In the General/Chat forum, on a thread titled Trump: "In any event, I wish both Countries well. We will continue to supply weapons to NATO for NATO to do what they want with them. Good luck to all!", Carry_Okie wrote: We will continue to supply weapons to NATO for NATO to do what they want with them. "They"? And there I thought NATO was a matter of "we." Trump sounds as if Article V has no force of law on the US.
Good point!
President Trump has made it clear since taking office that the US will not support Article V re Ukraine. First Hegseth said it plainly, twice. Then Trump said it diplomatically. There was a meeting in which NATO leaders anxiously asked Trump directly if the US would support the Article V agreement for mutual defense. President Trump responed (paraphrasing), "Well that depends on what you call 'defense'."
I believe Trump was saying that NATO's proxy war would not oblige the US to fight RUssia for them. A proxy war is not 'defense'.
NATO heads don't sleep well at night. Recently, Belarus noted that electronic jamming sent Russian drones off course and into Poland; at that time NATO/Poland were raising the alarm of Russian agression That was NATO's most recent attempt to portray themselves as being attacked so they can invoke Article V to get the US involved in their war. I think US membership in NATO is hanging by a thread and NATO is well aware of this. Perhaps the US is just pretending to remain in NATO for now, for the purpose of supporting a ceasefire/peace negotiations (don't want to embolden Putin).
It all revolves around what constitutes an “attack” versus a retaliatory defense. I get very uncomfortable when lawyers start inject into critical matters of national defense versus knotty alliances.