NATO
THE BOTTOM LINE
WE NEED LOYAL ALLIES AND STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS!
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an absolutely essential part of our national security.
It is unnecessary for America to be a bully. It is unnecessary for America to be threatening and hostile. It is unnecessary for America to be arrogant or petty or unwelcoming. America does not need to flaunt our strength, because we are actually strong. But let's never forget: Even though we are strong, we need loyal allies to have our back...allies who are more than willing to share our burdens, and who don't blink when we ask them to join us in war.
U.S.-European military cooperation is fundamental to the peace and security of the United States and provides us valuable partnerships that strengthen our defense, security, and crisis-management capabilities around the world.
NATO member-countries are “determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. They seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area. They are resolved to unite their efforts for collective defense and for the preservation of peace and security.”
NATO is an alliance that consists of 30 independent member countries. In 1949, there were 12 founding members of the alliance: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States.
On the campaign trail and throughout his presidency, Donald Trump called NATO “obsolete,” and said many insulting things about the other member countries. One of his main beefs with NATO is his belief that U.S. European allies take advantage of our military protection without paying their fair share financially — and that the United States receives nothing in return. At one point he said that “Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO, and the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany.”
This entire statement makes no sense and reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how NATO works. No other country “owes” NATO or America any money at all. The commitment NATO member countries make is to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense, not write NATO and/or other countries checks.
Without question, NATO countries should live up to their end of the bargain and be more forthcoming with their burden-sharing. To Donald Trump’s credit, between 2016 and 2018, NATO members increased their defense spending by $43 billion. But either way, the notion that America doesn’t receive anything in return for our own contribution is just false.
As the Atlantic Council — a nonpartisan, international affairs think tank — reminds us,
The United States’ relationship with its friends and allies is not a one-way street, where the United States makes, and the allies take. NATO members, and NATO as an institution, all make important contributions to U.S. national security, even as the United States rightly encourages them to do more for their own defense and to advance global security.
Sometimes these contributions are very direct and visible; at other times, they do not make the headlines. The United States derives many quantifiable benefits from being a leading member of the transatlantic alliance. The NATO commitment of 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) for defense spending is the most visible metric used to measure allied political commitment to burden-sharing across the alliance. However, that metric does not measure the output and quality of allied defense contributions. It says even less about how NATO relates to broader U.S. security and economic interests.
Donald Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric toward NATO and its member countries was irresponsible and dangerous. This is just one more example of his administration’s opposition to the rules-based international world order that has successfully governed peace, security, democracy and prosperity since World War II.
It is unnecessary for America to be a bully. It is unnecessary for America to be threatening and hostile. It is unnecessary for America to be arrogant or petty or unwelcoming. America does not need to flaunt our strength, because we are actually strong.
But let’s never forget, even though we are strong, it is absolutely critical that we have loyal friends that always have our back...allies who are more than willing to share our burdens, and who don’t blink when we ask them to join us in war.
One of the coolest things about NATO is called the Principle of Collective Defense, which is the idea that an attack against one of its members is considered as an attack against all. This principle is outlined in NATO’s founding document and is commonly known as Article 5. Article 5 has been invoked only once, in response to the 9/11 U.S. terrorist attacks. On one of the worst days in our nation’s history, our faithful allies didn’t blink and had our back 1000%.
Make no mistake, we need NATO now as much as we did in 1949, when the alliance was founded as a defense against Soviet aggression — which is, ironically, the same aggression we face today as Vladimir Putin blatantly commits war crimes in Ukraine.
Evidence:
"The North Atlantic Treaty." Washington D.C. 4 April 1949
Scott Boston, Michael Johnson, Nathan Beauchamp-Mustafaga, and Yvonne K. Crane. "Assessing the Conventional Force Imbalance in Europe Implications
for Countering Russian Local Superiority." RAND Corporation. 2018
David A. Shlapak and Michael W. Johnson. "Reinforcing Deterrence on NATO’s Eastern Flank Wargaming the Defense of the Baltics." RAND
Corporation. 2016