BRUSSELS \u2014 NATO leaders on Monday expanded the use of their all for one, one for all, mutual defense clause to include a collective response to attacks in space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Article 5 of NATO\u2019s founding treaty states that an attack on any one of the 30 allies will be considered an attack on them all. Until now, it\u2019s only applied to more traditional military attacks on land, sea, or in the air, and more recently in cyberspace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a summit statement, the leaders said they \u201cconsider that attacks to, from, or within space\u201d could be a challenge to NATO that threatens \u201cnational and Euro-Atlantic prosperity, security, and stability, and could be as harmful to modern societies as a conventional attack.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSuch attacks could lead to the invocation of Article 5. A decision as to when such attacks would lead to the invocation of Article 5 would be taken by the North Atlantic Council on a case-by-case basis,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Around 2,000 satellites orbit the earth, over half operated by NATO countries, ensuring everything from mobile phone and banking services to weather forecasts. Military commanders rely on some of them to navigate, communicate, share intelligence and detect missile launches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In December 2019, NATO leaders declared space to be the alliance\u2019s \u201cfifth domain\u201d of operations, after land, sea, air and cyberspace. Many member countries are concerned about what they say is increasingly aggressive behavior in space by China and Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Around 80 countries have satellites, and private companies are moving in, too. In the 1980s, just a fraction of NATO\u2019s communications was via satellite. Today, it\u2019s at least 40%. During the Cold War, NATO had more than 20 stations, but new technologies mean the world\u2019s biggest security organization can double its coverage with a fifth of that number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NATO\u2019s collective defense clause has only been activated once, when the members rallied behind the United States following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Former President Donald Trump raised deep concern among U.S. allies, notably those bordering Russia like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, when he suggested that he might not rally to their side if they didn\u2019t boost their defense budgets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Joe Biden has been trying to reassure them since taking office and has used the summit, his first at NATO, as a formal opportunity to underline America\u2019s commitment to its European allies and Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden said Monday that Article 5 is \u201ca sacred obligation\u201d among allies. \u201cI just want all of Europe to know that the United States is there,\u201d he said. \u201cThe United States is there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cSuch attacks could lead to the invocation of Article 5. A decision as to when such attacks would lead to the invocation of Article 5 would be taken by the North Atlantic Council on a case-by-case basis.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":25554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":123,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"2":{"categories":["pentagon-congress","news","left-column","home","middle-column"],"primary_category":"pentagon-congress"},"4":{"categories":["pentagon-congress","news","middle-column","home","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"pentagon-congress"},"5":{"categories":["pentagon-congress","news","middle-column","home","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"pentagon-congress"},"6":{"categories":["pentagon-congress","news","middle-column","home","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"pentagon-congress"},"7":{"categories":["pentagon-congress","news","middle-column","home","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"pentagon-congress"}}},"categories":[160,163,123,36,23,30],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1753],"class_list":["post-14668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-military-space-report","category-nato-priorities","category-newsletters","category-space","category-smr"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"C2MRMBDFN5BSHM5Y5VM76PNHSA","arc_canonical_url":"\/smr\/nato-priorities\/2021\/06\/14\/nato-says-attack-in-space-could-trigger-mutual-defense-clause\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n