Do we need a national conversation about NATO?
Last Friday, I was watching a presentation about a trip to Germany.
The lady making the presentation told us about the museums, the churches and all of these benefits that they have, i.e., health care, education, early retirement, etc. I thought to myself that it must be nice to be protected by the U.S.
Like many of you, I grew up during the Cold War. I understood the Soviet threat or the idea of Warsaw Pact tanks marching in, as happened in Hungary in 1956 and in Prague in 1968.
Didn’t everything change when the U.S.S.R. collapsed and countries like Poland and Germany were given a second chance? How long are we supposed to be committed to defending prosperous countries that don’t pay their NATO dues, open their borders recklessly and do not have babies to maintain their populations?
Formed in 1949 in the face of the threat of Soviet-communist expansion across the Eurasian landmass in the wake of Europe’s devastation as a result of the Second World War, NATO extended the U.S. security umbrella–including atomic weapons–to France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Iceland, and Canada. Three years later, Turkey and Greece joined. In 1955, West Germany became a member. Spain joined in 1982. It was a defensive alliance against possible Soviet military aggression. The sole reason for the existence of that alliance was to prevent the Soviet Union from militarily overrunning Western Europe. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, NATO’s original mission ended.
But like any huge bureaucracy, NATO sought other reasons to continue its existence and to expand. It intervened in the Balkans during the Clinton administration. It intervened in Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States. It intervened in Libya to overthrow the Qaddafi regime in 2011. It has worked in Iraq to train Iraqi security forces. NATO’s website shows just how far it has strayed from its original purpose. It bills itself as a “crisis prevention and management organization” that can “undertake a wide range of military operations and missions.” It boasts that it is “engaged in operations and missions around the world,” including “cooperation with the African Union,” and “disaster relief operations.” NATO troops remain in Kosovo, and NATO ships provide maritime safety in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization apparently seeks to extend its reach to the western Pacific and China’s threat to Taiwan.
Coincident with its new missions and operations, NATO has more than doubled in size. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, 16 more countries have joined the alliance. So as the Soviet threat first receded then ended, NATO got bigger and moved closer and closer to Russia’s European border in a fit of hubris and reckless diplomacy that George F. Kennan called “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era.” Kennan foresaw that NATO expansion would revive the worst aspects of Russian nationalism and imperialism. And so it did. The tragedy of the Ukraine War has its roots in unfettered NATO expansion.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m no fan of Putin and the invasion of Ukraine is criminal. Yes, I support helping Ukraine because a Putin victory there is bad.
However, I am talking about NATO, and this commitment to defend countries that don’t want to defend themselves. Over time, many NATO countries created vast welfare states while relying on our boys to guarantee their security. How long is that supposed to last? At what point do we say that it’s an alliance and not a free lunch?
Here’s my suggestion: Let’s have a conversation about NATO and whether it’s in our interest in 2024. It was in 1949 or 1962 or 1980 but is it today?