Donald Trump and NATO

By Michael Curtis

Whatever else can be said about Donald Trump, everyone can agree he is a provocateur who, intentionally or not, stirs controversy on subjects to which little political attention has been focused.  He has injected a new issue in the presidential campaign by referring to NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as “obsolete” and arguing that the United States was spending too much money on it, while some or many of the other countries were “freeloaders.”

It is improbable that Trump has thought long or deeply on the subject of NATO, but he has opened a genuine debate on it. NATO, founded on April 4, 1949 by 12 countries, was a product of the Cold War mainly intended to provide collective security against the Soviet Union and its satellite countries in the Warsaw Pact. After the end of the Soviet Union this particular main objective was no longer germane but NATO increased to 28 countries.....

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