Talk:Member states of NATO

Algeria?
The animated map shows Algeria as a founding member of NATO. I can find no documentary evidence for this. Is it correct? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 51.9.133.231 (talk) 11:53, 22 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Algeria was part of France at that time. - BilCat (talk) 11:58, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Czech Republic vs Czechia
I've noticed some back and forth editing of the official name in the tables here of the country that was the western half of Czechoslovakia. This isn't the place to debate the correct option, the last move discussion in November lays out the reasoning why "Czech Republic" is still the name of the article in English, and why the editors there are tired of the discussion. I don't have a strong opinion in the debate between the two, only that I don't think this article should act unilaterally with country names and that the first preference for spelling on articles about NATO should be the spelling used by NATO. Above all, the name needs to be consistent within the article. Thanks!-- Patrick, o Ѻ ∞ 12:29, 31 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I've changed an IP's edits (from last September) to Czechia back to Czech Republic. Per above, this is consistent with NATO's usage as well as WP's internal article, and reestablished consistent usage within this article. It's also by far the more common English language name for the country. I'm unmoved that a one-word name is inherently better for the article than a two-word name; the US and UK get two word names here, after all. CAVincent (talk) 06:41, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

NATO changed usage from Czech Republic to Czechia. Danda Panda (talk) 06:26, 4 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks for pointing that out. I hadn't noticed, but sure enough NATO's page (linked to above) has changed sometime this year to now use Czechia. That makes a stronger case for changing this article, although I'm still inclined to keep the name Czech Republic here absent a change to the name of the country's main Wikipedia article. Also noting, if/when this article is changed, the multiple instances of the country's name within this article should all be changed together to maintain consistency within the article. Cheers. CAVincent (talk) 07:54, 4 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Agree we should use the name of the related article Czech Republic until that changes. MilborneOne (talk) 10:28, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Use Czechia that is what is used by NATO. By not using it it makes wikipedia look like it is editorializing — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.116.181.122 (talk) 02:47, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Scope of the alliance
The scope of the alliance is not clear in the article. It is not clear in the article why NATO did not react in the Falklands War, and also on what premises NATO has acted beyong its "mutual defense" mission duirng the bombing campaings in Yugoslavia and Libya. Dentren &#124; Talk 15:03, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The UK didn’t try to invoke Article V for the falklands War. Moreover, the alliance is not limited towards just performing collective defense as well. This would be a topic more suited for discussion at the primary NATO page. Garuda28 (talk) 16:05, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

NATO Military personnel
I kindly request someone to add a "NATO" line showing the total NATO military personnel etc in the bottom of the table in the NATO military personnel section, just like it is done for the section NATO Military expenditures - unfortunately my poor editing skills doesn't allow me to do it myself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.45.52.143 (talk) 06:33, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I have added the totals (feel free to check my calculations, in case I have made a mistake). However, unfortunately, I couldn't find a way to put the new line in dark grey or in bold, to signal a total more clearly, presumably because the template is not a regular table but rather a special thing that doesn't seem to allow it. Does anyone know how to fix this problem? LongLivePortugal (talk) 15:25, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ Done. Marked NATO total row as the total row, having corresponding update to the template - has darker background and always appears at bottom, regardless of sort order.Rafflesgluft (talk) 09:27, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
 * PS your calcs seem fine. For future info, you can copy/paste wiki tables into a spreadsheet, and calc totals/averages that way. Note that the total population counts in the table above and the table below do not quite match (totals are 950495184 vs 951,214,086) - they seem to be based on different data, but only differ by 0.076% and of course the population is changing all the time. Cruicially the "per 1000 capita" figures are unaffected by this small difference, only being given to 2 significant figures Rafflesgluft (talk) 09:53, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Canadian English?
So, the assertion has been made that this article is written in Canadian English and this shouldn't be deviated from without broad consensus. I find the claim dubious, partly because I highly doubt there has ever been any intentional effort to use Canadian English in the article up to this point - more likely, mainly British English and American English have popped up and we ended up with a bit of both. Personally, I don't even know what the conventions of Canadian English are enough to avoid unintentional error. (Although no doubt some helpful Canadian can correct me when I err.) But on reflection, the claim is not obviously wrong, so I'd invite thoughts from other editors on this. --CAVincent (talk) 04:17, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * The claim is based on the use of spellings including "recognize" (as opposed to the British "recognise"), "colours" (as opposed to American "colors") and "neighbour" (as opposed to the American "neighbor"). These suggest CDN English is being used. Oddly the article had a "use International English" tag. Of course there is no such thing as international English. The idea of all English speakers agreeing on spellings for all words and eliminating any deviations is aspirational, not reality. International English isn't a thing, so it can't be used. I do note that the original stub (while written by an apparent American editor) seems to use the Canadian spelling "defence" as opposed to the American one "defense". There do not appear to be other American spellings in the stub. I think all of that means we MOS:RETAIN Canadian spellings.--Darryl Kerrigan (talk) 04:39, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks. It does seem odd to me from a MOS:TIES perspective to use the only non-nuclear, English-speaking NATO member's variety. (And I understand MOS:TIES doesn't really apply here, but still....) But yes, agreed on your "International English" comments. CAVincent (talk) 05:03, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
 * At time of writing, there is only one use of "colours", which was inserted originally by me, and is spelt that way only because I speak British English. Regarding "recognize" whilst I didn't add that, we use both -ise and -ize forms in British English. So we're not looking at Canadian English here. I thought they spoke some mixture of French and English in Canadia anyway? Rafflesgluft (talk) 16:11, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

Denmark is Greenland?
Denmark is marked as all of Greenland on the small world maps location... suggest this needs an edit. 2A04:4A43:44BF:E5C9:0:0:1FC6:70C7 (talk) 08:01, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Population figures
Currently the article has two tables providing population figures based on 2021 estimates in the CIA World Factbook. However, the reference link now goes to 2022 CIA estimates. I'm not feeling ambitious enough to update all of these numbers tonight, but it should maybe be done at some point. CAVincent (talk) 02:53, 27 April 2022 (UTC)


 * I think it should be done too. Basilicum (talk) 19:54, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Considering Turkey as European or Asian
I thought it might be worth memorializing on this talk page that there is a current consensus to consider Turkey to be European for purposes of NATO-related articles. Earlier discussion on the NATO talk page is here: Talk:NATO/Archive 4. I would also point out that NATO's own website says "The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an alliance of 30 countries from North America and Europe" About NATO FAQ. Also noting, Turkey is not the only member with some constituent territory outside of North America and Europe, so quibbling on the matter would raise additional questions. (I'm not saying consensus can't change, I just thought I'd note earlier discussion and provide a place for any user who wishes to question consensus.) CAVincent (talk) 18:29, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Calling it Turkey or Türkiye
While checking NATO's website, I noticed that they now list Turkey as Türkiye. Currently, the article uses both spellings/names. I'm going to be bold and change all to Türkiye for 1) consistency, and 2) to match NATO usage. I realize that WP still largely uses Turkey, so fair argument for retaining the older name, but we should at least be consistent within this article. CAVincent (talk) 05:36, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Changed my mind on noticing that the article currently only had one instance of Türkiye. I'm guessing the name change here will happen at some future date but for now I'm just going to change Türkiye back to Turkey. CAVincent (talk) 05:41, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I have also noticed that, in recent weeks, Jens Stoltenberg and almost everyone speaking at NATO press conferences has been pronouncing the country as (presumably spelt Türkiye) rather than  (Turkey). To me, this trend doesn't make any sense. Countries have their own translated names in English, as well as in every other language. Calling this country specifically by its name in its original language sounds just as arbitrary and unreasonable as referring to member countries Deutschland, Elláda or España instead of what we call them in English. Until someone provides a good explanation for this change to Türkiye, I oppose it.
 * (By the way, CAVincent, since you used this section to touch on a different topic, I have split it into two subsections, for clarity. I hope you don't mind!) LongLivePortugal (talk) 16:13, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Maybe NATO has been humoring Turkey in light of their Sweden / Finland membership objection. I don't have strong feelings about it, and am fine with waiting to see if the new name takes hold in English. I can think of a few alternate examples - we now refer to the Czech Republic and Ukraine instead of Bohemia and the Ukraine. Of course, those countries expressed a preference shortly after creation / independence, while Turkey (like Germany, etc.) is long standing. And thanks for the subsections, much clearer. CAVincent (talk) 03:12, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Finland and Sweden
I don't know how to edit the map, but I think the colour of Finland and Sweden should be changed to reflect the fact that they are now definitely on the way to becoming NATO members; that is, their accession protocol has been signed, and when all NATO members have individually approved their application, they will then be members. At the moment, their colour is the same as that of Ukraine, which is in a very different stage of application. Also, the text should reflect the preceding. Teemu Leisti (talk) 02:21, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Lithuania
Am I misreading the map or is Lithuania listed as a CSTO nation? Tbrogowski (talk) 19:47, 4 October 2022 (UTC)


 * That little patch of red north of Poland is Kaliningrad Oblast, a tiny patch of Russia. Lithuania is the larger blue country NE of Poland. CAVincent (talk) 03:21, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Official designation
List of ISO 3166 country codes - country names are copied from the source, wikipedia common names are not present

List of countries in Member states of the United Nations: "The current members and their dates of admission are listed below with their official designations used by the United Nations."

List of countries in Member states of NATO: nothing, wikipedia common names are used in the list.

Official designations are completelly ignored and ommited, not even mentioned in notes. I think at least notes should be added, differences are for Czechia and Türkiye. Chrz (talk) 09:28, 14 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Yes, the mood here seems to be to retain wikipedia's article names for these countries, which in the case of the Czech Republic and Turkey are also the most commonly used English names. It's fine if this article doesn't adopt the same criteria as the cited UN article. Adding notes to this article about NATO's own naming conventions might be warranted. It looks like there has been some movement among international organizations toward using Czechia in English in the last few months and years, though I doubt Türkiye is going to come into any sort of common English-language usage in the foreseeable future. My understanding is that "Czechia" and "the Czech Republic" are both still considered acceptable English names by the Czech government although the shorter form is now preferred. CAVincent (talk) 06:35, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * UN members article admits official designations, NATO members article does not.
 * It was OK in 2021, every Wiki common name was the same as official NATO name, there was no reason for ""The current members and their dates of admission are listed below with their official designations used by NATO."
 * In 2022 two differences occur so ... It is the time to rework it. Chrz (talk) 09:11, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Its usual practice to use the article names, they can then be changed if consensus changes the main article so still Turkey and the Czech Republic for now. Not sure they actually need notes we dont do that for other countries "official" names. MilborneOne (talk) 21:26, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I wrote it in my summary, I wrote it here and I can only repeat it: We do it for other countries in Member states of the United Nations. Not only official designation is shown there (why to leave this peace information out?!) but also as primary name, not hidden in the note. It is only for the purpose of table of members and nowhere else. Only one name for a state is a nice(ish) practice, but you should show, that the world is not so unified, neat and tidy as you want to show it, the sources would break this illusion quickly. Or does it mean we don't do that for other countries "official" names in this NATO list?! Well Czechia nd Türkiye are only diiferences between wikiname and NATOname and both appeared this year. Chrz (talk) 21:49, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * This is wikipedia it has its own conventions and doesnt have to use "official" names but common names. MilborneOne (talk) 21:55, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Member states of the United Nations. Or ISO 3166-1 alpha-2, wikinormalisation of the ISO standard would be really spicy. Chrz (talk) 22:09, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, Member states of the United Nations and ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 show the US as the United States of America, and the UK as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. As with the Czech Republic and Turkey, this article here uses common names and not "official" names for these countries. It isn't like Czechia and Türkiye are being singled out for disrespect. CAVincent (talk) 06:46, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * And that lists openly shows Vietnam as Viet Nam and Ivory Coast as Côte d'Ivoire and other differences. NATO members list (also used as a source for the article) has its own differences and they should be listed, if not openly then at least as a note.
 * PS: I think similar article to Comparison of IOC, FIFA, and ISO 3166 country codes could be made for country names: UN-IOC-FIFA-ISO 3166(-NATO-...) versus Wikipedia. Chrz (talk) 08:04, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * People will be coming here to find out which countries belong in NATO. They may not know the countries' official names. Turkey is still called 'Turkey' by everyone, and the same goes for the Czech Republic. So, coming here and finding a weird spelling of 'Turkey' or an unknown seemingly short form of 'Czech Republic' will only pose an unnecessary obstacle to readers of this article. That is why Wikipedia's general policy on this issue is WP:COMMONNAME (granted, this applies primarily to article names, but I think its principle can reasonably be used in tables of countries, as in this case). LongLivePortugal (talk) 21:33, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Again: Member states of the United Nations. The very SAME things you said are magically no problem for UN list on Wikipedia. Or ISO list. Or List of members of the International Olympic Committee - just copying the sources without COMMONNAME reality filtering.
 * Also: Why not at least a note? Why delete it? (Now it remains a note but there are voices to delete it as unnecessary fan fact)
 * And: People will be coming to official NATO page, finding weird spelling of 'Turkey' or an unknown seemingly short form of 'Czech Republic' will only pose an unnecessary obstacle to readers of the official page of NATO. NATO page admins don't care :)
 * There's COMMONNAME and there's senseless unification. I've shown that Wikipedia gets it... here and there. Well not here but there (see 1st line). Chrz (talk) 23:09, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Why do we need to follow the decision made by the editors of Member states of the United Nations? That is another page entirely, and their reasoning may be different. For those editors, since they are dealing with an organisation which seeks to gather all the countries in the world, they may think 'Well, let's call them what the UN calls them'; for us, who are dealing with a military alliance, our reasoning is 'Let's inform people of which countries belong in NATO, and to do so let's refer to the countries by the names people call them.' Anyway, if you want to argue based on what other articles are doing, I can also give you Member state of the European Union and OECD as counter-examples in favour of the current status of this article.
 * I personally inserted that note, precisely to address the fair concern you brought up as to there being no mention of the name by which NATO officially refers to each country, and would oppose any proposal to remove it. I do not see anyone suggesting its removal.
 * The official NATO website is completely unrelated to Wikipedia, and I think that to argue based on it about this issue is to miss the point of WP:COMMONNAME. LongLivePortugal (talk) 12:09, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
 * EU, OECD to come. But I expect the same as here "Why do we need to follow the decision made by the editors of ...., let's make our own one-off rules article by article". Chrz (talk) 17:29, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
 * You seem to have just argued against your initial argument for the change, which is the comparison with other articles. We are not necessarily supposed to do things here as they are done at other articles. If we were to follow that logic, I have shown that we would fall into a contradiction. LongLivePortugal (talk) 22:43, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
 * No. My argument was: COMMONNAME does not mean we can't have a table with official designations, as shown on multiple examples. Chrz (talk) 08:18, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It also does not mean that we need to have a table with official designations. LongLivePortugal (talk) 11:45, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Does a table with official designation break COMMONNAME? It clearly does not. We can choose to reveal true official designation of the member countries. Ideally to do it systematically (why UN yes and NATO no? Just because, coin toss). Chrz (talk) 12:52, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * You keep repeating your previous arguments. Let's see if we can get this straight. As I have said, WP:COMMONNAME is clear in giving preference to common names rather than official ones. I'm not saying official names can't be used anywhere, I'm saying it's not the preferred practice according to the general rules. Can we choose to 'reveal' (in your words) the official names of the countries? Perhaps we can. But I do not see any advantage in doing so. Ah, and why — you ask — are we not consistent in doing the same thing for all articles? Why 'UN yes and NATO no'? Well, in that case I can return the question to you: why 'EU no, OECD no, and NATO yes'? Fundamentally, the point is that there is no Wikipedia rule that I know which requires us to do it one way or the other, although the spirit of WP:COMMONNAME would recommend using the common names and not the official ones. If the editors at the UN article have decided to open an exception, that's their problem, not ours. They may have their reasons. We do not have to copy them. I hope that, with this, we can stop using comparisons with other articles as an argument; it is becoming tiresome. LongLivePortugal (talk) 13:34, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
 * You consider UN, ISO, FIFA etc. as an exception to COMMONNAME. I consider it as (unwritten) (sub)rule, or detected custom: to show official designation for international organizations which do have official English designation. Hide it in note when the organization is less important or the designation is not really visible anywhere within the organization.
 * I can say this article always showed official designations... Sure, it was in times when all accidentally matched the wikipedia ones, which derailed in 2022 with changes on NATO side... Chrz (talk) 14:42, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Czechia
So, NATO uses Czechia, but Wikipedia is like no we don't care we are still going to list it as Czech Republic? Why does Czechia bother some of you so much? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.116.127.27 (talk) 22:19, 28 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia uses WP:COMMONNAME. This means "Czech Republic", "Turkey" and "Ivory Coast", and never means "Czechia", "Türkiye" or "Côte d'Ivoire". doktorb wordsdeeds 00:42, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

How do decided what is common name? your opinion or a wikipedia vote? There has been a bias against Czechia since 2016. Wikipedia always moves the goalposts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.116.181.122 (talk) 02:52, 6 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Frequency analysis in English sources. Chrz (talk) 17:38, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Map of current Nato members is wrong
The map of current Nato members has recently been edited, showing Finland and Sweden as current full Nato members.

As of January 2023, this is incorrect and should be reverted. They are aspiring members, but not actual members. Andy07070 (talk) 08:37, 25 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure why this talk section was created, but no such recent edit exists. CAVincent (talk) 05:21, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Map update
Since Finland has recently joined NATO, the map needs to be updated. Spagheditor (talk) 11:49, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

3 islands off the coast of Sweden are light blue and need to be changed to dark blue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.98.85.216 (talk) 20:31, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Military personnel per 1000 capita
The table under "Military personnel" lists 207.7 total per capita for Estonia, making it the highest of the NATO members. However, the corresponding graph ("Comparison of military personnel per 1,000 capita") lists a much lower figure for Estonia, placing it third behind Finland and Greece. 193.170.91.45 (talk) 12:05, 1 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Yeah. That's over 20% of the country's population. Clearly it is based on some sort of junk number, like claiming that every man age 18-50 is a reservist. Finland's reservist number is also clearly wildly overstated. Others in the table are dubious, but these two can't possibly be serious. That said, I can imagine a government claiming the numbers, on the theory that "hey, we might just draft our entire adult male population!", which obviously couldn't possibly happen. CAVincent (talk) 05:37, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I recommend simply deleting this graph as well as the "total military spending of NATO member countries" pie chart. One reason is they are very hard to read, because the reader has to match a very specific shade with the legend just to identify a country.  And there are so many countries to list. Another reason is the information is already available on a wiki table format that is very easy to sort by whatever parameter by simply clicking the sort arrow in the heading. Another reason is these graphs, particularly the vertical bar graph, take up a lot of space (especially in mobile view) relative to the amount of useful new information they present (none).  Also another reason is there is no particular reason this particular parameter is the one that should be plotted among the several other parameters available (e.g. arguably per capita active is a more useful metric). Em3rgent0rdr (talk) 23:57, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Continental:Contiguous states
I don’t understand why the link to Contiguous states is modified to continental States & then Alaska is then mentioned. First of all, why not simplify and leave the link as is. Or, if there is some reason for msking reference to continental, there is no reason for Alaska to be mentioned, it being on the continent as much as is California and Florida. TomS TDotO (talk) 10:26, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Temporary Protection Needed
Strongly recommending that this and other NATO-related articles get "Extended Confirmed" protection for the next few days, until Sweden's accession is actually official. CAVincent (talk) 22:43, 26 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Agreed. W9793 (talk) 23:00, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

"As of December 2024"
The "Membership aspirations" section states "As of December 2024, three additional states have formally informed NATO of their membership aspirations". As December 2024 has not yet occurred, this appears to be obviously incorrect. The source article mentions the declarations of intent to join NATO occurring no later than 2022.

As I've never contributed to Wikipedia, I'm not sure if this should be changed to "As of 2022" (in alignment with the source) or "As of March 2024" (to indicate the latest status) to best align with Wikipedia's standards, and wanted to bring it to the attention of more active contributors. Thank you. 2603:7081:1200:60CD:5FFE:A74:EAF8:1B7E (talk) 16:25, 7 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Good catch. I've changed to "March 2024". Thanks! CAVincent (talk) 07:22, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Gotland and Öland
I think that the Swedish islands of Öland and Gotland should be in the same colour as the NATO member Sweden. Please have a look at the second map from the top.The same goes for the Danish island Bornholm. GustenGast (talk) 17:44, 17 May 2024 (UTC)