SLOVENIA JOINING NATO: CONTRIBUTION OF THE MINISTRY OF DEFENSE AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

The purpose of the article is to present and critically evaluate the process of Slovenia's integration into NATO between 1999 and 2004 through description, analysis, synthesis, and compilation, and to provide an overview of the activities and steps taken by the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that enabled it to achieve your goal. Already in the Resolution on the National Security Strategy in 1993, with an amendment in 1994, Slovenia clearly expressed the goal of joining NATO, the same year that the alliance opened the way for membership expansion with the help of the Partnership for Peace program. The program enabled NATO to transform from a closed military alliance of Western countries into an open process of rapprochement with potential alliance members. Slovenia joined the program and began to implement activities within the framework of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and its path of integration ended on March 29, 2004, when it became the twenty-fifth member of NATO. Especially in the period in question, Slovenia has intensively cooperated internationally with neighboring countries and in international peace operations. It signed several agreements on cooperation in the field of defense, and at the same time actively worked towards the transformation of the national security system. In doing so, it followed the annual national programs for membership and action plans for membership in the NATO alliance and successfully completed all five cycles. The article ends with Slovenia joining NATO. This gave Slovenia, together with other members of the alliance, the opportunity to create security and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area.