Why Do We Need NATO?

As President-Elect Trump begins to form his governing team and to review the involvement of America in the world, it makes sense in the revolutionary change in American politics to look anew at almost everything. Trump has taken some hits for suggesting that our contribution to NATO has been disproportionately large. I will suggest what many of us may think but Trump may be too coy to openly state: America does not need NATO.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created at the instigation of an American superpower trying to find a means of containing global communism, led by the Soviet Union, by bringing together those nations in Europe who needed to be reassured that a Warsaw Pact invasion of West Germany would be resisted using conventional forces by those nations whose collective unity could cause the Soviets not to attempt a lunge through the Fulda Gap or other weak spots. This collection of allies included nations outside Europe – America, Turkey, and Canada – and although the language of the alliance did not specify the Soviet Union, that was the sole threat the alliance envisioned.

The alliance succeeded in preventing war in Europe, and once America began trying to win the Cold War, the whole structure of the Soviet Empire dissolved, first with the unification of Germany, then the liberation of all the other Warsaw Pact allies, then the independence of the non-Russian nations within the Soviet Union, and finally with the overthrowing of the communist overlords of Russia.

NATO was part of a grand system of alliances that America created to contain communism. CENTO, the Central Treaty Organization, included Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, Britain, and America. SEATO, the South East Asia Treaty Organization, was a similar organization of regional partners and America, France, and Britain.

It's an excellent question, one I've asked on this forum a number of times. Although it was created as a response to Soviet expansionism there are a number of other sound reasons why a collective security organization including both the United States and various European nations might be a good idea. Unfortunately the current version of NATO contains nations that are not in the northern Atlantic - Turkey, for example - who do not have the same common security needs they did when (1) there was a Soviet Union, and (2) the membership was more restricted.

One of the advantages is to provide an overall plan. One of the reasons World War One started was the multiplicity of bilateral and trilateral treaties that were negotiated without taking into account other commitments. That is, for example, why Great Britain was dragged into a war over Belgium's neutrality when the real casus belli was at the other end of Europe and between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, whose treaties dragged in Germany and Russia, whose treaty dragged in France, the invasion of which dragged in Belgium, and then Great Britain.

A more comprehensive system of collective security might have avoided that (or not, it remains one of military history's hottest controversies a century later). But "more comprehensive" has, in my view, become bloated out of recognition when we consider NATO's current form, and when that happens the same vulnerability isn't really guarded against. Does Denmark march when the Turks and the Russians decide to trade blows in Syria? In that scenario NATO is no protection at all from the same sort of interlocking commitments that started WWI.

A second question is: does the United States necessarily have to play? Can the European Union be trusted to take the place of the U.S. as a guarantor of the liberty of small nations against the large? (I realize I risk laughter by asking, but their present self-indulgence isn't necessarily permanent. I hope). Certainly the economy of the EU is up to the task if certain priorities (1.2% of German GDP dedicated to defense? Seriously?) are realigned, and Mr. Trump is absolutely within his capacity to question the current alignment, in fact, it's long, long overdue. That is not to say the U.S. has no place in the game, because our interests are very much in play, but in fact they do live there and we do not.

I think, therefore, that NATO needs an overhaul, a breakup into organizations more suited to the new geopolitical landscape, and that it is neither isolationist nor unreasonable to propose it. Nor should it be threatening. The best time to prepare for war is during a relatively peaceful period when the countries involved don't need to launch into crash industrial programs and total war. Things get out of control when that becomes the only option, as the Europeans know all too well.

Excellent post sir.

We need a formal platform to engage with Germany, France and the UK. And Russia - if we can get them to moderate their nuclear technology proliferation and engagement with Tehran.

We need a security alliance with European nations not intent on committing cultural suicide. This could, again, include Russia but at present would not include Germany, France or the UK.

IMHO we should withdraw from NATO, if by doing so we can get some foreign policy shifts from Russia.

We should withdraw from the UN, stop paying its bills, and let it collapse. It is no longer a force for good and has not been for some time.

Bottom line: NATO is too big to in any way augment or support US interests.

Why would the US undertake existential war over Bulgaria, Latvia or Romania? How, in any universe, is that in our interests?

And to think there was substantial pressure to add Ukraine and Georgia.

Sheer hubris.

As it stands today NATO is a net detraction from US security interests.

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