NATO Article 4: Estonia seeks talks after Russian jets breach airspace, raising eastern flank tension

NATO allies on Tuesday will hold formal consultations at Estonias request after the Baltic country said that three Russian fighter jets entered its airspace last week without authorisation Russias Defence Ministry denied the accusationThe intrusion on Friday lasted 12 minutes and was a fresh test of the military alliances ability to respond to Moscows airborne threats after around 20 Russian drones entered Polish airspace on September 10NATOs 32 ambassadors meet most weeks in a format known as the North Atlantic Council at the military alliances headquarters in Brussels Estonia has requested consultations under Article 4 of NATOs founding treatyPoland also requested Article 4 talks after the drone incident and two days later NATO launched an operation dubbed Eastern Sentry to bolster the organizations military presence with European aircraft and other defences along its eastern flankHowever Article 4 talks do not mean automatic military or diplomatic consequencesArticle 4 puts urgent matters on NATOs agendaArticle 4 is the shortest of the Washington Treatys 14 articles It states that The Parties will consult together whenever in the opinion of any of them the territorial integrity political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatenedNATO operates on consensus and the talks can lead to some form of joint decision or action The fact of invoking Article 4 encourages allies to react as one to a situation of importance brought to their attention by a fellow memberThe talks do not automatically lead to any action unlike Article 5 of the treaty which states that NATOs collective security guarantee under which allies pledge that an attack on one member of the alliance constitutes an attack on them allBob Deen an analyst at the Clingendael think tank in The Hague said Article 4 is designed to promote better coordination and understanding within the alliance on external threats It gives all allies the opportunity to urgently put certain threats or developments on the agenda of the North Atlantic CouncilSecond time Article 4 is invoked in 2 weeksIts only the ninth time that Article 4 has been used since the alliances formation in 1949 but the second time now in just two weeks and given current tensions on NATOs eastern flank it could happen again soonBefore the drone incident Poland was one of eight countries along with Bulgaria the Czech Republic Estonia Latvia Lithuania Romania and Slovakia to seek them after Russia launched its fullscale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022Poland first invoked Article 4 on March 3 2014 following increasing tensions in neighbouring Ukraine as a result of Russias aggressive actions according to the NATO website Russia annexed Ukraines Crimean Peninsula in 2014Article 4 gets invoked relatively rarely but increasingly in recent years Turkey alone invoked it five times between 20032020 in the context of Syria and Iraq said Deen told The Associated PressNot necessarily a step toward Article 5Deen said that Article 4 is related to Article 5 but is not necessarily a stepping stoneArticle 5 has only been invoked once in response to the 911 attacks on the United States immediately bypassing Article 4 In other words Article 4 can be invoked without triggering Article 5 and vice versa he saidArticle 5 underpins NATOs credibility Its a political commitment not a legal requirement for all member countries to come to the aid of another member whose sovereignty or territory might be under attack in whatever way they might deem to be fitThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever