Arnd Jurgensen is Chair of the Nuclear Weapons Working Group and international relations specialist at University of Toronto.
During a recent debate on the question of whether NATO should or should not exist, I was asked to argue the side against its existence. Presenting an argument for the elimination of NATO in 15 minutes was to say the least a challenge, as no doubt was the other side. Many aspects of my arguments for the elimination of NATO were only briefly touched upon because I decided to emphasize NATO’s commitment to nuclear deterrence and the threat that it poses. I have no regrets regarding that decision but faced some criticism for not including other problematic aspects of the role NATO has played since the collapse of the USSR and Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO). For that reason, I have decided to put my argument on paper.
Since the return of Donald Trump to the White House, the nature of this debate has been transformed drastically. Not only has he drawn into question the U.S, commitment to the NATO but more importantly he has explicitly threatened the sovereignty of two of its core members, Denmark and Canada. In the case of Denmark, he declared his intention to annex Greenland and to take it by military force, if necessary. In regard to Canada he suggested it could be forced to surrender its sovereignty through economic pressure. Both suggestions are contrary to international law and draw into question the very purpose of a military alliance: to secure the sovereignty of its members. The two countries in question should be threatening to withdraw from the organization. But even before these developments NATO was at the core of serious threats to global stability and continues to be today.
The world’s major powers are in the midst of a nuclear modernization process. China is expanding its arsenal of intercontinental missiles, Russia is developing new nuclear capable hypersonic missiles but by far the largest outlays for nuclear modernization are those announced by the Obama administration, which began this new nuclear arms race. The cost estimates are by now almost double the trillion-dollar figure announced by Obama, which along with similar programs by other NATO states (France and the UK) represents close to 2/3 of global spending on nuclear arms. The geopolitical tensions that have been the predictable outcome of this nuclear expansion are the chief reason that the “Doomsday clock” is currently at 89 seconds to midnight. The commitment of NATO (and the U.S.) to the idea of nuclear deterrence which we should all by now recognize as collective suicide, is by far the most important reason why NATO should be eliminated or drastically transformed as part of a nuclear-disarmament process.
That being said, any discussion of NATO, I believe, has to begin with the fundamental purpose for which NATO was created and answer the question: does it still serve that purpose today. The purpose of NATO from its inception was to provide security for the states that where members of the alliance. Having spent much of my childhood in West Germany, about 50 km from the Iron Curtain that separated us from our counterparts in East Germany, I grew up seeing NATO and the massive air base south of Frankfurt as indeed a guarantor of our security from USSR which I was taught, was hell bent on promoting world revolution and domination. Whether this description was accurate at the time of the Cold War I won’t debate, other than to point out what should be obvious: in 1945, after bearing the brunt of braking the back of the NAZI war machine, loosing more than 25 million of its citizens in the process, the USSR was certainly not a military threat to Western Europe. If it was a threat at all it was a political and ideological threat, primarily due to the extent that the traditional elites in western states had discredited themselves through their collaboration with the defeated NAZI regime. That defending Europe was not the only purpose of NATO is well captured in the adage that the purpose of NATO is “to keep the Russians out, the Germans down and the Americans in”. Nevertheless, by the 1960’s, even in the absence of the “threat inflation” practiced by the US, the USSR became a potent military adversary. Whether NATO provided “security” to Europe during the Cold War depends at least a bit on your understanding of that word, since the planned response to a Soviet invasion of Europe would have made it a nuclear battleground.
The NATO that emerged was no ordinary alliance. Alliances, which have been a phenomenon in international relations for centuries, are normally simple agreements between governments to come to each other’s defense if attacked by a common enemy. The agreements last only as long as the threat that motivated their creation. NATO by contrast, developed an institutional manifestation in the form of deliberative councils and what eventually became a sprawling bureaucracy in Brussels and elsewhere. The insistence on “interoperability” furthermore resulted in the integration of the armed forces of member states in a manner that had little precedent in previous alliances. One characteristic of bureaucracies that is important to keep in mind is that aside from their core function, they tend to develop their interests, above all in their own institutional growth and survival. While traditional alliances generally disappeared as soon as the threat that motivated their creation disappeared, this would not be the case with NATO.
NATO was at least partially exceptional in the history of alliances in another way. Alliances traditionally stemmed from shared threat perception focused on a common “enemy”, with little concern for the nature of the states that joined the alliance. The only relevant questions in regard to membership in an alliance where a) does it have military or strategic assets that strengthen the alliance, thus enhancing the security of members and b) does it make an actual conflict more or less likely? Partially due to the ideological nature of the Cold War, which was framed as a contest between western democracies and Soviet totalitarianism, NATO saw itself as a group of states united by common values and shared institutions (capitalism & democracy). I say partially, since NATO at least for part of the Cold War included States (Greece, Portugal, Turkey) that did not fully conform to that standard. The much talked about “open door” posture of NATO derives from this vision of NATO as an organization of states with shared values.
I believe that the lack of clarity of what precisely NATO was, a club of states that shared common values or a military alliance that provided security from a common enemy, was one crucial reason why NATO did not dissolve when the common enemy which brought it into existence fell apart.
The other reason, I would argue is bureaucratic momentum. By 1990 a large number of careers, not just in Brussels but also the militaries of member states, military contractors etc. depended on the continued existence of NATO. Consequently, the alliance attempted to redefine itself as a demilitarized institution of common governance and conflict resolution, crucial to the stability of Europe, while still insisting on the goal of 2% of GDP military spending of its members (which very few of its members actually adhered to).
I will not go into the debate as to whether or not James Baker provided Gorbachev verbal guarantees that NATO would not expand “one inch eastward” if Germany was allowed to remain part of NATO after reunification. Key in this regard is that Gorbachev’s (and later Yeltsin’s & Putin’s) concern in this regard indicates that Russia still very much saw NATO as a hostile military alliance. The fact is that such guarantees where not put into writing and even if they had been, it would have been somewhat naïve for Russia to accept them at face value. Quite independent of that question, it must be asked whether the expansion eastward was wise?
If NATO was indeed no longer primarily a military alliance but an international organization of states that shared values, there would have been no reason to oppose its eastward expansion and indeed both Yeltsin and later Putin suggested Russia’s inclusion but where rebuffed. The fact is that the military bases in Germany and elsewhere remained active and NATO military exercises continued (see: Jonas Toegel; Kriegsspiele: Wie NATO und Pentagon die Zerstoerung Europas simulieren, Westend Press, 2025).
The inclusion of, first Eastern European former members of the Warsaw Pact and later former Soviet republics were consistent with the image of NATO as a club of democracies with shared values but inconsistent with a traditional military alliance. Almost all of the new entrants would have failed to meet the criteria mentioned above: none brought with them assets that strengthened the alliance in a significant way (against what enemy? Russia is of course the only candidate) and the inclusion of states with sizable Russian minorities made conflict (again with Russia) more, not less likely.
To its credit, NATO initially attempted to address Russian concerns in this regard through the creation of the NATO-Russia Foundation Act, by which Russia was given observer status in NATO deliberations. However, when the Russian protests over the intervention in Kosovo where ignored, Russia walked out in protest. That intervention and the extensive bombing of Belgrade (including the Chinese embassy) made it difficult to see NATO as a harmless club of likeminded democracies. The intervention was not authorized by the UN and thus technically illegal under international law. It was also in violation of the NATO charter, which authorized only defensive action if a member state has been attacked. Serbia neither attacked nor threatened a NATO member state.
The NATO intervention in Libya was perhaps even more problematic. The Gaddafi regime was certainly no model democracy and had been tied to terrorist attacks in Europe. Never the less it had an enviable development record, using its oil revenues to expand education, infrastructure and health care, to propel the country to the top rank of African States on the UN’s human development index. It furthermore attempted to normalize its relations with Europe and particularly the US, after the 9/11 attacks, pledging support for the war on terror and ending its nuclear program. The country posed no threat to any member of NATO but was under attack by Islamist rebel groups opposed to the secular/nationalist regime, concentrated around the city of Benghazi. The extensive bombing of Libya by NATO created the circumstances that allowed these forces to overthrow the regime and murder Gaddafi. Libya has since been the definition of a failed state, a source of arms that has destabilized much of North Africa, the epicentre of human smuggling and an apparent return of the slave trade.
It is also important to understand Russia’s perception of NATO in the context of other aspect of U.S. foreign policy in the region in the 1990s and after. The US is of course the dominant player in NATO. Of particular importance is the promotion by the US through institutions like the National Endowment for Democracy of what came to be known as “colour revolutions”. These consistently targeted governments friendly toward Moscow for regime change and brought to power governments hostile to it. Perceived in the West as democracy promotion, they where certainly not seen that way in Moscow. The “rose revolution” in Georgia that brought to power a government that immediately undermined the regional autonomy of the Russian speaking provinces, provoked a Russian intervention resulting in a “frozen conflict”. The U.S. involvement in the Maidan uprising in Ukraine, that overthrew the elected government of Victor Yanukovych, was by far the most important in poisoning relations between Russia and the West. It was not only an overthrowing of a legitimately elected government but also of the constitution that included Ukrainian neutrality as a permanent guarantee. The resulting governments elimination of Russian language rights and the massacre of prodemocracy (mostly Russian speaking) protestors in Odessa shortly after, understandably gave rise to regional rebellions in the primarily Russian speaking Donbas and the referendum by which Crimea rejoined the Russian federation. Russia, not surprisingly, welcomed the Crimea, thus preventing their only naval base on the Black Sea potentially becoming a NATO base. It also appears to have supported the regional rebels.
Just as significant as the “colour revolutions” in undermining relations with Russia were crucial steps the US took in regard to nuclear security, starting with the Bush administration’s unilateral abandonment of the Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) and later the Trump administration’s decision to do the same with the Intermediate Forces and Opens Skies treaties. Collectively these decisions removed the crucial guardrails, carefully developed during the Cold war, to prevent nuclear exchange resulting from miscalculation or accident. In each case Russia protested loudly but I do not recall any protests from NATO which to this day declares nuclear weapons the “supreme guarantor of security”.
The above events provide the context in which Russian foreign minister Lavrov in late 2019, with Russian troops amassed along the border with Ukraine, sent his urgent plea for negotiations to the Biden administration. US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken (apparently ignorant that the US Monroe doctrine implicitly defines a sphere of influence on the part of the US) rejected the invitation, explaining that there was nothing to talk about and that Ukraine had the sovereign right to make whatever security arrangements and alliances it pleased. Shortly thereafter Russia invaded.
While Putin has since been described as the new Hitler, hell bent on restoring the USSR and invading Western Europe, even NATO secretary Jens Stoltenberg has since admitted that NATO expansion was the main concern. This was also evident in the peace deal reached in Istanbul in April of 2020, accepted by both the Russian and Ukrainian sides but finally rejected by Ukraine under pressure from the UK and US.
While initially concerned to avoid a direct conflict between Russia and NATO over the Ukraine, there has been a pattern of continuous escalation by NATO countries since, leading to the introduction first of tanks then jet fighters and now offensive missiles capable of striking within Russia (and largely operated by US, UK and French personnel and guided by American satellite technology). This has culminated in giving the green light to Ukraine to use these missiles to strike deep into Russian territory, in the last weeks of the Biden administration.
What this record shows is that, far from providing security to its members, NATO has aggressively provoked conflict with Russia by refusing to take into account Russia’s security concerns. The heightened tensions are then used to pressure NATO members into increasing their military spending to meet the arbitrary 2% of GDP figure recommended (required?) by its own rules. Superficially this makes sense as a fair form of burden sharing within an alliance but in the context of the US alone spending more on its military than the next 8 largest military spenders combined, several of which are NATO allies, such military outlays beg the question: what adversary justifies it? This level of preparation for war, as usual, has created a sense of insecurity in the states that perceive themselves as the target of these war preparations, China and Russia in particular. The resulting increase in the military budgets and capabilities of China and Russia then become evidence for more of the same.
This brings me back to the question of security. While Russia is understandably perceived as a threat by its immediate neighbors, especially those that after the breakup of the USSR retained sizable Russian minorities within their borders, for most states the threat to their security takes a very different form. Over the last few years, with alarmingly increased frequency, states have seen large parts of their territory devastated, not by attacks form their neighbors but by hurricanes of unprecedented strengths, wildfires, severe droughts and intense flooding. The cause: climate change. Does NATO offer any protection from such attacks? Quite the contrary. Instead of allowing states like Canada to devote their limited resources to focus on resiliency by expanding their capacities to deal with floods and wildfires, it will massively increase its defense expenditures to meet its NATO obligations. Furthermore, the kind of international cooperation that would be required to bring about a global energy transition and to compensate the poorest states that have done the least to contribute to the problem gets sidelined, if not undermined by the return of “geopolitics” otherwise known as “great power competition”.
If, or rather when, that competition becomes war between nuclear states, an escalation to the use of nuclear weapons seems all but certain. In such a scenario the revelations of Daniel Ellsberg regarding the nuclear planning of the US are crucial. He revealed that during the cold war US planners never had a plan for a second retaliatory strike, but instead, what was termed a “Single Integrated Operational Plan” (SIOP) that envisioned a first devastating strike against the “enemy” to disable their ability to respond and included targets in China regardless of whether it was involved. As mentioned above, these plans also envisioned the complete destruction of Europe, a sacrifice zone, a nuclear battleground. The recently announced update under the Biden Administration seems to depart from this only by also including North Korea among the targets. The USSR and now Russia similarly rely on a doctrine that would fire their entire arsenal of nuclear weapons before they could be disabled by an incoming (or suspected) attack. Due to research done by National Aeronautic and Space Administration and confirmed by their counterparts in the USSR in the 80’s it was revealed that such an exchange (and even a far more limited one) would plunge the planet into a “nuclear winter” that few if any humans would survive. (see: Annie Jacobson: Nuclear War: a scenario, Dutton 2024) As such the nuclear arsenal that NATO relies upon as the “supreme guarantor of security” is an existential threat to the security of every state and individual on this planet. The sooner it can be dismantled, as part of a larger disarmament agreement, the greater are the chances of our collective survival.
Although the newly inaugurated Trump administration has done much that is highly problematic, it has suggested that military spending could be cut by 50% in a process coordinated with Russia and China. President Putin of Russia has endorsed the idea. He has also spoken about the idea of denuclearization and indeed questioned the need for NATO. These are hopeful signs that a re-evaluation of NATO, as well as its nuclear doctrines, which previously were seen as out of bounds for discussion, is finally on the table.