The Day That NATO Died
how the old guard has failed and why it might be a good thing
‘Singing bye bye Miss American Pie, drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry.’
Its demise didn’t all happen at once. It wasn’t a sudden, tragic loss like that of Buddy Holly; no, it’s been a slow death, unraveling over the last few quiescent post-Cold War decades. The coroner won’t be called for some time still, but the last week’s events offer definitive proof: Friday was the day NATO died.
Let’s back up briefly.
NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was created in 1949 in response to the continued expansion of the USSR. The alliance was meant to establish collective defense among the founding nations in case the Soviets ever got too frisky with one of its Western opponents.
Of course, it was Churchill who begged FDR not to entrust Stalin with so much territory and influence towards the end of the Second World War because, correctly, England still ‘had to share a continent with them.’ Roosevelt didn’t live long enough to see ol’ Uncle Joe turn heel, but it’s not like it took a Nostradamus to envision such a predicament.
The United States only enjoyed a few years as the world’s nuclear hegemon. What top scientists and officials in the States were convinced would take the Soviets decades to produce, the Russkis dropped their first nuclear weapon in 1949, which totally harshed the vibe of post-WWII tranquility.
No major power was eager to embroil itself in another global conflict, especially one that involved atomic weaponry, and thus NATO was formed, and the Cold War began.
By the grace of God (and some skilled diplomacy from Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev) NATO’s Article 5 was never put to the test during the height of Soviet Russia’s nuclear prowess. Article 5 establishes the notion that if a foreign power attacks a NATO member country, then the other member nations must come to its defense as if they were assaulted themselves.
The strength of NATO, the apocalyptic consequences of mutually assured destruction, and communism’s ineptitude at competing with American free markets proved to be enough to keep the peace for over half a century.
The only time Article 5 has been put to the test was after 9/11, a decade after the collapse of the USSR, NATO forces invaded Afghanistan. Admittedly, a handful of terrorists in caves wasn’t the best test for Western solidarity since the foe didn’t have a literal doomsday machine ready to nuke the whole world at a moment’s notice — but the alliance worked, nonetheless.
Okay, let’s fast forward a few years. Since 1949, NATO has added a nation or two. From 12 countries at its inception, the alliance has grown to include 32 nations, including stalwart defenders of Western values like Turkey and Canada.
Honestly, though, the idea that America or the UK or France ought to deploy troops to defend Bulgaria or North Macedonia has always been absurd on the face of it. I mean, maybe, if Martians invaded Lithuania or something, but even then, there would be some real wringing of hands.
In short, this is why Ukraine has never been admitted to NATO. There was a tacit agreement between it and many NATO countries that they’d defend it after the former Soviet state gave up its nukes in the 90s (if that seemed like a dumb idea then, boy, is it dumb now). The Russian invasion of Ukraine and its subsequent lack of consequences demonstrated how feckless the organization has become; it might as well be called the United Nations.
Donald Trump has long been cast as an opponent to NATO and that, given his druthers, would pull the United States out of the agreement. Under his presidency, he did manage to get other member countries to start pulling their weight when it came to defense spending, but retrospectively, the writing was already on the wall.
It’s unclear when it happened; maybe it was the Obama presidency, or maybe it was COVID, or maybe it was the calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan, or maybe it was when Russia invaded Ukraine after President Biden asked them politely not to, but America is no longer the superpower it used to be.
No longer does a stern warning mitigate disaster or thwart the intention of bad actors.
Donald Trump, whether he realizes this or not, has admitted as much during the ceasefire negotiations with Russia and Ukraine at the start of his second term. Previously, Trump has proudly told the story of how he kept Putin from invading the Donbas by threatening direct and consequential military force aimed at the Kremlin. If all went as he said, it worked.
But now, after four years of President Biden, President Jill Biden, and President ‘Aides of Joe Biden’, the same negotiation tactics from Trump don’t even appear to be on the table. He’s all but laid out the red carpet to the Donbas and Kyiv to Putin in the few short weeks he’s retaken the Oval Office and even went so far as to claim that Zelenskyy, not Putin, is a dictator and that Ukraine started the war.
His terrible conflict-resolution strategy could be explained as an effort to coerce Europe into taking a larger role in funding the war effort and guardianship of Kyiv, ‘the bread basket of,’ you guessed it, ‘Europe.’ But even still, his willingness to cede control of the situation to Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron (two resident lefties of European leadership) reveals that America has considerably less weight to throw around than it used to.
Even more to the point, England and France have both supported the idea of sending troops to Ukraine to assist with peacekeeping. An attack by Russia on those forces would enact Article 5 and would necessitate American troops on the ground in Ukraine. Trump, who campaigned on an anti-war platform and has never met a bad deal he didn’t want to withdraw from (the Paris Agreement, WHO, the JCPOA), wouldn’t rest his legacy on the clause of a contract enacted by a conflict from which he’s already recused himself.
‘and all the good ol’ boys drinking whiskey and rye’
You see, Donald Trump publicly defenestrating Zelenskyy from the Oval Office, and J.D. Vance acting like a petulant teenager is just a sideshow. The real narrative is the one I’ve been writing about for the past several years — the unipolar world in which America was the cultural, economic, industrial, and military dominant force is fading into history.
At the very least, at my most optimistic, it means that the old guard of agreements will be thrown out, and each new covenant will be negotiated based on its individual merits.
Trump told Zelenskyy he didn’t have the cards to play, which is abundantly true, but neither does the United States. The American economy is still tenuous, inflation hasn’t been tackled, and the American people don’t support the Ukrainian war effort — something I predicted would happen immediately after Russia’s invasion.
To continue to a thought from my last piece, it’s not necessarily Trump’s, or even Biden’s, fault that we’re in this position of weakness.
For decades, America has been running off the fumes of an older generation’s innovations and accomplishments. Trump was elected in 2016 and played the role of' ‘strong man,’ which worked largely due to his unpredictability and the country’s well-earned reputation.
Biden took office and went the opposite direction, placating Iran, China, and Russia with soft foreign policy. The Biden Administration inadvertently called Trump’s American bluff with the help of Moscow and Beijing.
Like I said a couple of weeks ago, it isn’t one president that is to blame per se, it’s the oscillation of distinctly different foreign policies that have dealt us such a miserable hand; as it turns out, we might be more of a paper tiger than we previously realized.
As with anything, it’ll be years before any of this comes to a conclusion, which is long enough for me to distance myself from any prediction I’ve made that is wildly inaccurate but not too long for me to remind everyone how right I may have been.
The war in Gaza isn’t wrapping up quickly, a lasting peace between Ukraine and Russia feels unlikely, and China is still encircling Taiwan. BRICS is on the rise, if not economically, at least rhetorically, and NATO is on the decline — but that doesn’t mean the United States has to be as well.
The dissolution of the old world order doesn’t have to be a terrible thing if the West can get its act together, but power vacuums don’t exist for long. What the Zelenskyy-Trump incident tells us, maybe more than anything, is that no outcome is certain, and the future is up for grabs.
To a better next week,
Cheers,
~FDA
Having watched the whole Oval Office meeting between Zelensky and Trump, I was amazed that Trump kept his cool as long as he did.