The
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (
NATO ; ; ), 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 defense in response to an attack by any external party.
NATO's headquarters are located in
Haren,
Brussels,
Belgium, where the Supreme Allied Commander also resides. Belgium is one of the 28 member states across North America and Europe, the newest of which,
Albania and
Croatia, joined in April 2009. An additional 22 countries participate in NATO's
Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70 percent of
the global total. Members' defense spending is supposed to amount to 2 percent of
GDP.