NATO team briefs students

Politics students learned about the differences between NATO and Star Trek in a briefing Tuesday.

Three NATO officials spoke to students from Professor of Politics Ben Schiff's International Organizations class and other interested students in Wilder.

U.S. Navy Captain George Hordermarsky of the NATO Atlantic Allied Command and German Army Lieutenant Colonel Gunther Forsteneichner of NATO Allied Command Europe spoke at the briefing. They were accompanied by Mark O. Piggott, the Chief Journalist for the U.S. Navy.

NATO is a military organization of 16 countries.

Hordermarsky emphasized in his presentation that there is no NATO army. "It's not a Star Trek type thing where everyone works together with different accents to run the starship Enterprise," Hordermarsky said.

Many different nationalities are involved, however, when NATO members get together. NATO includes the U.S., Canada, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Turkey, Spain, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and the United Kingdom.

According to Hordermarsky, NATO can only act in cases in which decisions are unanimous.

NATO was formed in April of 1949 in response to the formation of the Warsaw Pact, an alliance of Eastern Bloc countries.

The primary NATO clause, according to the team, is Article V of the North Atlantic Charter. The clause states that if one member nation is attacked, it is seen as an attack on all member nations.

Hordermarsky summarized the purpose of NATO at the time it was formed. "We had the good guys. We had the bad guys. Mission: to keep the bad guys from moving in where we are," he said.

Forsteneichner mentioned the different nationalities working together on NATO. He opened his part of the presentation with a joke. "My British colleague would have started with a joke," Forsteneichner said. "But I'm German. I don't have a sense of humor."

Forsteneichner spoke about the recently conducted NATO exercise which also had participation from Partnership for Peace countries, whose members include former Soviet Bloc countries as well as most of the rest of Europe.

"This was international beer-drinking on the platoon level," Forsteneichner said.

The team made it clear to its audience from the start that the officials were here to inform, not to promote an agenda.

We haven't been sent here to sell NATO enlargement," Hordermarsky said.

Basic Training: NATO officials came to Oberlin Tuesday to discuss NATO's policies with students. (photo by Mike Kabakoff)