NATO

American  

[ney-toh, en-ey-tee-oh] / ˈneɪ toʊ, ˈɛnˈeɪˈtiˈoʊ /

abbreviation

1. North Atlantic Treaty Organization: a political and military alliance established in 1949 in Washington, D.C., by 12 countries in Europe and North America for the purpose of collective defense against aggression, now comprising 32 member nations: Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

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NATO British  

/ ˈneɪtəʊ /

acronym

1. North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an international organization composed of the US, Canada, Britain, and a number of European countries: established by the North Atlantic Treaty (1949) for purposes of collective security. In 1994 it launched the Partnership for Peace initiative, in order to forge alliances with former Warsaw Pact countries; in 1997 a treaty of cooperation with Russia was signed and in 1999 Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic became full NATO members

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Example Sentences

James Foggo, who held senior posts in and linked to NATO.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 14, 2026

Rob Murray, formerly the head of innovation at NATO, began working on the idea in 2018.

From Barron's • Apr. 13, 2026

In extremis, no one has a better solution right now for the drone threat to tanks and armored vehicles—not the Russians, not the Ukrainians, and not NATO.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 7, 2026

Macron also weighed in the president’s grumbling about leaving NATO.

From Salon • Apr. 2, 2026

The democratic FRG embedded itself in key Western economic and security organizations, the EC, which became the EU, and NATO, while the communist GDR was on the front line of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact.

From The 2002 CIA World Factbook by United States. Central Intelligence Agency