NATO is a military alliance that was formed in 1949 as a response to Soviet expansion in Europe. The original member countries were the United States, Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Canada, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and the United Kingdom.
The foundations of the cooperation are regulated by the preamble and fourteen articles of the North Atlantic Treaty. The preamble makes it clear that the alliance shall operate in accordance with the UN Charter and democratic values, and shall work for peace and security. The core of the treaty is Article Five, which defines the framework for the mutual defence guarantee. According to Article Five, all members of the alliance commit themselves to act in the event of an armed attack against any of the members in Europe or North America.
As early as 1952, Greece and Turkey joined the alliance. In addition, the parts of Germany occupied by the Western powers were considered insufficiently protected, which led to West Germany being recognised as a sovereign state and admitted to NATO in 1955.
Already at this stage we see a tension between the member states and their different roles and capacities. On the one hand there are full partners, and on the other various kinds of subordinates. West Germany and Italy are defeated states and act as vassals. The United Kingdom and France have sovereign roles, but the more the United States developed into a superpower, the smaller the role of the old European great powers became. Then there is Canada, which is part of the British Commonwealth and a neighbour of the United States. Greece and Turkey are two countries that were relatively impoverished after the two world wars and other conflicts in the region. After that we have a number of small states such as Denmark, Iceland, the Netherlands and so on, whose military capacities are small and who are forced to rely on cooperation.
From an early stage it was the United States that contributed capital to build up NATO’s defence in Europe, which was considered to benefit itself, as this kept the Soviet Union at bay — or at least attempted to do so.
That half of Europe was lost to communism is discussed less in NATO contexts: countries such as Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, as well as the Baltic states. Large parts of the former Germany were also lost, some regions being transformed into East Germany. Austria was also occupied by the Soviet Union, but the country was released after guarantees of neutrality. It can probably be stated with some calm that NATO’s existence began on a steep uphill slope, and with a significant failure, where large parts of Europe ended up behind the Iron Curtain for over 40 years.
In 1982 Spain also joined, and a decade passed without new member states. After the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the cooperation should have been re-evaluated, since the enemy no longer existed. Instead, a major expansion continued, and several states in the former Eastern Bloc became members. For Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia this was of course a kind of guarantee against future aggression from the east, but also a recognition and a welcome into the Western community.
The later phases of expansion during the 2000s brought in ever more small countries seeking protection, like The Baltic states, Albania, Montenegro, etc, however, they were not able to contribute very much themselves. An imbalance arose between strong countries and defenceless countries. The expansion eastwards increasingly became a way of encircling the new Russia and building military bases around the country, despite promises not to expand. And of course Russia had to be portrayed as an enemy, otherwise NATO cooperation would have had no meaning or purpose.
In the new world, where great powers act within their respective spheres of interest, NATO’s role becomes obscure. Through support for Ukraine and other former Soviet republics, NATO has involved itself in Russia’s sphere of interest, and this is not appreciated in Moscow. Just as Washington does not like Russians supporting Cuba or Venezuela, which lie in America’s sphere. Or Taiwan being encouraged towards self-rule, which lies within China’s sphere of interest. Acting within another great power’s sphere of interest can be perceived as casus belli, that is, a reason for war. And in a world with several equally strong actors, this can be fatal.
In this situation, one can understand Donald Trump’s desire to abandon NATO. There is, on the one hand, a risk that the cooperation leads to hostilities towards other great powers, and on the other hand the alliance costs more than it is worth. The United States is, in principle, NATO; without its enormous army the cooperation would be impressive, but not particularly expansive. The United States can manage on its own and can act without all the signatures and articles that govern NATO, and the US avoids having to rescue all the small states that might be threatened or invaded by a foreign power.
And last but not least, NATO without the United States is, in many respects, a European great power, and in fact a future rival to the United States. All that is required is that the clowns in Brussels are replaced — and that says quite a lot about why they are sitting there in the first place.
