We Must Save NATO

A former Supreme Allied Commander of the alliance on why it’s essential for world peace

- Admiral James Stavridis (Ret.)

VERY FEW AMERICANS COULD FIND TINY MONTENEGRO ON A MAP. FEWER STILL COULD OFFER A COGENT DESCRIPTION OF THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SLOVENIA AND SLOVAKIA. Most can’t name the three Baltic countries. Yet thanks to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s charter, which was signed 70 years ago in Washington, every American is bound by law to defend with blood and treasure each of those nations, and 22 others to boot.

To many who lived through the Cold War, the alliance may seem like an obvious good deal. By binding Europe’s democracies together, NATO decreased the chances of the brutal conflicts that dominated the continent through the end of World War II. NATO provided a strong counterweight to Russia, and communism more broadly, helping defeat that ideology virtually without firing a shot. And when the U.S. went to war in Afghanistan after 9/11, the NATO allies went with us in their first and only exercise of Article 5.

Most of all, for decades NATO—the alliance for which I was Supreme Allied Commander from 2009 to 2013—was America’s forward operating base for democracy, embodying shared values that were worth defending and even dying for.

But the Cold War is long over, and new challenges require clear thinking, not nostalgia. Originally conceived, as its first leader, Lord “Pug” Ismay, quipped, “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down,” what exactly does NATO exist to do now? Its expansion to the tiny countries named above raises legitimate questions of common purpose and shared values. Russia is back and playing a much subtler role in undermining and threatening the organization. China’s emergence as America’s most powerful global competitor makes NATO seem anachronistic. Is the alliance, as President Donald Trump called it, “obsolete”?