Before winning the presidency, Donald Trump stated that, as president, he may not support
countries within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization which haven’t met defense spending
guidelines.
NATO recommends that 2% of a country’s GDP be spent on its military, a qualification
which is only met by the US, the UK, Greece, Estonia, and Poland.
Many fear that with Trump as president, the US may withdraw from NATO entirely.
So, what would happen if the US left NATO?
Well, NATO has been called the cornerstone of collective defense by President Barack
Obama, and has been a guiding force for much of the 20th and 21st century.
In the aftermath of World War Two, as the Cold War was gearing up, a number of European
Countries, plus the United States agreed to support each other militarily in case of attack,
implicitly from the Soviet Union.
Originally there were only twelve member countries, but today it consists of 28 states.
This militarized alliance sees the United States as both its biggest beneficiary, as
well as the one taking on the most responsibility.
Article Five of the NATO Treaty states that “an attack against one Ally is considered
as an attack against all Allies”, and in Trump’s eyes, this is a costly proposition.
Article Five was triggered for the first and only time just following September 11th, 2001,
and it led to a NATO allied war in Afghanistan.
Roughly a third of troops in the country for over a decade were made up of NATO forces,
working in the interest of the United States.
But in exchange, the US has comprised roughly three-quarters of the entire group’s defense
spending, an amount Trump believes is too heavy of a burden while few other members
are not even meeting their recommended minimum.
But pulling out of NATO, or even decreasing the US’s role in NATO could be a dangerous
proposition.
Firstly, most of the member countries in NATO are not only relying on the US’s military
power, but its nuclear power too.
If that nuclear assurance is no longer there, any non-nuclear country could start building
their own as a deterrent.
Another issue is that this union of countries has almost never gone to war with its fellow
members, which is reasonable when you know that an attack will turn all of your allies
into enemies.
This could also change without a stable NATO.
Finally, as NATO was created to buffer Russia’s interest in Europe, it actually seems to work.
In recent years, Russia has made incursions into neighboring Ukraine and Georgia, neither
of which are NATO members.
Meanwhile, many have pointed to Russian interest in the Baltic States, which are members of
NATO, and have been seemingly safe from outright invasion, specifically on that basis.
Problematically, while Trump is correct that many member states do not meet their recommended
minimum military contribution, the union appears to serve a larger function than simply a group
of allies.
Without the US in NATO, the union loses much of its power and funding, and one of the cornerstones
of global peace could come crumbling down.
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But while the United States does maintain a lion’s share of NATO, the organization
is more powerful as a group than it could ever be as a single country.
So what exactly does NATO do, and how powerful are they really?
Find out in this video.
Nato is involved in peacekeeping missions across places like Afghanistan, Kosovo, and
various regions in Africa.
They manage ground, air, and naval operations for surveillance training, logistics, and
other crisis management purposes.
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