Article 5 states, “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” So, an attack on Latvia is effectively the same as an attack on the United States – a powerful deterrent to any potential aggressor. For decades, an armed attack would be obvious and NATO nations would have responded with tanks, artillery, warplanes and as an ultimate resort, nuclear weapons.
Now, nations can be undermined through information warfare and infrastructure can be crippled by cyberattacks, which is often difficult to trace. NATO should discuss what the collective response should be against cyberattacks and information warfare, and whether they meet the threshold of an attack in the sense of Article 5.