David Vance SubstackRead More
We all know the history of NATO but what is the future? It seems to me that NATO faces an existential crisis as it morphs into the global bully and the SOLUTION is for the USA to leave it and watch it collapse whilst putting in place a more contemporary and looser arrangement.
NATO (North Atlantic Treaty OrganisatioN) originated in the aftermath of World War II as a response to growing tensions between the Western powers and the Soviet Union. It was formally established on April 4, 1949, when twelve countries—Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States—signed the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington, D.C.
The primary driving force behind NATO’s creation was the need for collective defence against the perceived threat of Soviet expansionism in Europe.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, that should have been the moment for a major reappraisal of the role of NATO. However something much more dangerous happened because NATO used the end of the Soviet Union to become the aggressor, the global predator.
The first major wave of NATO growth came in the 1990s as former Warsaw Pact countries and newly independent states sought integration with the West. In 1999, NATO welcomed its first post-Cold War members: Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. This move was symbolic and strategic—bringing former Soviet satellites into the fold signaled a reorientation of Central Europe toward Western democratic and security structures. The process wasn’t smooth; Russia, still reeling from its diminished influence, saw this as encroachment, though NATO framed it as stabilising Europe’s new democracies.
The 2000s saw even bolder expansion. In 2004, NATO added seven more countries in its largest single enlargement: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. This included three former Soviet republics (the Baltic states), pushing NATO’s borders right up to Russia’s doorstep. The rationale was twofold: locking in democratic gains in Eastern Europe and projecting stability amid concerns like organised crime and regional conflicts (e.g., the Yugoslav Wars, where NATO had already intervened). Russia’s unease grew, with leaders like Putin later citing this as a betrayal of supposed post-Cold War assurances—though no formal treaty ever promised NATO wouldn’t expand.
Further growth came in 2009 with Albania and Croatia joining, followed by Montenegro in 2017 and North Macedonia in 2020. These additions were smaller but continued the trend of integrating the Western Balkans, a region still shaky from the 1990s conflicts.
By this point, NATO’s membership had swelled from its original 12 to 30.
How was Russia supposed to respond to this when it has been promised that NATO would not move “not one inch forward” beyond East Germany? This has been memory holed by NATO propagandists but let’s just recall that on February 9, 1990, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker told Gorbachev that if Germany joined NATO, the alliance’s jurisdiction would not move “one inch eastward” beyond East Germany. The next day, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl echoed this sentiment, suggesting NATO wouldn’t expand further east. Gorbachev accepted German reunification and NATO membership, reportedly believing these statements implied a broader restraint on expansion.
However political words mean nothing and this was not a formal treaty, just a hollow promise that would be broken . So NATO moved right up to Russian borders and of course Ukraine was then moved into play from 2014 with the repeated suggestion that it too could join NATO. It is the threat of NATO expansionism that triggers war and let’s remember that one of the most disturbing feature of the NATO treaty is Article 5 which states that an attack on one member is considered an attack on all, committing the signatories to mutual defence. NATO is the single biggest threat to global peace.
If the USA left NATO and created a voluntary coalition of Nations that would be much better for world peace.
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