DISINFO: NATO is such a disaster that the US didn’t want its help after 9/11
SUMMARY
NATO is such a disaster that the only time that it tried to invoke its Article 5 for mutual defence, after the 9/11 attacks in the US, Washington said no because it didn’t want to be babysitting the other countries.
RESPONSE
The allegations are false. On September 12th 2001, one day after the 9/11 attacks, all NATO countries voted unanimously to invoke Article 5, as had been previously requested by US National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice. Troops from 51 NATO and partner nations took part in the subsequent operation of the Atlantic Alliance in Afghanistan, assuming the leadership of the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in August 2003. Over 1,000 soldiers from America’s NATO allies have since died in the Afghanistan War.
This is part of a recurrent pro-Kremlin narrative aiming to portray NATO as a dysfunctional and useless institution which has lost its purpose after the USSR's dissolution. You can see other examples of disinformation on NATO in our database, such as its obsolescence, cannibalistic character, fascistic tendencies and links to white supremacist ideology, its never-ending provocations, its attempts to block Moscow in its sphere of influence, the Alliance's permanent targeting of Russia and Belarus, its role as a US subjugation tool for other countries and its unreliability to defend its members, its plans to continue attacking other countries, or the claims that NATO's anti-Russian stance is the only unifying force among its members and that it caused massive casualties during its bombing campaign against Serbia.