With present-day conflicts underway or heating up around the world, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s importance in maintaining security in Europe and elsewhere has risen dramatically.
Recognizing the rise in tensions and Canada’s role within NATO, the Vancouver Island Military Museum has created a display dedicated to the alliance.
The display, which includes recognition of military members currently serving and those who’ve served throughout NATO’s 74-year history, was completed in September in the lead-up to Remembrance Day.
“We didn’t have a NATO exhibit and … we have Canadians leading a battle group, which was an increase – they weren’t doing that before, but they were promoted to lead that battle group in Latvia, which is a much larger group…” said Brian McFadden, Vancouver Island Military Museum vice-president. “So, it was the increase in the number of troops and the number of countries committing to it that prompted the creation of the exhibit.”
NATO was founded in 1949 by the U.S., Canada and allied countries in Europe to counter any potential military aggression by the former Soviet Union through eastern European member countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance that later made up the Warsaw Pact, a defence treaty created in 1955 after West Germany joined NATO.The politically and ideologically opposed member countries of the two defence treaties faced off militarily throughout the Cold War from 1947 until 1991.
With the annexing by Russia of portions of Ukraine in 2014 and war breaking out between the two countries when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, countries in Scandinavia – Finland and formerly neutral Sweden – have joined or applied to join NATO and the organization’s military strength is being bolstered along borders with Russia and its allied nations.
The battle group in Latvia has been upgraded to brigade strength and includes troops from across Europe and Canada.
“There’s close to 600 [Canadians], plus we’ve got the air wing and the navy in the Baltic,” McFadden said.
The NATO Alliance’s current core tasks are to provide collective defence, crisis management and collective security, which are critical to the alliance’s deterrence and defence policy in eastern Europe.
In recent years, eight multinational battle groups have been established and based in Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, according to VIMM.
NATO also has sub-group member operations in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan and also co-operates on security issues with member states of the African Union.
The Vancouver Island Military Museum, 100 Cameron Rd., will be open to the public following Remembrance Day ceremonies, Saturday, Nov. 11. To learn more about the museum, admission fees and hours, visit http://militarymuseum.ca.