NATO expands Article 5 defence clause, include attacks in space
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New Delhi, June 16: To ensure responsible behavior in space, North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO leaders s on Monday expanded the Article 5 mutual defence clause to cover attacks on allies' assets in Space.
In a summit statement on Monday, the leaders said they “consider that attacks to, from, or within space” could be a challenge to NATO that threatens national and Euro-Atlantic prosperity, security, and stability, and could be as harmful to modern societies as a conventional attack.
Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty states that an attack on any one of the 30 allies will be considered an attack on them all. Till now, it was only applied to more traditional military attacks on the land, sea, or in the air, and more recently in cyberspace.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, “I think it is important (with) our Article 5, which states that an attack on one will be regarded as an attack on all, that we all will respond.”
Around 2,000 satellites orbit the earth, over half operated by NATO countries, ensuring everything from mobile phone and banking services to weather forecasts. Military commanders rely on some of them to navigate, communicate, share intelligence and detect missile launches.
Also Read | NATO leaders express concerns about China's security aggression; declares it a global security challenge
NATO leaders have already declared space to be the alliance’s “fifth domain” of operations, after land, sea, air, and cyberspace. Many member countries are concerned about what they say is increasingly aggressive behavior in space by China and Russia.
There are some reports that many member countries are concerned about China and Russia's increasingly aggressive behavior in space.
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