The answer is actually “a mix of all three,” and it really depends on which conflict you’re looking at.
For Afghanistan, it was exactly the first one: the only time Article 5, the “attack on one is an attack on all” clause, has ever been invoked. That happened after 9/11 and led directly to the NATO-led mission there.
Yugoslavia in 1999 was a different beast entirely; that was NATO waging an air campaign without a UN Security Council mandate, operating far outside its traditional defensive boundaries to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
When you look at Iraq in 2003, NATO as an organization sat it out, but the war was obviously started by key NATO members like the US and UK, and the alliance itself only stepped in later to help train Iraqi security forces.
Finally, the 2011 Libya intervention was more of a formal NATO operation, but it fits the mold of an unofficial proxy war of sorts, as the alliance used a UN mandate to protect civilians as the basis for a bombing campaign that ultimately helped rebels overthrow Gaddafi
Do you mean NATO (defense operations if one member is attacked)? Wars started by a NATO member? Unofficial proxy war support?
The answer is actually “a mix of all three,” and it really depends on which conflict you’re looking at.
For Afghanistan, it was exactly the first one: the only time Article 5, the “attack on one is an attack on all” clause, has ever been invoked. That happened after 9/11 and led directly to the NATO-led mission there.
Yugoslavia in 1999 was a different beast entirely; that was NATO waging an air campaign without a UN Security Council mandate, operating far outside its traditional defensive boundaries to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
When you look at Iraq in 2003, NATO as an organization sat it out, but the war was obviously started by key NATO members like the US and UK, and the alliance itself only stepped in later to help train Iraqi security forces.
Finally, the 2011 Libya intervention was more of a formal NATO operation, but it fits the mold of an unofficial proxy war of sorts, as the alliance used a UN mandate to protect civilians as the basis for a bombing campaign that ultimately helped rebels overthrow Gaddafi