Former president Donald Trump has long made it clear that he deeply resents NATO, a 75-year-old military alliance that is composed of the United States and 30 other countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and France.
Trump escalated his criticism of NATO on February 10, 2024, when he said that, if he is elected president again in November 2024, the US would not defend any member country that had not “paid up.”
Trump also said that he would encourage Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, “to do whatever the hell they want” with a NATO member that was “delinquent” in paying for its defense.
NATO is the Western world’s foremost defense organization. It is headquartered in Brussels. The central idea behind NATO’s existence, as explained in Article 5 of NATO’s 1949 treaty, is that each NATO country agrees to defend any other NATO country in case of an attack.
NATO has no standing army and relies on member countries to volunteer their military forces to carry out any operation. So all NATO countries agree to spend 2% of their annual gross domestic product on military defense in order to support NATO.
Some countries, including the US, UK, Poland, Finland, Greece and the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania devote more than 2% of their GDP to military defense. About half of NATO’s members, including Germany, France, Norway, Spain and Turkey, spend less.
NATO leader Jens Stoltenberg said in a written statement on February 11 that Trump’s suggestion “undermines all of our security, including that of the US, and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk.” Other political leaders also criticized Trump’s comments as highly dangerous.
As a scholar of history and international affairs, it is clear to me that Trump does not seem to understand the many advantages the US gets from being part of NATO. Here are three major benefits for the US that come with NATO membership:
1. NATO gives the US reliable allies
Militarily and economically, the US is a hugely formidable power. It has the largest nuclear arsenal on earth and continues to be the largest economy in the world.
Yet, without its allies in Asia, and above all without those in Europe, the US would be a much-diminished superpower.
NATO provides the US with a leadership position in one of the strongest military alliance networks in the world. This leadership goes well beyond the security realm – it has profound and very positive political and economic ripple effects. For instance, most Western countries purchase their arms and military equipment from the US.
Russia counts among its most important allies controversial regimes known for human rights violations – such as Iran, North Korea and, to some extent, China. The US considers economically strong countries including Canada, Germany, France, Italy and many other established democracies as its friends and allies.
NATO has invoked Article 5 only once – immediately after the US was attacked on September 11, 2001. America’s NATO allies were ready to come to the aid of the US – and, for good or for bad, many subsequently participated in the United States’ war in Afghanistan.
2. NATO provides peace and stability
NATO provides a blanket of protection and mutual security for all its members, helping explain why the vast majority of countries in central and eastern Europe clamored to join NATO after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Today, Ukraine continues to push for NATO membership – although its application to join appears unlikely to be granted anytime soon, given the military commitment this would create for the alliance.
Russia fought short wars in recent years with Moldova and Georgia and also an earlier one with Ukraine, prior to 2022, but Putin has not invaded neighboring countries that are NATO members. Invading a NATO country would bring the entire alliance into a war with Russia, which would be a risky gamble for Moscow.
Despite international concern that Russia’s war in Ukraine could spill over into neighboring NATO countries, like Poland and the three Baltic nations, it has not yet happened.
3. NATO has helped the US get stronger
The Soviet Union’s military alliance, called the Warsaw Pact, required the USSR and its satellite states in central and eastern Europe, including East Germany, Poland and Hungary, to join. NATO, on the other hand, is a voluntary military alliance, and countries must go through a demanding application process before they are accepted.
The United States’ current presence in Europe – and Asia – has not been imposed by force. Instead, US troops and influence in Europe are generally welcomed by its allies.
By joining NATO and accepting the military leadership of Washington, the other NATO countries give the US unprecedented influence and power. Norwegian scholar Geir Lundestad called this an “empire by invitation.” This informal empire has deeply anchored the US and its influence in Europe.
A split in opinion
President Joe Biden has repeatedly said that under his leadership the US would “defend every inch of NATO territory,” speaking primarily in the context of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Biden has repeatedly warned Putin that he would face the consequences if Russia attacks a NATO member.
For Trump, however, transatlantic solidarity and mutual defense appear to count for nothing. For him, it seems to be all about the money and whether or not NATO countries spend 2% of their GDP on defense.
And despite Putin having begun a terrible war of aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, Trump has continued to voice his admiration for the Russian leader.
Trump does not view Putin’s Russia as an existential threat to the US-led global order. And thus he does not seem to realize that the US and its European allies need protection from Putin’s Russia, the kind of protection offered by NATO.
NATO’s existence gives the US strong and reliable allies, provides Washington with great influence in Europe and makes sure that most of Europe remains stable and peaceful.
Klaus W Larres is a professor of history and international affairs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Napoléon said he would rather fight allies than have them. I don’t know how many times Europeans have to lose a ground war against Russia before America realizes it is a losing proposition to join them in doing so.
Originally, NATO was a defensive alliance. Now it has become an offensive alliance because its founding principles of defense don’t apply any more. Currently, NATO looks around for conflicts to get involved in.
In the one of the most succinct summaries ever written, Winston Churchill wrote that NATO’s purpose was:
“To keep America in, Germany down, and Russia out.’
To this day that remains our strategy towards Germany.
Trump’s description of the alliance as useless smacks of pure ignorance of history. It’s not a question of dues paid or money owed. The European population is over 600 million people, together with the US and Canada, with populations over 300 million, totaling over one trillion people, the largest military alliance in history. NATO has no standing army, instead its members most contribute their military to a combined force.
The United States as NATO’s acknowledged leader derives enormous political power from the alliance. A famous scholar called it an “empire by invitation.” Henry Kissinger once stated that without NATO, the US would become no longer be the world’s dominant power, but instead, just a far-off island in international relations.
Neither the Soviet Union nor Russia has ever attacked a NATO member nation, because that would instantly lead to a third world war. Instead of asking how much NATO costs, the real question is how much is its worth to the world to avoid a third world war? Would any price be too high? By any kind of measurement, NATO is one of the world’s greatest bargains.
Robert Berke
You write as if America’s connection to NATO presenting a third world war as a likely outcome of some events that America can’t control is a good thing.
I think you’re misquoting me. I don’t think US leadership of NATO has always been good, Iraq was a serious disaster, while many NATO members, like Germany, France, and Spain condemned the US and refused to participate. What I said is that NATO has been a major factor in avoiding a third world war. That I think is a good thing.