North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 2029 CE

 
 

TopiC: Examining NATO's Jurisdiction on the 80th Anniversary

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was created in 1949 to provide collective security against the Soviet Union; yet, in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, but NATO remained. With its cold-war era threats long gone and a changing global balance of power from bipolar to unipolar to today’s multipolar global theater, NATO has evolved greatly in the last 80 years far beyond the intentions of its initial founders and, arguably, the scope of its charter.

In the NATO 2029 committee at HMUN 2025, delegates will, as the treaty's 80th anniversary, open broader discussions to review, update, and perhaps challenge elements of NATO’s scope, objectives, and charter. Delegates will have the opportunity to evaluate where the organization stands and where they should direct it in the future. Together, committee will articulate the new purpose of the world’s largest security alliance.

 

Dear Delegates,

My name is Ved Pant, and I am honored to serve as your director of NATO at HMUN 2025. I am from Mumbai, India, where I first tried Model UN in middle school. At Harvard, I hope to study Applied Mathematics in Economics and History, if those respective departments allow such a combination (I don’t know why, but I have yet to ask).

One of my first Model UN experiences as a middle schooler, in fact, was at HMUN’s conference in India, which first introduced me to Harvard’s format of Model UN, many years before I applied to and began attending the university. As such, I was in your shoes just a few years ago, which makes me all the more excited to see how you all use this opportunity to grow, both at and beyond the conference. At Harvard, I compete for and am the Training Director of our Intercollegiate Model UN Team, serve as a director at our collegiate conferences, HNMUN and HMUN India, and serve as the Under-Secretary-General of Operations for our conference HMUN Dubai. I am a very active member of our Model UN community here, and the thing I love most about our Model UN program is how it can transform people’s perception of and styles of MUN; I look forward to seeing how you all adapt to the HMUN format, given your diverse backgrounds.

Apart from Model UN, I am involved in a few other clubs and organizations on campus. I am training as a consultant at our college consulting group and as a manager at The Harvard Shop, a set of student run merchandise retailers. I also play cricket for the Kennedy School Cricket Team, averaging a scary 3+ wides per over (read: I am terrible at this sport, or in baseball terms, I pitch only balls, no strikes. Ever.) and club/intramural futsal.  

Given the broad scope of our agenda, I am eager to see where you direct your focus and how you all shape committee through your moderated caucus topics and paperwork. In this specific committee, I do not plan to enforce a narrow reading or interpretation of our topic. Rather, I hope you all run with the agenda and develop it naturally as committee progresses, in a way that would be most conducive to fruitful debate and discussion.

Once again, I am thrilled to serve as your director this coming spring! Feel free to reach out to me or our Under-Secretary-General, Addison Gaddy, if you have any questions or concerns. See you soon!

Best,

Ved Pant

Director, North Atlantic Treaty Organization

nato@harvardmun.org

Harvard Model United Nations 2025