NATO today comprises 32 member states, a number that has grown considerably since the alliance’s founding in 1949. The original twelve signatories were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They were subsequently joined by Greece and Turkey (1952), West Germany (1955), Spain (1982), Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic (1999), Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania (2004), Croatia and Albania (2009), Montenegro (2017), North Macedonia (2020), Finland (2023), and Sweden (2024).

The alliance’s founding logic was clear: a collective defense architecture to check Soviet expansionism. The question now before serious observers of American foreign policy is whether that logic continues to hold, and whether the United States should remain inside an arrangement that was designed for a world that no longer exists.

I. The Original Rationale Has Expired

NATO was created to counter the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet-led military alliance established in 1955. In July 1991, the Warsaw Pact was formally dissolved in Prague, ending thirty-six years of military organization. The Soviet Union itself followed five months later. The Cold War, in its classical formulation, was over.

An alliance created to counter a specific adversary must at minimum re-examine its purpose when that adversary ceases to exist. NATO did not do so. Instead it persisted, expanded, and in the decades that followed assumed new missions: peacekeeping in the Balkans, operations in Afghanistan, support for counterterrorism. These missions represent institutional inertia as much as strategic design. The case for American membership in NATO was compelling in 1949. Its basis in 2025 requires a fresh argument, not merely inherited assumptions.

II. NATO Has Moved East

A second and underappreciated argument concerns NATO’s geographic expansion. Multiple former members of the Warsaw Pact have since become members of NATO. The eastward march of the alliance has absorbed Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Albania. Finland and Sweden, long neutral, joined in 2023 and 2024. NATO’s frontier has moved to within striking distance of Russia’s border.

One need not be an apologist for Moscow to acknowledge the obvious: this expansion, viewed from the other side, looks exactly like what Western governments would find intolerable in reverse. Ask any honest American strategist how Washington would have responded had Warsaw Pact nations absorbed Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean between 1993 and 2004. They would not have been pleased. The double standard is worth noting, if not resolving.

III. The Defense Burden Has Not Been Shared Fairly

A third argument concerns the systematic free-riding that has plagued the alliance throughout its history. NATO members have long agreed, at least formally, to spend 2% of GDP on defense. For decades the agreement was honored more in the breach than in the observance. In 2014, only three of the then-28 members met the threshold. By 2023, the number had reached ten. Only under sustained American pressure, and the shock of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, did European members accelerate their commitments. NATO’s own figures show that in 2024, European allies and Canada had collectively reached 2.02% of GDP, up from 1.43% a decade earlier.

The economic term for this behavior is a textbook tragedy of the commons. Each ally benefits from collective security while rationally seeking to minimize its own contribution, in the expectation that others will bear the burden. Mr. Trump has repeatedly and correctly identified this dynamic. His criticism has not been warmly received. But its substance has not been refuted.

At the June 2025 summit in The Hague, NATO members committed to an even more ambitious new target of 5% of GDP by 2035, with 3.5% directed toward core defense. Whether this pledge will be honored more faithfully than the old one is a question that American taxpayers are right to question.

IV. Article 5 Is Only as Strong as the Will to Invoke It

The animating principle of NATO is Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty: an attack on one is an attack on all. Every member is to come to the defense of any member under assault. This principle has shaped Western security thinking for seven decades.

Consider its application to the present conflict. Since 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has waged a sustained campaign of violence against American citizens and soldiers. Iran-backed operatives killed 241 U.S. Marines in the Beirut barracks bombing of 1983. Iranian proxies killed 19 American airmen in the Khobar Towers attack of 1996. The Pentagon assessed that Iranian-backed militias were responsible for the deaths of at least 603 U.S. soldiers in Iraq between 2003 and 2011. The White House has described Iran as having killed more Americans than any other terrorist regime on earth, with the death toll extending across five decades and multiple continents. The chant of “Death to America” is not metaphor; it is policy.

The Trump administration has asked NATO allies to support American military action against Iran. The response has been, at best, tepid. One data point suffices. On March 18, 2026, a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry confirmed that Germany would not intervene on Israel’s behalf in the International Court of Justice genocide case brought by South Africa. This is, strictly speaking, an ICJ matter rather than a NATO matter. But it is illustrative of a broader posture: Germany, a core NATO ally, is not prepared to stand alongside the United States in its confrontation with Iran, even when explicitly asked to do so.

Germany owes no legal obligation to Israel under NATO’s charter. Israel is not a NATO member. That is precisely the point. The United States, however, is a NATO member. And the United States is engaged in active hostilities with Iran, a state that has been killing Americans for five decades. Article 5 contemplates exactly this kind of moment. The response from the alliance has been silence, or worse.

V. The Turkey Problem

There is a fifth consideration, and it may be the most corrosive of all, because it attacks the alliance not from the outside but from within. Turkey has been a NATO member since 1952. It was admitted when it was a secular, staunchly Western state under the Kemalist legacy, with a large military and a commanding position at the strategic crossroads of Europe and Asia. That Turkey is gone.

Under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has become something that would have been unrecognizable to the alliance’s founders. It is an Islamist-governed state that has occupied northern Cyprus by military force since 1974, stationing an estimated 35,000 soldiers on territory that belongs to a sovereign, internationally recognized republic. Cyprus cannot join NATO precisely because of that occupation. The occupying power is already inside the alliance.

Turkey purchased Russia’s S-400 air and missile defense system in 2017, despite explicit and repeated warnings from Washington. The concern was not ceremonial. An S-400 operating in proximity to F-35 aircraft can gather targeting data that would enable Russia to identify and shoot down F-35s flown by Americans and allied pilots. The potential for Moscow to pass that intelligence to Tehran, Beijing, or Pyongyang is not hypothetical; it is the assessed view of American defense analysts. The Trump administration evicted Turkey from the F-35 program in 2019 and imposed Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) sanctions. As of this writing, Turkey still has not returned that system.

After Hamas massacred 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023, in the worst single-day murder of Jews since the Holocaust, Erdogan deepened his embrace of this terror organization. He hosted senior Hamas figures in Ankara, provided them with Turkish passports and safe haven, called Hamas a resistance movement rather than a terrorist organization, and prayed publicly for the destruction of Israel. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies has documented that Turkey’s government meets the criteria that the United States uses to designate state sponsors of terrorism. It is an extraordinary statement, but it has not been seriously rebutted.

Turkey has also weaponized its NATO membership against the alliance itself. It blocked Finland and Sweden’s accession for nearly two years, extorting Stockholm into censoring political dissidents as the price of admission. It has conducted airstrikes against the Syrian Democratic Forces, America’s partners in the fight against ISIS, and its drones have operated within a kilometer of American troops in Syria. Its “Blue Homeland” doctrine does not recognize the territorial waters of Greece, a fellow NATO member.

Article 5 is supposed to bind Turkey to the defense of the United States. But Erdogan, when faced with the choice after October 7, chose Hamas. When faced with the choice between American military technology and Russian air defense, he chose Moscow. The protections of NATO membership run in both directions. If Turkey continues on its present course, the question is not merely whether the United States should leave NATO. It is whether NATO can credibly call itself an alliance at all while Turkey remains inside it.

We are not here arguing that the United States must immediately withdraw from NATO. The alliance has served genuine purposes and retains some strategic value. Russia and China would be amongst the main benefiaries. But the foregoing considerations cannot be dismissed. An alliance whose founding adversary no longer exists, that has expanded to include that adversary’s former clients, that cannot compel its members to spend adequately on their own defense, that fails to rally when its most powerful member is under direct and sustained attack by Iran, and that counts among its own members a government that occupies foreign territory, arms itself from Russia, harbors Hamas leadership, and threatens fellow NATO states: this is an alliance with a crisis of purpose that goes well beyond anything the current debate has acknowledged.

The American people and their elected representatives are owed a serious debate about whether continued membership, on current terms, serves American interests. The free-riding cannot continue indefinitely. The indifference of European allies to America’s conflict with Iran is not a small diplomatic inconvenience. It is a stress test of the alliance’s central premise, one that the alliance is not passing.

Hopefully, the member states will reconsider their present positions before that debate reaches its logical conclusion.

Oded J. K. Faran holds LL.B. and LL.M. degrees in law from Sha’arei Mishpat College in Israel. He is the General Director of Faran & Co. International Translations Ltd. and lives in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Walter Edward Block is an American economist and anarcho-capitalist theorist who holds the Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair in Economics at the J. A. Butt School of Business at Loyola University New Orleans. He is a member of the FEE Faculty Network.

NATO Membership and History

1. “North Atlantic Treaty (1949),” NATO Official Text, April 4, 1949. https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/stock_publications/20120822_nato_treaty_en_light_2009.pdf2. “Member Countries,” NATO.int. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/nato_countries.htm3. “Warsaw Pact,” Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/event/Warsaw-Pact4.. “Dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, 1 July 1991,” European Network Remembrance and Solidarity (ENRS). https://enrs.eu/article/dissolution-of-the-warsaw-pact-1-july-19915. “NATO (Wikipedia),” Wikipedia, updated 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO

NATO Defense Spending

6. “Defence Expenditures and NATO’s 5% Commitment,” NATO.int, 2025. https://www.nato.int/en/what-we-do/introduction-to-nato/defence-expenditures-and-natos-5-commitment7. “Defence Expenditure of NATO Countries (2014-2025),” NATO.int, 2025. https://www.nato.int/content/dam/nato/webready/documents/finance/def-exp-2025-en.pdf8. Lara Seligman, “NATO Says All Allies to Meet 2% Defense-Spending Target This Year,” Defense News, August 29, 2025. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2025/08/29/nato-says-all-allies-to-meet-2-defense-spending-target-this-year/9. “All NATO Members Meet 2% Defence Spending Goal, but Only Three Surpass New 3.5% Target,” Modern Diplomacy, August 28, 2025. https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2025/08/28/all-nato-members-meet-2-defence-spending-goal-but-only-three-surpass-new-3-5-target/10. “Funding NATO,” NATO.int. https://www.nato.int/en/what-we-do/introduction-to-nato/funding-nato

Iran’s Campaign Against American Citizens

11. “The Iranian Regime’s Decades of Terrorism Against American Citizens,” The White House, March 2026. https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2026/03/the-iranian-regimes-decades-of-terrorism-against-american-citizens/12. “The Iranian Regime’s Decades of Terrorism Against American Citizens,” U.S. Embassy in China, March 2026. https://china.usembassy-china.org.cn/the-iranian-regimes-decades-of-terrorism-against-american-citizens/13. “Iranian and Iranian-Backed Attacks Against Americans (1979-Present),”Foundation for Defense of Democracies, June 19, 2025. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2025/06/19/iranian-and-iranian-backed-attacks-against-americans-1979-present/14. “Iranian Regime’s War on America: Four Decades of Targeting U.S. Forces and Citizens,” American Jewish Committee (AJC), 2025. https://www.ajc.org/news/iranian-regimes-war-on-america-four-decades-of-targeting-us-forces-and-citizens15. “Tough Questions About the Iran War, Answered,” American Jewish Committee (AJC), March 2026. https://www.ajc.org/tough-questions-about-the-iran-war-answered16. “Iran Sowed Terror for Decades and Now Reaps the Consequences,” The Washington Times, March 18, 2026. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/mar/18/iran-sowed-terror-decades-reaps-consequences/

Germany’s Withdrawal from the ICJ Proceedings

17. “Germany Pulls Support for Israel in ICJ Genocide Case,” The Jerusalem Post, March 19, 2026. https://www.jpost.com/international/article-89068718. “Germany U-Turns, Won’t Intervene on Israel’s Behalf in ICJ Gaza Genocide Case,” Haaretz, March 19, 2026. https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/2026-03-19/ty-article/germany-u-turns-wont-intervene-on-israels-behalf-in-icj-gaza-genocide-case/0000019d-05c2-d65b-abfd-95deeaff000019. “As Germany Accused at ICJ for Aiding Israel, It Pulls Support for Jewish State Before UN Court,” Jewish News Syndicate (JNS), March 19, 2026. https://www.jns.org/news/world/as-germany-accused-at-icj-for-aiding-israel-it-pulls-support-for-jewish-state-before-un-court20. “Germany Withdraws Legal Backing for Israel in ICJ Genocide Case,” Middle East Monitor, March 19, 2026. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260319-germany-withdraws-legal-backing-for-israel-in-icj-genocide-case/

Turkey’s Conduct Inside NATO

21. Bradley Bowman and Sinan Ciddi, “Time for a New Policy Toward Erdogan,”Foundation for Defense of Democracies, April 17, 2025. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2025/04/17/time-for-a-new-policy-toward-erdogan/22. Bradley Bowman and Sinan Ciddi, “Enough Is Enough: NATO Must Suspend Cooperation with Turkey,” Foundation for Defense of Democracies, August 2, 2024. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/op_eds/2024/08/02/enough-is-enough-nato-must-suspend-cooperation-with-turkey/23. Bradley Bowman and Sinan Ciddi, “S-400s or Not, Don’t Give Turkey the F-35,”Foundation for Defense of Democracies, July 2, 2025. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2025/07/02/s-400s-or-not-dont-give-turkey-the-f-35/24. Jonathan Schanzer, “Turkey’s Readmission to the F-35 Program Must Come with a Cost,” The Hill, March 26, 2025. https://thehill.com/opinion/5213813-turkey-f-35-program/25. “Turkey Supports Russia and Hamas; The US Should Not Give It F-35 Fighter Jets,” Foundation for Defense of Democracies, October 10, 2024. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/op_eds/2024/10/10/turkey-supports-russia-and-hamas-the-us-should-not-give-it-f-35-fighter-jets/26. Michael Rubin, “Is Turkey Holding NATO Hostage to Get a Nuclear Bomb?,”Hellas Journal, March 4, 2025. https://hellasjournal.com/2025/03/is-turkey-holding-nato-hostage-to-get-a-nuclear-bomb-theoretically-an-israeli-airstrike-on-akkuyu-could-be-easy-a-column-by-analyst-michael-rubin/27. “Turkish Invasion of Cyprus (Wikipedia, citing UN records),” . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_invasion_of_Cyprus28. “Erdogan Claims Progress in Bid to Secure F-35 Fighter Jet from United States,”Foundation for Defense of Democracies, June 27, 2025. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2025/06/27/erdogan-claims-progress-in-bid-to-secure-f-35-fighter-jet-from-united-states/

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