For the United States, Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty which regulates relations within NATO “is sacred”. This was reiterated by American President Joe Biden to Polish President Andrzej Duda. Since the beginning of the war between Russia and Poland, Poland has felt a “great sense of threat” linked to Moscow’s ambitions. Article 5 of the alliance binds member states to collective defense and would be invoked in the event of an attack on Poland. “The parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America will be regarded as a direct attack against all the parties, and consequently agree that if such an attack occurs, each of them, in the exercise of the right of self-defense, individual or collective, recognized by the ARI. 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the party or parties thus attacked by immediately taking, individually and in concert with the other parties, the action it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain security in the North Atlantic region ‘, states Article 5.
“Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result of it will be immediately brought to the attention of the Security Council. These measures will end when the Security Council has taken the necessary measures to restore and maintain international peace and security, ”the article continues.
The scope is further delineated by Article 6 of the Treaty. “For the purposes of art. 5, an armed attack against one or more of the parties means an armed attack: against the territory of one of them in Europe or North America, against the French Departments of Algeria – the Treaty signed in 1949 continues when the North African country he had not yet gained independence from France – against the territory of Turkey or against the islands under the jurisdiction of one of the parties in the North Atlantic region north of the Tropic of Cancer; against the forces, ships or aircraft of one of the parties, which are on these territories or in any other region of Europe in which, at the date of entry into force of this Treaty, occupation forces of one of the parties are stationed , or whether they are in the Mediterranean Sea or in the North Atlantic region north of the Tropic of Cancer, or above them ‘.