The attacks in Paris could prompt a response from NATO under the article of collective self-defense, but some analysts predicted France would opt to form a coalition rather than working through the slower-moving international agency.
Experts said Saturday that the string of six coordinated attacks Friday afternoon, which French President Francois Hollande called “an act of war,” would be covered under Article 5 of the NATO Washington Treaty, which if invoked would require other members to respond to the violence in France as if it had taken place in their own countries.
The U.S. is the only nation to have ever invoked Article 5 support after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
James Stavridis, a retired Navy admiral who served as NATO supreme allied commander, wrote that as France prepares to shore up its military to response to the attack, the U.S. should be doing the same to prepare to support France.
“Paris would be within its rights to expect NATO to play a meaningful role in organizing a significant military response to the attacks,” Stavridis wrote in Foreign Policy.
Attacks on Friday night at restaurants, sporting venues and a concert hall around Paris killed 129 and injured more than 300 people. The Islamic State took credit for the attack in a post online on Saturday.
Chris Chivvis, the associate director of international security and defense policy center at the RAND Corp., said there’s “no question” Article 5 would apply in Paris since there’s no “significant difference” from the 9/11 attacks.
But he said, based on past precedent in northern Africa, he thought France would opt to go with a coalition of the willing to respond to the attacks rather than working through NATO.
“If the U.S. were to insist on going the NATO route, France might decide it wants to do the same. It’s too early to say if that’s what’s going to happen,” he said.
Working through NATO would provide the international agency’s command-and-control structure for the operation and would also lend “political legitimacy” that a coalition wouldn’t, though NATO can sometimes move slower than a coalition, Chivvis said.
