from NATO due to its decision-making processes and basic orientation as a defensive alliance.”

Considering the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, this would seem to be incorrect (Yugoslavia did not attack any NATO member state, and no NATO member state invoked Article 5). Is it true that NATO is a defensive alliance and that attacks from NATO are fundamentally ruled out?

Answer 1

Before Serbia, NATO bombed the Serbs in Bosnia. And for that they even have an explainer, written in 1997.

The political basis for the Alliance's role in the former Yugoslavia was established at the North Atlantic Council meeting in Ministerial session in Oslo, in June 1992. At that time NATO Foreign Ministers announced their readiness to support, on a case by case basis, in accordance with their own procedures, peacekeeping activities under the responsibility of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) - subsequently renamed the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). This included making available Alliance resources and expertise for peacekeeping operations. [...]

In June 1993, NATO Foreign Ministers decided to offer protective air power for the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in the performance of its overall mandate. In July, NATO aircraft began flying training missions for providing such close air support (CAS). On 10 and 11 April 1994, following a request from the UN Force Command, NATO aircraft, for the first time, provided close air support to protect UN personnel in Gorazde, a UN-designated Safe Area in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

So (according to themselves, at least) NATO acted to defend a UN mission, even though the UN is not part of NATO. You can call this mission creep if you like, but that's how they justified it.

Of course, most of those UN-flagged troops were from NATO countries anyway, but technically not in NATO countries' territory.

And Wikipedia also covers that:

The operation included the first combat engagement in NATO's history, a 28 February 1994 air battle over Banja Luka, and in April 1994, NATO aircraft first bombed ground targets in an operation near Goražde.

---

As for Serbia, there were no UN troops there to protect at the start. I think NATO simply extended R2P ("responsibly to protect") to the Kosovars. It's harder to find a political statement similar to the above, simply because they have a lot of materials on the NATO site about the Kosovo campaign, but most of it is operational information.

But perhaps there's this history overview of relevance

It was agreed, in addition, that the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) would establish a Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) to observe compliance on the ground and that NATO would establish an aerial surveillance mission. The establishment of the two missions was endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 1203. Several non-NATO nations that participate in Partnership for Peace (PfP) agreed to contribute to the surveillance mission organised by NATO.

In support of the OSCE, the Alliance established a special military task force to assist with the emergency evacuation of members of the KVM, if renewed conflict should put them at risk. This task force was deployed in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (1) under the overall direction of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

So (assuming that is correct) they did manage to convince Russia & China at UNSC that a NATO "aerial surveillance mission" is okay. Of course, Russia and China would not agree to strikes.

And then

On 20 March, the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission was withdrawn from the region, having faced obstruction from Serbian forces to the extent that they could no longer continue to fulfil their task. US Ambassador Holbrooke then flew to Belgrade, in a final attempt to persuade President Milosevic to stop attacks on the Kosovar Albanians or face imminent NATO air strikes.

As ex-post-facto justification, after being bombed, Serbia agreed to admit peacekeepers, under a UNSC mandate (even chapter VII):

On 10 June the UN Security Council passed a resolution (UNSCR 1244) welcoming the acceptance by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia of the principles on a political solution to the Kosovo crisis, including an immediate end to violence and a rapid withdrawal of its military, police and paramilitary forces. The Resolution, adopted by a vote of 14 in favour and none against, with one abstention (China), announced the Security Council's decision to deploy international civil and security presences in Kosovo, under United Nations auspices.

Acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, the Security Council also decided that the political solution to the crisis would be based on the general principles adopted on 6 May by the Foreign Ministers of the Group of Seven industrialised countries and the Russian Federation - the Group of 8 - and the principles contained in the paper presented in Belgrade by the President of Finland and the Special Representative of the Russian Federation which was accepted by the Government of the Federal Republic on 3 June. Both documents were included as annexes to the Resolution.

Following the adoption of UNSCR 1244, General Jackson, acting on the instructions of the North Atlantic Council, made immediate preparations for the rapid deployment of the security force (Operation Joint Guardian), mandated by the United Nations Security Council.

And from what I recall, Russia also agreed (then) because ostensibly Serbia agreed, leaving aside that they did that only after being bombed.

So, in that case there was a more complicated ballet of invoking UNSC authority, albeit the ex-post-facto one.

---

By 2002 NATO had various discussion papers on how it applied R2P etc. So, yeah, they extended the mission to R2P in non-NATO areas, albeit close enough to their "sphere of influence". The most relevant bit is perhaps bypassing UNSC, as a last resort

Right authority

There is no better or more appropriate body than the United Nations Security Council to authorise military intervention for human protection purposes. The task is not to find alternatives to the Security Council as a source of authority, but to make the Security Council work better than it has.

When it comes to authorising military intervention for human protection purposes, the argument is compelling that the United Nations, and in particular the Security Council, should be the first port of call. The difficult question - starkly raised by Kosovo - is whether it should be the last.

Note that this is not an official NATO document, even if hosted there.

Of course, a (or the) major reason they don't do that R2P in Ukraine, as NATO's outgoing military commander recently said is that Russia has nukes.

"I am absolutely sure if the Russians did not have nuclear weapons, we would have been in Ukraine, kicking them out," Admiral Rob Bauer, the outgoing chief of NATO's Military Committee, said during an appearance at the IISS Prague Defence Summit in the Czech Republic on Sunday.

---

By the by, NATO is not the only defensive organization that managed to mission creep. The CSTO moved into providing internal security for their member countries against opposition groups etc., while invoking a threat from (rather fictitious) "external forces" and "collective peacekeeping". That's not too far from how the Warsaw Pact functioned in practice. But I guess one can at least argue that those mission creeps were just "on their own territory". Of course, with a mission creep of that variety, the proposal to leave such an alliance becomes rather chancy in itself.

Answer 2

NATO is set up to be a purely defensive organization, but the corollary that assumes you can rule out attacks from NATO doesn't follow. Most countries claim their armed forces exists for purely defensive purposes and they have no intentions of ever attacking anyone. In the real world things don't always work that way. What is a defensive move and what is an aggressive move can be viewed very differently depending on which side of NATO you are on.

Answer 3

For the longest part of its existence (entire cold war) NATO has indeed been a purely defensive organization. So he's not entirely wrong claiming that NATO is a defensive organization and that the decision making process and basic orientation is as a defensive alliance.

The list of NATO operations actually only starts in 1992. And for the vast majority of these operations they are either non-combat, support of members, in accordance with a security council resolutions or triggered by article 5 (following 9/11).

So also largely in line with being a defensive organization, though more active if asked for internationally (Russia has a veto on that part though). The one exception is Yugoslavia, where NATO was already active with a naval blockade earlier and where they wanted to create a peacekeeping mission due to ongoing conflict. It was officially justified as a humanitarian intervention, though it failed to gain a mandate through a security council resolution and both it's legitimacy as well as it's scale and scope are controversial, both with regards to the U.N. charter as well as with the accordance to the NATO charter itself, given that it was not a self-defense covered by article 5.

Also Russia immediately tried to get a resolution to get NATO out which also failed to be accepted. So while no positive affirmation there was little political condemnation either. And following the end of the Yugoslavian aggression that was handed over to a UN peacekeeping mission.

Also trying to establish a peacekeeping mission in an ongoing regional conflict is hardly the same as either Russia going for an imperialist war with Ukraine and annexing territory or as NATO attacking Russia.

As the fact that Yugoslavia is potentially in violation of NATOs own charter makes clear, that's really not what NATO is meant for. Also attacking Russia would have lots more ramifications than a short bombing campaign with the goal of stopping violence and establishing a peacekeeping force.

So the important part is probably that there is no present intent by NATO and its members to attack Russia and to ensure them that these measures are purely defensive.

You can probably cite Yugoslavia as NATO breaking its promises, but for the most part that sounds less like a legit reason to expect an attack and more like an excuse to pretend there is a threat when there's no real argument to be made.

Answer 4

NATO definitely says it's a defensive alliance, which in theory should preclude them launching attacks unless they are attacked first.

FACT: NATO is a defensive alliance, whose purpose is to protect its member states. All Allies reaffirmed at the June 2021 Brussels Summit that "the Alliance does not seek confrontation and poses no threat to Russia." In fact, in 2002 President Putin himself stated "Every country has the right to choose the way it ensures its security. This holds for the Baltic states as well. Secondly, and more specifically, NATO is primarily a defensive bloc."

Of course, that they say they are a defensive alliance doesn't mean they act like a defensive alliance. You've quoted an example where they (arguably) don't act defensively; there are a few other examples as well.

They'd hardly be the first to say one thing and do another, however; history is littered with broken and unfulfilled promises.

Answer 5

An angle not covered by the existing, excellent answers is that the division between "aggressive" and "defensive" weapons is somewhat illusory - in particular it is reasonable to view cruise missiles as a defensive measure. If you take this point of view, then cruise missiles in Germany are no less defensive than other, less controversial weaponry already in Germany.

While it seems neat to say that, for example, an anti-aircraft battery is a defensive weapon, really it is an aggressive weapon for shooting down enemy aircraft. If NATO were to be attacked by Russia or another enemy, taking out their airfields using, among other things, cruise missiles, would be a top priority. In such use, the cruise missiles would be used to prevent aircraft attacks. Is that defensive or aggressive? Russia has long-range S-400 anti-aircraft missiles stationed in the Kaliningrad Oblast, while you may see it as a defensive weapon, its range stretches well into NATO territory and could, if Russia so wished, be used to shoot down aircraft in an "aggressive" manner.

More generally, if a country or alliance is attacked, it will wage war against its enemy using its full repertoire of weaponry. Even purely defensive operations feature counter-attacks. At that point, there is no distinction between the kit you need to fight a "defensive" or "aggressive" war - it's all just "war".

For an even starker example, every nuclear superpower in the world insists that they are defensive weapons, to be used if they are under threat. But in common parlance, it is hard to get more aggressive than the use of nuclear weapons.

Answer 6

This operation was called for by members of NATO, not by NATO

NATO is a military alliance that serves 2 major functions: to share military research and development efforts, and to mutually defend each other if attacked. It is not an offensive alliance in that no member of the alliance is expected to help another member if that member invades another country... but that does not prohibit any member or group of members from NATO from deciding on its own to use military force on another non-NATO country.

In the case of Operation Allied Force, it was the choice of many members' respective governments to take military action: The United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey. These countries all had to independently decide to authorize these actions through their respective channels and all independently decided to participate in the offensive. However, since it was an offensive operation, The North Atlantic Council (NAC) did not order the attack, not was any NATO member compelled to participate; so, Greece, Iceland, and Luxembourg choose to stay neutral and were allowed to stay neutral under NATO regulations, even though staying out of the conflict was a minority opinion. If NATO were an offensive alliance and/or the NAC had called for the attack, then these 3 countries would have been out-voted and compelled to join the military operation.

So, even though the operation was headed by the SACEUR, General Wesley K. Clark, he was acting as an American General, and it was the choice of the American government to deploy him, just like it was the decisions of the other NATO members to follow his leadership using the NATO command structure. NATO did not order the offensive, but the Command Structure that they set into place was utilized.

What is the NATO Command Structure?

The NATO Command Structure is a preset organization of appointments and jurisdiction that NATO countries use when working together. This saves time (and political tension) when planing joint efforts because each country already knows what roles their assets need to fill, and who's in charge of what. For example, below is the E-3A component showing each country's role in one of NATO's NAEW&CF operational units.

So, when a large number of NATO countries choose to perform a joint operation like the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia, they will still tend to use the NATO command structure as a starting place, that way they only need to argue about who will fill in the gaps left by countries who are not participating in the operation.

There is no such thing as NATO owned military assets

To further understand this, it's important to realize that those are American owned missiles in Germany, not NATO owned missiles. When we talk talk about "NATO weapons", what we mean is that certain weapons are designed to be interoperable between the different NATO nations. So a 5.54mm NATO round produced by one NATO country can be shipped to another NATO country and be used in their rifles too, but NATO does not own these weapon systems or munitions. The US owns some NATO weapons and Germany owns some NATO weapons; NATO does not own anything.

This line sometimes gets a bit blurry when more than one NATO member jointly develop or purchase a weapon system like the E-3 Sentry in Geilenkirchen which is owned by both the United States and Germany and has a NATO insignia on the side, but even that does not actually belong to NATO.

Keeping this in mind, those missiles in Germany are under the express ownership and authority of the United States to use or not use as they see fit meaning that even if every other NATO member decided to go to war with another country, the United States would still have the authority to remain neutral and tell every other NATO country that they could not use those missiles. The closest any other member of NATO could come to compel the United States to fire those missiles is if Article 5 gets invoked because a NATO nation gets invaded by another country, but even then, it is the US's missiles to authorize as it sees fit, even if it is officially dragged into the war.

Lastly, the phrase "basic orientation" has significance here

NATO has already met about and discussed the Ukraine conflict ad nauseum. It has already been decided that the "basic orientation" of NATO in this on going conflict is to defend NATO members and to not escalate the conflict unless Russia strikes a NATO member first. More than anything, the German chancellor is saying that NATO authorized use of these Cruise missiles are not a threat to Russia because the NAC has already made the decision to remain neutral.

That does not mean that every NATO country will stay neutral in every way, just that the NAC will not invoke its authority to call for an offensive war against Russia.