Here’s Why We Should Not Abolish NATO

Yesterday, #abolishNATO trended on Twitter, albeit with most tweets making fun of the hashtag instead of supporting it. Still, with Putin blaming non-existent NATO expansion for his invasion of Ukraine, critics of NATO have become louder than ever before.

For those unaware, NATO — or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — is a military alliance between thirty different countries that has existed since 4/4/1949. Originally, NATO was made up of a dozen nations — mostly western European ones — with the hopes of countering Soviet aggression in Europe.

Ever since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, more and more people have looked at this old military alliance and questioned it and its place in the modern world. Former President Donald Trump even went so far as to discuss removing the United States from NATO during his administration, although this goal was ultimately unsuccessful.

Those who argue against NATO make a similar argument to the one Pat Buchanan made in his 2/1/2022 column, titled “NATO — Strategic Asset or Liability?” Many of them acknowledge that NATO once served a very important purpose, however, they believe that once the Cold War ended, NATO should also been shut down, just as the Warsaw Pact was.

On the topic of Buchanan’s column specifically, I want to note that it is based on a…