Belatedly I noticed that today is the 75th anniversary of the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, so I write more in haste (to not miss the occasion) than in exhaustively researched reflection.
It takes no exhaustive research, though, for any reasonable, freedom-loving human to be thankful for NATO’s salutary existence and to be angry at those, including orange-haired Putin-lovers, who would allow or even hasten its demise.
Originally a 12-nation alliance, now 32 nations strong, NATO always has been and still remains a purely defensive federation. It never has taken, or even threatened to take, any sovereign, foreign territory. Formed solely to deter and, if need be, repel aggression, NATO is a nearly ideal manifestation of the (small-‘r’) republican ethos: It safeguards liberty and human rights while inspiring other nations to do likewise.
NATO’s existence seems a menace only to those suffering paranoia and an affront only to those with evil, expansionist, autocratic intentions. Anyone who sympathizes with those paranoid autocrats, or pretends NATO somehow is a transgressor against the legitimate interests of other regimes, is either outrageously ignorant or willfully, malignantly deceitful.
If, in 75 years of history, NATO has never taken offensive action for territorial expansion, why would it suddenly be a threat to do so? If, in three-quarters of a century, while possessing the greatest collective military might in world history, NATO has always acted as a shield rather than a sword, why would it be suspected of sharpening a scimitar for conquest?
What NATO has accomplished, though, in honorable defense of liberty, is stunning. Against an aggressively expansionist, brutal, ideologically fanatic communist bloc, a regime possessing a stunning array of nuclear weapons and no compunctions about treating its citizens as human fodder in both war and peace, NATO stared down, outworked, outthought, outinspired, and outperformed that Evil Empire.
As a result, 200 million human souls tasted freedom for the first time ever. Most of those 200 million saw their standards of living rise, often dramatically. And another 150 million, those in Russia itself, had a chance to do the same but fell prey to oligarchs, an alcoholic leader, and then a ruthless murderer from the KGB. Overall, then, NATO thus has been an unambiguous, unparalleled force for good in a world full of evildoers.
Of course NATO hasn’t been perfect, and its Western European member nations often have been lazy and self-indulgent, unwilling to live up to their obligations for the common defense. The United States, which territorially is the least directly threatened member of NATO, continues to bear more than its share of NATO’s burdens.
In return, though, the U.S. secures many benefits from membership (too numerous to be listed here), including free-world trading partnerships and security support that promotes its citizens’ worldwide freedom of movement and commerce and substantially undergird American prosperity. Meanwhile, as long as Russia, with its nearly 5,600 nuclear warheads, is led by that KGB murderer or one of his like-minded brethren, NATO’s existence and its Article 5 common-defense mandate deter what could otherwise become the worst armed conflagration the planet has ever known.
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So, here is wishing a happy diamond anniversary to NATO, in great gratitude for its existence and for the humane, ethically exalted mission it continues to serve.
Indeed, with the NATO treaty adding the element of security that the U.S. Declaration of Independence could not guarantee, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg was right to say about the treaty that “never has a single document with so few words meant so much to so many people, so much security, so much prosperity, and so much peace.”