Our previous issue (the 61th) reminded the basic principles and states that served the establishment of NATO and analysed the first seven articles of the North Atlantic Treaty. In this issue, the remaining seven articles will be the focus, in a quest to find whether the authority problem observed in the first half of the articles, can be generalised.

Article 8: Each Party declares that none of the international engagements now in force between it and any other of the Parties or any third State is in conflict with the provisions of this Treaty, and undertakes not to enter into any international engagement in conflict with this Treaty.

The subject of Article 8 is exactly the NATO’s 21st century problem. Decrease in the military requirement for the use of NATO in the post-Cold War era, as well as NATO’s political functions being used to serve a variety of regional and global interests rather than securing the founding objectives of the Pact, have led member states towards taking initiatives separately or in groups.