Inasmuch as NATO keeps Germany “down” (while the EU helps raise Germany “up” in the economic sphere), this allows the Germans to have their cake and eat it too, counting on Americans to shoulder the burden of collective security and leaving them free to posture as a more reasonable interlocutor with the Russians. It is difficult to see how this is in America’s interest — unless NATO’s primary purpose is not in deterring Russia through collective security, but preventing the rise of a European rival to American power, and providing America with a force-multiplier for its own adventures.
Perhaps that was NATO’s real purpose all along. As it happens, Lord Ismay had another line about what the alliance was for: NATO “must grow until the whole free world gets under one umbrella.” Shorn of idealistic trappings, what this means is that NATO is an ideological project as well as a structure for collective security. Getting in means a country is part of the “free world,” and deserving of protection. And there is only one country holding the protective umbrella.
It is under this banner that NATO has been extended to cover not only the Baltic states but to countries like Albania and Montenegro, not to mention providing cover for its more flagrantly activist adventures in Kosovo and Libya. And it is the idealism of that self-conception that has blinded us to the problem: A defensive alliance that continually expands is no longer defensive. Good fences may well make good neighbors, but only if you build the fence on a stable property line. Keep moving it, as NATO has done, and neighborliness will evaporate rather quickly.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member