What Are The Differences Between the UN and NATO?
The UN and NATO are international organizations, but they have specific differences. UN stands for United Nations, but NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The UN facilities operating within the state members, the NATO only co-regulates in a military alliance. Let’s read the article to know more about it.
What Is UN
The UN or United Nations look after the operation and co-operates in the activities of international law, security, human rights and social progress that help achieve the goal of world peace. The UN was re-established during 194inr World War II in place of the League of Nations.
The primary purpose of forming the UN is to stop wars between various countries and to give them a chance for discussion. The UN has given accreditation to the languages like Arabic, English, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish. The UN includes 192 member states.
The UN system generally works on five central bodies the secretariat under the UN Secretary-General, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Po Social Council and the International Court of Justice (ICJ). However, the sixth main body is also present but is currently non-functional. The well-known subsidiary organ of the UN is Human Rights Council.
Now, under the UN system, several programs and funds are running, such as UNDP, WFP, WHO, UNICEF, UNHCR etc. However, some of the specialized agencies also work with the UN system, such as IMF, ILO, UNESCO, UNIDO etc.
The UN agencies are operated by the laws, rules and regulations of the sane country.
What Is NATO
NATO stands for North Atlantic organization. NATO is based on military cooperation. The NATO treaty was signed in 1949 by other member countries. The primary purpose of forming NATO is to ensure that each country will get military power whenever they are attacked. Now, there are 28 member countries included in NATO. NATO headquarters is located in Belgium that operates the organization. The newest member is Croatia in NATO. However, more than 22 countries are not included in the treaty but provide manpower for the organization.
To date, NATO has participated in various wars happening in the world and Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria are one of those wars. NATO announced that whenever the war is declared, the other countries will participate in defending the land. NATO also keeps a huge budget that could be required to protect the countries. This budget is 70% of the total global spending.
What Are The Differences Between UN and NATO
The UN and NATO are different in many ways. The differences are seen in their histories, mandates, structures and membership. Other significant differences include budget, size, types of organisation etc. Both of these organisations were founded simultaneously, but they have different aims. Let’s have a look at the differences between the UN and NATO:
Type:
The first significant difference between the UN and NATO is visible in their type. The UN is generally an intergovernmental organization. The intergovernmental organization refers to a type of organization that includes sovereign states who work with a common interest. The intergovernmental organization has the right to make international laws.
But NATO is an international military alliance that agrees to defend the member countries in case of aggression. They aim to pool the military resources from the member states. They both are different in type, bodies and aim.
History:
This is another significant difference between the UN and NATO. The UN was formed in 1945 after the second world war with the aim of preventing another world war. The UN was known as the League of Nations previously.
NATO was also established after the second world war, during 1949. Still, it has a different history from the UN. NATO first included 12 countries from Western Europe and North America that signed the treaty. Primarily, NATO was built to protect Europe from the attack of the Soviet Union.
Member States:
The next difference between the UN and NATO is in their member states. The United Nations was formed with 192 member states. That means most of the countries in the world are a part of it. The UN member states come from every region of the world. As it aims to be an international body of global Nations, so any country can be a part of it without any geographical restriction.
But NATO can only include member states from the North Atlantic region. So, any country. ?
Cannot join NATO. It has a strict geographical requirement about who can join.
QdFunding
The direct and indirect member states generally contribute to the NATO fund. The direct fund accounts for 0.3% of each country’s defence budget. Indirect funding also comes from the member states of NATO. This indirect funding refers to troops and resources from the member states for NATO missions and exercises.
But the UN only gets funds as a direct contribution from the nations and countries. They also get additional funding as per the project and agencies. This Bn is calculated per the countries’ GBP and economic performance. Nations can also contribute to UN funding that relates to their interest.
Size
Size is another crucial factor that differentiates the UN and NATO. The UN has more than 44,000 staff members. These staffs are employed directly by the UN agencies. They also hire staff from member states for peacekeeping and other purposes.
NATO has no more than 4000 permanent staff who are spread between various headquarters, organisations and missions. However, NATO has less staff within the UN as they are in.
