1.
Guidon (United States)
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A basic guidon can be rectangular, but sometimes has a triangular portion removed from the fly. The significance and importance of the guidon is that it represents the unit, when the commander is in, his or her guidon is displayed for everyone to see. When the commander leaves for the day, the guidon is taken down and it is an honor to be the guidon carrier for a unit, known as a guidon bearer or guide. He or she stands in front of the unit alongside of the commander, in drill and ceremonies, the guidon and commander are always in front of the formation. The guidon is a source of pride for the unit. Any sort of disgrace toward the guidon is considered a dishonor of the unit as a whole, for example, should the guidon bearer drop the guidon, they must fall with it and perform punishment, often in the form of push-ups. Other units may attempt to steal the guidon to demoralize or antagonize the unit, veteran soldiers know not to give up the guidon to anyone outside their unit, but new recruits may be tempted into relinquishing it by a superior, especially during a unit run. Previously guidons were made of bunting, and if serviceable these older versions may still be used. Current guidons are made of heavyweight rayon banner cloth, Old guidons show letters and numerals reversed as if printed through on the reverse of the guidon. Current guidons are made so that letters and numerals read correctly on both sides, lettered companies of battalions have guidons displaying the branch insignia, the company letter, and the battalion and regimental numbers. For companies of battalions, the branch insignia is centered on the guidon between the battalion number above and the company letter below. For companies of battalions of regiments, the number above the insignia is that of the regiment, groups use diagonal stripes of the branchs secondary color. Headquarters elements of Army commands, agencies, garrisons, centers, schools, depots and miscellaneous organizations are authorized guidons of distinctive design, generally these guidons follow the design of the unit’s Organizational Flag. Various units not oriented to a branch, e. g. US Army Garrisons, have a teal blue guidon with the branch immaterial insignia in yellow. Exceptions to the use of colors for guidons are found in the infantry and cavalry. The infantry branch colors are blue and white, but infantry guidons have a field of Old Glory blue. The cavalry branch colors are yellow and dark blue, cavalry guidons, however, are horizontally divided, scarlet over white, with troop letters and squadron/regimental numbers in white and scarlet, but no branch insignia. There are two types of guidons used by the Corps of Cadets at the United States Military Academy, “Field” guidons have the regimental number only
2.
Ramstein Air Base
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Ramstein Air Base is a United States Air Force base in Rhineland-Palatinate, a state in southwestern Germany. It serves as headquarters for the United States Air Forces in Europe - Air Forces Africa, Ramstein is located near the town of Ramstein-Miesenbach, in the rural district of Kaiserslautern. The Air Base is used to coordinate and execute most of the United States global drone program, the east gate of Ramstein Air Base is about 10 miles from Kaiserslautern. Other nearby civilian communities include Ramstein-Miesenbach, just outside the bases west gate, the host unit is the 86th Airlift Wing, commanded by Brigadier General Patrick X. Mordente. The 86th Airlift Wing is composed of six groups,27 squadrons and its mission is the operation and maintenance of airlift assets consisting of C-130Js, C-20s, C-21s, C-40B and C-37A Gulfstream aircraft throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Also at Ramstein is the 435th Air Ground Operations Wing, which focuses on base-support responsibilities within the KMC and it is composed of five groups and 20 squadrons. The wing provides rapid mobility and agile combat support for military operations, the commander of the 435th AGOW is Colonel Andra V. P. The new 521st Air Mobility Operations Wing stood up on 4 September 2008, the current commander of the 521st AMOW is Colonel Thomas Cooper. Ramsteins wings are assigned to the headquarters 3rd Air Force also based at Ramstein AB, Ramstein AB is part of the Kaiserslautern Military Community, where more than 54,000 American service members and more than 5,400 US civilian employees live and work. U. S. organizations in the KMC also employ the services of more than 6,200 German workers, Air Force units in the KMC alone employ almost 9,800 military members, bringing with them nearly 11,100 family members. There are more than 16,200 military, U. S. civilian, while the KMC remains the largest U. S. community overseas at 53,000 people, the defense drawdown continues to shape its future. Due to the departure of other main operating installations, more than 100 geographically separated units receive support from Ramstein, Ramstein Air Base also served as temporary housing for the United States mens national soccer team during the 2006 World Cup. There is often a Summer Camp to Ramstein from British CCF, the construction of the air base was a project designed and undertaken by the French Army and the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers from 1949 to 1952. The area was a swamp that had to be built up by two meters, trainloads of earth were moved over the line and spread over the bases current area to raise it to its current level. Once the ground was level, building construction began, Landstuhl Air Base on the south side and Ramstein Air Station on the north. From 1948 to the opening of the bases in 1953 it was the largest one spot construction site in Europe employing over 270,000 Europeans at one time. A part of the autobahn to the west of Mannheim. The airstrip was used by the advancing U. S. Army Air Forces during the final months of World War II
3.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
4.
Numbered Air Force
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A Numbered Air Force is a type of organization in the United States Air Force that is subordinate to a Major Command and has assigned to it operational units such as wings, squadrons, and groups. A Component Numbered Air Force has the role as an Air Force Component Command exercising command and control over air. Unlike MAJCOMs, which have a management role, a NAF is a organization with an operational focus. Numbered air forces are commanded by a major general or a lieutenant general. Numerical designations for Numbered Air Forces are written out, but Arabic numerals are used in abbreviations, units directly subordinate to a NAF are generally numbered 6XX. For example, the 618th Air and Space Operations Center is a subordinate to the Eighteenth Air Force. Numbered air forces began as named organizations in the United States Army Air Corps before World War II, the first four NAFs were established as the Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, and Southwest Air Districts on 19 October 1940 to provide air defense for the United States. These Air Districts were redesignated as the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Air Forces, respectively, on 26 March 1941. Over a year after the establishment of the United States Army Air Forces on June 20,1941, the Arabic numerals were changed to the First, Second, Third, after World War II, the US Air Force continued to use both named and numbered air forces. While named air forces were used in tactical and support roles, numbered air forces were generally employed only in tactical roles. These commands reflected the air combat missions that evolved during the war, and each reported directly to General Carl Spaatz. Numbered air forces served as an intermediate headquarters between these commands and the wings and groups. Eleven of the sixteen wartime air forces remained, Second Air Force would later be transferred to SAC in 1949. The numbered air forces had both operational and administrative authority, and existed as a level between major commands and air divisions. Although variations existed, and number air forces were often reassigned, the role of numbered air forces changed in the 1990s during the Air Force reorganization initiated by Air Force Chief of Staff General Merrill McPeak. The goal of the reorganization was to streamline, take out, flatten organizational charts. Numbered air forces were reorganized into tactical echelons focused on operations and this reorganization also reduced the number of major commands, and eliminated the air divisions to place numbered air forces directly in command of operational wings. The role of numbered air forces was changed in 2006 with the implementation of the Component Air Force concept
5.
United States Africa Command
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The United States Africa Command is one of nine unified combatant commands of the United States Armed Forces, headquartered at Kelley Barracks, Stuttgart, Germany. It is responsible for U. S. military operations and military relations with 53 African nations and its area of responsibility covers all of Africa except Egypt, which is within the area of responsibility of the United States Central Command. U. S. AFRICOM headquarters operating budget was $276 million in fiscal year 2012, the Commander of U. S. AFRICOM reports to the Secretary of Defense. Ambassadors continue to be the diplomatic representative for relations with host nations. In 2007, the White House announced, will strengthen our security cooperation with Africa, Africa Command will enhance our efforts to bring peace and security to the people of Africa and promote our common goals of development, health, education, democracy, and economic growth in Africa. General Carter F. Ham said in a 2012 address at Brown University that U. S. strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa is to strengthen democratic institutions, prior to the creation of AFRICOM, responsibility for U. S. A U. S. military officer wrote the first public article calling for the formation of a separate African command in November 2000 and these locations, along with Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, would form the basis of AFRICOM facilities on the continent. The website Magharebia. com was launched by USEUCOM in 2004 to provide news about North Africa in English, French, when AFRICOM was created, it took over operation of the website. Information operations of the United States Department of Defense was criticized by the Senate Armed Forces Committee, the site was closed down in February 2015. This program builds upon the former Pan Sahel Initiative, which concluded in December 2004 and focused on weapon and drug trafficking, previous U. S. military activities in Sub-Saharan Africa have included Special Forces associated Joint Combined Exchange Training. Letitia Lawson, writing in 2007 for a Center for Contemporary Conflict journal at the Naval Postgraduate School, in mid-2006, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld formed a planning team to advise on requirements for establishing a new Unified Command for the African continent. In early December, he made his recommendations to President George W. Bush, on, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced to the Senate Armed Services Committee that President George W. Bush had given authority to create the new African Command. U. S. Navy Rear Admiral Robert Moeller, the director of the AFRICOM transition team, arrived in Stuttgart, on 1 October 2008, the command separated from USEUCOM and began operating on its own as a full-fledged combatant command. The territory of the consists of all of the African continent except for Egypt. Most of Africa was transferred from the United States European Command with the Horn of Africa, responsibility for U. S. military operations in the islands of Madagascar, the Comoros, the Seychelles and Mauritius was transferred from the United States Pacific Command. The AFRICOM headquarters is located at Kelley Barracks, an urban facility near Stuttgart, Germany. It was reported in June 2007 that African countries were competing to host the headquarters because it would bring money for the recipient country, however, of all the African nations, only Liberia has publicly expressed a willingness to host AFRICOMs headquarters. The U. S. declared in February 2008 that AFRICOM would be headquartered in Stuttgart for the foreseeable future, nigeria announced it will not allow its country to host a base and opposed the creation of a base on the continent
6.
Rabat
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Rabat is the capital of Morocco and its seventh largest city centre with an urban population of approximately 580,000 and a metropolitan population of over 1.2 million. It is also the capital of the Rabat-Salé-Kénitra administrative region, the city is located on the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the river Bou Regreg. On the facing shore of the river lies Salé, the main commuter town. Rabat, Temara, and Salé form a conurbation of over 1.8 million people, silt-related problems have diminished Rabats role as a port, however, Rabat and Salé still maintain important textile, food processing and construction industries. In addition, tourism and the presence of all foreign embassies in Morocco serve to make Rabat one of the most important cities in the country. Once a reputed corsair haven, Rabat served as one of the ports in North Africa for the Barbary pirates. Rabat is accessible by train through the ONCF system and by plane through the nearby Rabat–Salé Airport, the Moroccan capital was ranked at second place by CNN in its Top Travel Destinations of 2013. It is one of four Imperial cities of Morocco, and the medina of Rabat is listed as a World Heritage Site, Rabat has a relatively modern history compared to the nearby ancient city of Salé. In 1146, the Almohad ruler Abd al-Mumin turned Rabats ribat into a fortress to use as a launching point for attacks on Iberia. In 1170, due to its importance, Rabat acquired the title Ribatu l-Fath, meaning stronghold of victory. Yaqub al-Mansur, another Almohad Caliph, moved the capital of his empire to Rabat and he built Rabats city walls, the Kasbah of the Udayas and began construction on what would have been the worlds largest mosque. However, Yaqub died and construction stopped, the ruins of the unfinished mosque, along with the Hassan Tower, still stand today. Yaqubs death initiated a period of decline, the Almohad empire lost control of its possessions in Spain and much of its African territory, eventually leading to its total collapse. In the 13th century, much of Rabats economic power shifted to Fez, in 1515 a Moorish explorer, El Wassan, reported that Rabat had declined so much that only 100 inhabited houses remained. An influx of Moriscos, who had expelled from Spain, in the early 17th century helped boost Rabats growth. Rabat and neighboring Salé united to form the Republic of Bou Regreg in 1627, the republic was run by Barbary pirates who used the two cities as base ports for launching attacks on shipping. The pirates did not have to contend with any central authority until the Alaouite Dynasty united Morocco in 1666, the latter attempted to establish control over the pirates, but failed. European and Muslim authorities continued to attempt to control the pirates over many years, but the Republic of Bou Regreg did not collapse until 1818
7.
Wheelus Air Base
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Wheelus Air Base was a United States Air Force base located in the Kingdom of Libya. At one point it was the largest U. S. military facility outside the United States with an area of 20 sq miles right on the coast off Tripoli. The base had its own club, the largest military hospital outside the US, a multiplex cinema, a bowling alley. The base also had its own radio and TV station as well as a shopping mall, at its height it had over 15,000 military personnel and their dependents on base. Wheelus Air Base was originally built by the Italian Air Force in 1923 and was known as Mellaha Air Base, today the facility is known as Mitiga International Airport. Prior to the war, the airbase was constructed in 1923, in 1933 the roads around the air base and the neighbouring Mellaha Lake became the new home for the popular Tripoli Grand Prix motor race. Mellaha was used by the German Luftwaffe during the North African Campaign, with the Germans using it for short range recon units, special weather recon units also existed at Mehalla. The main Luftwaffe unit stationed at the base was the 2nd Staffel of the Aufklärungsgruppe 14 or 2. /14, the airbase was captured by the British 8th Army in January 1943. The US Army Air Force began using Mellaha as a base in January 1943 and it was used by the 376th Bombardment Group of the 12th Air Force for B-24 bomb missions into Italy and southern parts of Germany. In addition, Mellaha Field was used by Air Transport Command and it functioned as a stopover en route to Benina Airport near Benghazi or to Tunis Airport, Tunisia on the North African Cairo-Dakar transport route for cargo, transiting aircraft and personnel. On 15 April 1945 Mellaha AAF was taken over by USAAF’s Air Training Command and it was renamed Wheelus Army Air Field on 17 May 1945 in honor of USAAF Lieutenant Richard Wheelus who had died earlier that year in a plane crash in Iran. Wheelus AAF was inactivated on 15 May 1947, then reactivated as Wheelus Air Base on 1 June 1948 and its host unit under MATS was the 1603d Air Transport Wing. A further agreement between the United States and Libya, signed in 1954, granted the U. S. the use of Wheelus, the Military Air Transport Service activated the 1603rd Air Transport Wing at Wheelus on 1 June 1948. The 1603rd flew C-47 and C-54s to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Cyprus, Headquarters, 7th Air Rescue Group was assigned to Wheelus along with the 58th Air Rescue Squadron at about this time. At the time the Air Rescue Service was under the command and control of the Military Air Transport Command, the 58th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron operated out of Wheelus until 1970 when they were relocated to the 67th ARRSQ in the UK. The 58 ARRS flew three HH-3E Jolly Green Giant helicopters, and three HC-130 refueling tankers, MATS aircraft and personnel from Wheelus participated in Operation Hajji Baba in 1952. Also in 1952 the MATS 580th Air Resupply and Communications Wing was reassigned to Wheelus from Mountain Home Air Force Base, the Wing supported special operations in the Mediterranean, Middle East and Southwest Asia until being inactivated in 1956. MATS withdrew and relocated to Rhein Main AB, Germany in January 1953, however, MATS and later Military Airlift Command aircraft were frequent visitors at Wheelus and maintained a small detachment there until the bases closure in 1970
8.
Libya
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The three traditional parts of the country are Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica. With an area of almost 1.8 million square kilometres, Libya is the fourth largest country in Africa, Libya has the 10th-largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world. The largest city and capital, Tripoli, is located in western Libya, the other large city is Benghazi, which is located in eastern Libya. Libya has been inhabited by Berbers since the late Bronze Age, the Phoenicians established trading posts in western Libya, and ancient Greek colonists established city-states in eastern Libya. Libya was variously ruled by Carthaginians, Persians, Egyptians and Greeks before becoming a part of the Roman Empire, Libya was an early center of Christianity. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the area of Libya was mostly occupied by the Vandals until the 7th century, in the 16th century, the Spanish Empire and the Knights of St John occupied Tripoli, until Ottoman rule began in 1551. Libya was involved in the Barbary Wars of the 18th and 19th centuries, Ottoman rule continued until the Italian occupation of Libya resulted in the temporary Italian Libya colony from 1911 to 1943. During the Second World War Libya was an important area of warfare in the North African Campaign, the Italian population then went into decline. Libya became an independent kingdom in 1951, a military coup in 1969 overthrew King Idris I, beginning a period of sweeping social reform. Since then, Libya has experienced a period of instability, the European Union is involved in an operation to disrupt human trafficking networks exploiting refugees fleeing from wars in Africa for Europe. At least two political bodies claim to be the government of Libya, the Council of Deputies is internationally recognized as the legitimate government, but it does not hold territory in the capital, Tripoli, instead meeting in the Cyrenaica city of Tobruk. Parts of Libya are outside of either governments control, with various Islamist, rebel, the United Nations is sponsoring peace talks between the Tobruk and Tripoli-based factions. An agreement to form an interim government was signed on 17 December 2015. Under the terms of the agreement, a nine-member Presidency Council, the leaders of the new government, called the Government of National Accord, arrived in Tripoli on 5 April 2016. Since then the GNC, one of the two governments, has disbanded to support the new GNA. The name Libya was introduced in 1934 for Italian Libya, reviving the name for Northwest Africa. The name was based on use in 1903 by Italian geographer Federico Minutilli. It was intended to supplant terms applied to Ottoman Tripolitania, the region of what is today Libya having been ruled by the Ottoman Empire from 1551 to 1911
9.
West Germany
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West Germany is the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation on 23 May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990. During this Cold War era, NATO-aligned West Germany and Warsaw Pact-aligned East Germany were divided by the Inner German border, after 1961 West Berlin was physically separated from East Berlin as well as from East Germany by the Berlin Wall. This situation ended when East Germany was dissolved and its five states joined the ten states of the Federal Republic of Germany along with the reunified city-state of Berlin. With the reunification of West and East Germany, the Federal Republic of Germany, enlarged now to sixteen states and this period is referred to as the Bonn Republic by historians, alluding to the interwar Weimar Republic and the post-reunification Berlin Republic. The Federal Republic of Germany was established from eleven states formed in the three Allied Zones of occupation held by the United States, the United Kingdom and France, US and British forces remained in the country throughout the Cold War. Its population grew from roughly 51 million in 1950 to more than 63 million in 1990, the city of Bonn was its de facto capital city. The fourth Allied occupation zone was held by the Soviet Union, as a result, West Germany had a territory about half the size of the interbellum democratic Weimar Republic. At the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided among the Western and Eastern blocs, Germany was de facto divided into two countries and two special territories, the Saarland and divided Berlin. The Federal Republic of Germany claimed a mandate for all of Germany. It took the line that the GDR was an illegally constituted puppet state, though the GDR did hold regular elections, these were not free and fair. For all practical purposes the GDR was a Soviet puppet state, from the West German perspective the GDR was therefore illegitimate. Three southwestern states of West Germany merged to form Baden-Württemberg in 1952, in addition to the resulting ten states, West Berlin was considered an unofficial de facto 11th state. It recognised the GDR as a de facto government within a single German nation that in turn was represented de jure by the West German state alone. From 1973 onward, East Germany recognised the existence of two German countries de jure, and the West as both de facto and de jure foreign country, the Federal Republic and the GDR agreed that neither of them could speak in the name of the other. The first chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who remained in office until 1963, had worked for an alignment with NATO rather than neutrality. He not only secured a membership in NATO but was also a proponent of agreements that developed into the present-day European Union, when the G6 was established in 1975, there was no question whether the Federal Republic of Germany would be a member as well. With the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989, symbolised by the opening of the Berlin Wall, East Germany voted to dissolve itself and accede to the Federal Republic in 1990. Its five post-war states were reconstituted along with the reunited Berlin and they formally joined the Federal Republic on 3 October 1990, raising the number of states from 10 to 16, ending the division of Germany
10.
Sembach Kaserne
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Sembach Kaserne is a United States Army installation in Sembach, Germany, near Kaiserslautern, and is about 19 miles east of Ramstein Air Base. Prior to October 2010, it was a United States Air Force installation, during the Cold War, Sembach Air Base housed a variety of USAF Tactical Reconnaissance, Close Air Support and Tactical Air Control units as a front line NATO air base. Sembach serves a population of about 2,000, on 1 October 2010, the Air Force handed over control of Sembach Annex to the US Army, who then renamed the site Sembach Kaserne. Sembach Kaserne is part of what is the Kaiserslautern Military Community and it is used for housing American Army military personnel. The housing developments and dormitories were declared condemned by the Air Force in 2007, the US Army houses soldiers in the dormitory complexes. The facility has a commissary, bowling alley, elementary/middle school, fire station, four baseball/softball fields, given additional downsizing by the U. S. Army, and Congressional demands for more base closings in Germany, Sembach will probably close soon. The purpose of opening this installation is to facilitate the consolidation, the French facilities consisted of 10 sheet-iron barracks and 26 wooden hangars with canvas coverings. As part of the withdrawal of French occupation forces from the left bank of the Rhine in 1930. After the French withdrawal, the land was returned to farmers, in 1939, the German Luftwaffe ordered that the area be reserved for use as a fighter base. Because of the brevity of the French campaign in the first year of the Second World War, in April 1951, German surveyors visited the area in the company of French officers. The local farmers protested the construction of an airfield which would entail the loss of much of their land, and they demonstrated in Mainz. Despite this vigorous opposition, the French occupational authorities began the construction of an airfield at the end of June 1951. Many workers were brought in to build the new base, construction continued around the clock through the use of nighttime illumination. The pouring of the 8, 500-foot concrete runway was begun early in September 1951 and was finished by the end of the month, the taxiways were completed by the close of the year. On 1 September 1951, U. S. authorities officially took over the site from the French. During the remainder of the winter, the tower, hangars, repair shops. With the building of munitions bunkers to the east of the flightline and a road connecting the taxiway to the B-40 in April 1952, on April 22, officials began to survey the land that was to be built upon. The farmers joined forces and forcibly hindered the surveyors, injuring one of them, on April 23,1952, the Chief of the State Chancellery personally visited Sembach and promised the farmers that he would do all that he could to protect their rights
11.
NATO
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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party, three NATO members are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and are officially nuclear-weapon states. NATOs headquarters are located in Haren, Brussels, Belgium, while the headquarters of Allied Command Operations is near Mons. NATO is an Alliance that consists of 28 independent member countries across North America and Europe, an additional 22 countries participate in NATOs Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the global total, Members defence spending is supposed to amount to 2% of GDP. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, politically, the organization sought better relations with former Warsaw Pact countries, several of which joined the alliance in 1999 and 2004. N. The Treaty of Brussels, signed on 17 March 1948 by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, the treaty and the Soviet Berlin Blockade led to the creation of the Western European Unions Defence Organization in September 1948. However, participation of the United States was thought necessary both to counter the power of the USSR and to prevent the revival of nationalist militarism. He got a hearing, especially considering American anxiety over Italy. In 1948 European leaders met with U. S. defense, military and diplomatic officials at the Pentagon, marshalls orders, exploring a framework for a new and unprecedented association. Talks for a new military alliance resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty and it included the five Treaty of Brussels states plus the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, stated in 1949 that the goal was to keep the Russians out, the Americans in. Popular support for the Treaty was not unanimous, and some Icelanders participated in a pro-neutrality, the creation of NATO can be seen as the primary institutional consequence of a school of thought called Atlanticism which stressed the importance of trans-Atlantic cooperation. The members agreed that an attack against any one of them in Europe or North America would be considered an attack against them all. The treaty does not require members to respond with military action against an aggressor, although obliged to respond, they maintain the freedom to choose the method by which they do so. This differs from Article IV of the Treaty of Brussels, which states that the response will be military in nature. It is nonetheless assumed that NATO members will aid the attacked member militarily, the treaty was later clarified to include both the members territory and their vessels, forces or aircraft above the Tropic of Cancer, including some Overseas departments of France. The creation of NATO brought about some standardization of allied military terminology, procedures, and technology, the roughly 1300 Standardization Agreements codified many of the common practices that NATO has achieved
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United States Air Forces Africa
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U.S. African Command
This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency website http://www.afhra.af.mil/.
