2008 Bucharest summit

The 2008 Bucharest Summit or the 21st NATO Summit was a NATO summit organized in the Palace of the Parliament, Bucharest, Romania on 2 – 4 April 2008.
Among other business, Croatia and Albania were invited to join the Alliance. The Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia) was not invited to join NATO due to its ongoing naming dispute with Greece. Georgia and Ukraine had hoped to join the NATO Membership Action Plan, but, while welcoming the two countries’ aspirations for membership and agreeing that "these countries will become members of NATO", the NATO members decided to review their request in December 2008.
Protests against NATO's role in "promoting war" were held at NATO's HQ in Brussels two weeks before the summit, and in Bucharest. Protesters targeted the renewed determination of NATO to use nuclear weapons and NATO's backing of the US anti-missile shield.
As said by Craig Kennedy in an introduction to the NATO Bucharest summit and from the NATO summit program.
Romania competed for the organization of this summit with Portugal, which initially was scheduled to host the summit in 2006, but eventually conceded in favor of Latvia, which held the 2006 Riga Summit. Romania received support from the United States, and U.S. Under Secretary of State R. Nicholas Burns said in December 2006 that Romania deserved the honor to hold this event due to its contribution to the Alliance's common effort in the War in Afghanistan and for stability in the Iraq War. Romania has been a member of NATO since 14 March 2004.
The security of the summit was assured by the host country. The mobilized forces included some 5,000 military servicemen, 9,000 policemen, 8,000 gendarms, 1,800 border policemen, and 2,550 others, including the Protection and Guard Service, and the Intelligence Service.
During the summit, the terrorist threat alert was raised from blue level (caution) to yellow (moderate), with the necessary measures taken by the institutions of the Romanian state. For travel from the Henri Coandă International Airport to the Palace of the Parliament, 39 Mercedes S-Guard and E-Guard armored sedans were provided for the state leaders, as well as another 500 Mercedes, Cadillac, and Ford unarmored cars. The traffic was restricted, and a traffic corridor was reserved for the official delegations.
To protect the skies above the summit, Romania launched Operation Noble Endeavor, an effort of the Romanian Air Force to provide air policing missions. On Romania's request, the U.S. Air Force augmented the Romanian forces in the mission. For this task, the USAF activated the 323d Air Expeditionary Wing at Balotești, near Bucharest. The role of the 323d was to direct and coordinate the deployment of American aircraft, as well as support, maintenance, operations and medical personnel across eastern Europe. The deployment included F-15E Strike Eagle fighters at Câmpia Turzii in Romania, and at Graf Ignatievo in Bulgaria, as well as KC-135 Stratotankers at the Budapest International Airport in Hungary.
For the duration of the summit, the fighter jets remained on high alert and conducted combat air patrols over Bucharest, providing a show of force to repel any threats. The 323d AEW was inactivated at the end of the month after the summit, on 30 April.
An invitation to join the Alliance was not extended to the Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia). Greece had threatened on several occasions to veto the country's NATO bid due to the longstanding naming dispute over the latter's name. The last UN proposal before the summit was the name "Republic of Macedonia (Skopje)", which was rejected by Greece. Athens argues that use of the name "Macedonia" implies territorial claims on its own region of Macedonia. Macedonia denied it, citing constitutional amendments that specifically exclude "territorial pretensions". NATO officials said the country could begin talks on joining the alliance as soon as it had resolved its dispute with Greece.
While under the terms of the Interim Accord, signed between the two parties in 1995, Greece agreed not to block "membership in international, multilateral and regional organizations and institutions" under the acronym "FYROM", Greece expected that the country would immediately request recognition by its constitutional name once it gained entry into the organization. According to politicians in Macedonia, Greece had directly breached the Interim Accord.
The governments that supported its membership bid argued that the country had completed the necessary reforms for membership and that regional stability would be challenged if it did not join NATO. Conversely, Greece contended that although Macedonia rejected territorial claims officially, in practice there have been numerous irredentist provocations by high government officials, schoolbooks, and other governmental publications. Senior officials in Macedonia asserted that the country had fulfilled NATO requirements to join and was being "punished" for its identity.
After an application for ruling submitted after the Summit by Macedonia under the "FYROM" reference against Greece on this matter before the International Court of Justice, on 5 December 2011 the Court ruled that Greece had indeed breached the accords and was wrong to do so.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was invited to the summit, and he arrived on the second day (3 April) to participate in bilateral NATO–Russia talks. He opposed the US plans to deploy missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic, which was discussed at the summit. Russia also opposed Georgia and Ukraine's NATO membership bids.