This article was automatically translated from the original Turkish version.
When examining the crises currently facing NATO, which has long been the backbone of the Transatlantic alliance, one is struck by the sense that the alliance is on the verge of cracking. NATO, established according to its first Secretary General Lord Ismay’s formulation to “keep the Soviets out, the Americans in, and the Germans down,” is now facing serious tests. These include the uneven distribution of cost burdens among members, USA’s waning interest in European security, and the erosion of credibility in Article 5, which commits members to defend one another. These are only a few of the issues. For those who look only at NATO’s recent past, many of these problems appear linked to Trump’s unconventional style. Yet when viewed in the broader context of NATO’s entire history, the challenges encountered reveal recurring patterns.
The crisis narrative surrounding NATO today should not be interpreted as an abrupt rupture signaling the alliance’s collapse, but rather as the re-emergence of long-standing tensions under shifting power dynamics. The problems NATO faces are largely not new; what is new is that these problems can no longer be deferred.
From the U.S. perspective, dismantling NATO carries serious opportunity costs. Even if its strategic priority has diminished, the alliance is still seen as worth preserving due to the uncertainties and secondary risks that would arise from its complete elimination. On the European front, the fundamental motivation to keep the U.S. within the alliance has not changed. Therefore, even extraordinary and politically unsettling U.S. initiatives, such as increased interest in Greenland, cannot be met with strong resistance by European allies. This dynamic suggests that NATO endures not because of a shared will to sustain it, but because none of the parties are willing to bear the cost of its dissolution. However, this situation does not generate any expectation that the alliance will resume a decisive and active role in international politics.
Trump’s assertions during both his first and second terms—that Europe was not doing enough to secure its own defense and that the U.S. was bearing these costs alone—shocked those who valued Transatlantic relations. Critics argued that Trump had “tainted” the Transatlantic bond, regarded by some as nearly sacred, through framing it in terms of cost, money, and fair burden-sharing. Yet similar arguments were raised by Dwight D. Eisenhower during NATO’s very early years, weakening the historical foundation of these criticisms. Eisenhower did not disregard Europe; by many measures, he was a NATO president. As the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War II, he was not someone who could be accused of neglecting European security. By the 1950s, concerns were growing that Western European allies were over-relying on American military presence and nuclear deterrence without sufficient investment in conventional forces. The core issue was whether NATO could maintain its legitimacy and sustainability in U.S. domestic politics if Europe did not assume greater responsibility. Eisenhower, who repeatedly warned European leaders that American support could not be indefinite, was one of the foremost advocates of this approach.
This period set the framework for later disagreements. Indeed, this debate has repeatedly resurfaced in NATO’s history, under similar justifications and nearly identical rhetorical patterns. The Kennedy and Johnson administrations argued that Europe must be capable of sustaining a non-nuclear conflict using its own conventional forces. Nixon and Reagan were also presidents who consistently emphasized that allies must assume greater responsibility for their own defense. The flame of this debate did not die after Cold War ended. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, as European countries rapidly cut defense spending, the question “Why is the American taxpayer financing NATO?” returned to the forefront. Trump’s distinction may lie in his forceful expression of this recurring dynamic through his distinctive style.
One of the primary concerns among NATO’s European members today is Trump’s agenda to withdraw some U.S. troops stationed in Europe. Europeans believe that with the region once again becoming a potential conventional warfare theater and Russia so highly mobilized, reducing U.S. troop levels poses military and strategic problems. Yet this debate is not new. In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, amid U.S. war-weariness and domestic unrest, serious proposals in the U.S. Congress foresaw significant reductions in American troop presence in Europe unless European allies increased their defense efforts. Figures like Mike Mansfield, one of the architects of these congressional initiatives, began adopting a more assertive stance on the costs of foreign policy. Meanwhile, NATO’s European members, particularly West Germany, feared that any reduction in U.S. military presence would weaken deterrence against the Soviet Union. Although these proposals were significantly softened, repeated votes in Congress clearly demonstrated that U.S. alliance commitments were politically conditional. The tactic of threatening withdrawal without implementing it gradually became a frequently used pressure tool within the alliance.
The trade agenda, often seen as a hallmark of Trump’s approach, is also not new to NATO. The U.S. has historically linked its decisions on NATO to its commercial relations with Europe. One of the clearest examples is the Nixon era. From the late 1960s onward, the U.S. faced serious balance-of-payments pressures and raised issues such as NATO bases, salaries, and overseas procurement expenditures. In this context, Kissinger, who served first as National Security Advisor and later as Secretary of State, pursued a strategy of linking security commitments to trade matters. The administration felt compelled to demonstrate to Congress and the American public that European allies were contributing fairly to their own security; otherwise, unilateral pressure for troop withdrawals would intensify. The continuation of the U.S. military presence was sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly, tied to allies’ financial behavior. However, unlike Trump, Nixon and Kissinger sought not to directly threaten NATO but to quietly shift cost burdens through technocratic mechanisms. The agreements developed took forms such as large-scale purchases of U.S.-made military equipment. The central actor in these negotiations was West Germany. Its trade surpluses and growing economic power placed it in a position to meet offset payment demands while simultaneously making it politically sensitive to U.S. pressure. Of course, European governments resented these practices, which they viewed as the commodification of security. U.S. officials also feared that excessive pressure might trigger nationalist backlash or tendencies toward alliance distancing. Nevertheless, Nixon-era negotiations exemplify how burden-sharing within NATO evolved into a comprehensive bargaining process extending beyond tanks, divisions, or defense budgets.
Finally, one of the key crises within NATO today stems from the U.S. desire to increasingly frame the alliance as an extension of its competition with China, while European allies’ priorities do not fully align. This creates a structural tension with military, political, and economic dimensions. From the U.S. perspective, China is no longer merely a regional competitor in the Asia-Pacific. Through its activities in technology, supply chains, infrastructure investment, space, and cyberspace, China constitutes a global challenge. The U.S. is therefore seeking to constrain China’s rise through instruments such as export controls and containment. For many European allies, however, relations with China carry a different meaning. The threat perception generated by China in Europe is far more indirect than that posed by Russia. For these reasons, there are concerns that expanding NATO’s area of responsibility could fracture the alliance. Of course, this is not the first such rift in NATO’s more than 70-year history. One of the earliest examples was France seeking political support, material aid, and NATO legitimacy for its colonial conflicts. France framed its wars to suppress colonies as part of the global struggle against communism, urging NATO to provide stronger backing. French leaders argued that defeats in Algeria would weaken Western credibility and open the door to expanded Soviet influence. Yet these conflicts fell outside the North Atlantic geographic scope defined in the treaty. Moreover, other allies, primarily the U.S. and England, did not wish to involve NATO in Third World conflicts or risk eroding its legitimacy. Ultimately, NATO did not engage in direct collective action, which became one of the obstacles on France’s path to withdrawing from NATO’s integrated military command structure.
All these continuities do not mean that nothing has changed within NATO. The most significant change is the rising economic and strategic importance of Asia. The relative importance the U.S. assigns to Europe has markedly declined over the past two decades. This is not a rupture, but a realignment of U.S. global priorities. While Europe was the central theater of great power competition during the Cold War, today China is defined as America’s primary long-term strategic rival. The military, technological, and economic core of this competition lies not in Europe but in the Pacific region. Consequently, Europe is increasingly losing its central position in U.S. grand strategy. To the U.S., Europe is no longer an arena where existential uncertainties may arise. No power capable of establishing hegemony over the continent, like Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, currently exists. This has shifted Europe’s status in U.S. strategic thinking from a core strategic area to one requiring maintenance at minimal cost.
Grand strategy is as much about choices as it is about renunciations. For the U.S., every military unit maintained in Europe, every diplomatic focus, and every budget item allocated there represents a resource unavailable for use in Asia-Pacific. Considering the maritime, aerial, space, and industrial dimensions of competition with China, Europe is becoming an increasingly clear opportunity cost for the U.S. Even if the U.S. attempts to integrate NATO into a broader strategic framework targeting China, Europe’s contribution in this context is structurally limited. European navies cannot sustainably project presence in the Pacific. European publics do not perceive China as a direct military threat. This renders Europe a weak instrument in America’s core strategic competition.
In sum, NATO remains one of the foundational institutions of U.S. foreign policy. Yet the persistence of an institution does not equate to equal strategic priority. Preserving NATO is partly a function of the high cost of abandoning it. But this does not automatically restore Europe’s strategic centrality.
U.S. planning does not ignore the scenario in which pressure simultaneously emerges in both Europe and Asia. Within this framework, Asia is the primary theater, while Europe is positioned as a secondary theater to be stabilized at the lowest possible cost. Ultimately, Europe is no longer the starting point of U.S. strategy but an area adjusted according to other priorities. Debates over burden-sharing within NATO, the China issue, and the discourse on European strategic autonomy are all consequences of this transformation.
On the European side, the mission to “keep the Russians out and the Americans in,” as Lord Ismay put it, continues. It appears that European allies are so motivated by these objectives that even extraordinary developments, such as increased U.S. interest in Greenland, will not lead them to overturn the table.