Defense pact explained

A defense pact (Commonwealth spelling: defence pact) is a type of treaty or military alliance in which the signatories promise to support each other militarily and to defend each other.^[1] Generally, the signatories point out the threats and concretely prepare to respond to it together.^[2]

Current treaties

Year! colspan="2"

Name	Member states
Treaty name	Also known as	Present members	Former/suspended members
1373	Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1373	Anglo-Portuguese Alliance	Portugal United Kingdom
1947	Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance	Rio Treaty TIAR	(1948–2019, 2020–present) (1948–2015, 2019–present) (1967–present) (1982–present)	(1948–1962) (suspended) (1948–2014) (1948–2016) (1948–2004) (1948–2014)
1949	North Atlantic Treaty	Washington Treaty NATO OTAN	^[3] (joined 1952) Turkey (joined 1952) Germany (joined 1955)^[4] Spain (joined 1982) (joined 1999) Hungary (joined 1999) Poland (joined 1999) Bulgaria (joined 2004) Estonia (joined 2004) Latvia (joined 2004) Lithuania (joined 2004) Romania (joined 2004) Slovakia (joined 2004) Slovenia (joined 2004) Albania (joined 2009) Croatia (joined 2009) Montenegro (joined 2017) (joined 2020) Finland (joined 2023) Sweden (joined 2024)
1951	Mutual Defense Treaty Between the United States and the Philippines
1951	ANZUS
1953	Mutual Defense Treaty Between the United States and the Republic of Korea
1960	Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security Between the United States and Japan
1961
1992	Collective Security Treaty	CSTO		(1994–1999) (1994–1999) (1994–1999, 2006–2012)
2019	Treaty on Franco-German Cooperation and Integration	Aachen Treaty
2020	Franco-Greek Strategic Partnership on Defense and Security
2023	Alliance of Sahel States
2024	North Korean-Russian Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership

Historical treaties

Year	Treaty name	Member States
1778–1798		Kingdom of France ( French First Republic from 1792) United States
1873–1887		German Empire Austria-Hungary Russian Empire
1950–1979	Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance	China Soviet Union
1954–1977	Southeast Asia Treaty Organization	Australia France New Zealand Pakistan (withdrew in 1973) Philippines Thailand United Kingdom United States
1955–1979	Middle East Treaty Organization	Iran Iraq (withdrew in 1959) Pakistan Turkey United Kingdom
1955–1980	Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty	Taiwan United States
1955–1991		Albania (withdrew in 1968) Bulgaria Czechoslovakia East Germany Hungary Poland Romania Soviet Union

See also

• Military alliance
• List of military alliances

Notes and References

1. Volker Krause, J. David Singer "Minor Powers, Alliances, And Armed Conflict: Some Preliminary Patterns", in "Small States and Alliances", 2001, pp 15–23, (Print) (Online) http://www.bundesheer.at/pdf_pool/publikationen/05_small_states_03.pdf
2. Fulvio Attinà "State aggregation in defense pacts: systemic explanations", Jean Monnet Working Papers, University of Catania, nr. 56, November 2004, ISSN 2281-9029 https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.fscpo.unict.it/EuroMed/jmwp56.pdf
3. Joined as Kingdom of Greece.
4. Joined as West Germany. After reunification in 1990, the former East German territory became covered by NATO protection.