Alliances are ultimately arrangements between two or more states for security cooperation and are generally targeted against a particular adversary. NATO played this role during the Cold War, with Western European states, Canada, and the United States balancing potential Soviet ambitions on the Continent. Informed by this logic, many analysts predicted NATO’s demise after the Cold War; indeed, the alliance’s ability to endure and expand in scope (though not coherence and function) after 1991 at least partly motivates claims that the alliance’s shared values and institutional anchoring will allow it to thrive in future.
Yet there is a simpler explanation for NATO’s post–Cold War endurance that ought to give us pause as to NATO’s future health. If alliances form largely in response to threats, it follows that they ought to end not simply when an old threat dies, but when a new threat emerges at the same time. From this perspective, the end of the Cold War saw the Soviet Union die, but because no new threat emerged, NATO could continue unimpeded. NATO became a Swiss Army Knife for spreading liberal values, fighting terrorism, and establishing an array of new goals.
Today, however, the situation is different: Domestic politics aside, we see a growing disconnect between European and American priorities. The United States is increasingly focused on China, so much so that the (overstated) China threat is one of the true points of bipartisan consensus in Washington. European states, on the other hand, are divided between those who see a pronounced threat from Russia and those who see an array of challenges from illegal migration and state instability along the southern maritime border.
Against this backdrop, NATO’s days may be numbered — at least in its current form. States with diverging or divergent interests can try to paper over their differences. In a world of finite time and resources, however, differing priorities tend to drive alliances apart, as member states place their bets and act out of self-interest. With NATO, this may not result in an abrupt end to transatlantic cooperation, but it does imply a progressive weakening of the commitment, waning coordination, and a hollowing out of the alliance.
If and as American and European attentions continue to part, the United States may increasingly pass the security buck to the European members of the alliance. Without the ability to steer European security policy, Washington may well look to reduce its exposure to European contingencies — just as many in Europe may be increasingly growing reluctant to count on U.S. assistance amid a crisis in which, for self-interested reasons, Washington may be unwilling to help. A result could be a NATO that remains alive on paper but, in practice, is primarily a European show.
This would not be a bad result for the United States. Indeed, the founders of the alliance actually wanted NATO to be a temporary expedient, a shield behind which Western Europe could recover from the devastation of the Second World War before taking on the hard task of balancing the Soviet Union. That original idea was lost for much of the last seven decades. Yet, as NATO celebrates its 75th birthday, geopolitical developments — more so than domestic politics — may bring the founders’ vision back to the fore.
Joshua Shifrinson is an Associate Professor in the School of Public Policy of the University of Maryland, and author of Rising Titans, Falling Giants: How Great Powers Exploit Power Shifts (2023).