[Alberta's Child]

It's a mutual defense treaty among its member nations -- which is why NATO troops were dispatched to Afghanistan to topple the Taliban government after 9/11.

I may be wrong about this, but I'm quite certain there is nothing in the NATO bylaws that indicates the member nations only agree to come to each other's aid in the event of an attack by Warsaw Pact nations.

[Republicain]

Of course. "Stop the Red Army ?" was a sarcasm...

[okie01]

I may be wrong about this, but I'm quite certain there is nothing in the NATO bylaws that indicates the member nations only agree to come to each other's aid in the event of an attack by Warsaw Pact nations.

That would be correct. Though the constitutions or statutes of some of the individual nations prohibit their militaries from deployment outside Europe.

Germany is one of these. They couldn't send troops to Afghanistan...but they did send some naval units to the Mediterranean. I believe the Mediterranean littoral is considered within their sphere of operations, though, so German forces could be employed on the Israel-Lebanon border.