It is not often that we confront the possibility that we are on the cusp of a completely new era, a fundamental reshaping of the international order. We may still be standing there today. It is tempting to dismiss such warnings as the ravings of those afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome, the condition allegedly caused by the belief that Trump is a uniquely damaging figure in American, and possibly world, history.
And there is a tendency deeply embedded in human nature to disbelieve that things that seem impossible, that shake the foundations of the world we know, can actually occur. But there is no point deluding ourselves. He has actively contemplated such a step, speaking about it openly on numerous occasions.
Many of his aides, deeply grounded in the traditional principles of U. The founders of the North Atlantic alliance, and those who sustained it for seven decades, would be baffled by this turn of events. From the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in , presidents from Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama held forth about the essential nature of an alliance that served, during the Cold War, as a means of collective defense against Soviet aggression.
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, NATO has also served as the mechanism for collective action to advance Western interests during conflicts in places as diverse as the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Libya. No less important, NATO has fostered the security component, supplemented in time by the political and economic achievements of the European Union, of a more integrated, less conflict-prone Europe.
The success of NATO is inseparable from the advance of democratic values in Europe and globally, and the prosperity that has benefitted Europeans and Americans, for many decades. While unanimity within the alliance is required for major decisions, the United States has maintained a preeminence in alliance policies, as other members, even if at times fitfully, sublimated their national policies to American views.
