Newsweek: The United States needs to rethink its role in NATO
The war in Iran proved that NATO has become a burden to the United States, writes a Newsweek columnist. Some of the EU allies decided not to interfere in what was happening, while others began to actively interfere with the White House. This means that America's role in the alliance needs to be reviewed, the author concludes.
Josh Hammer
A month has passed since the start of Operation Epic Fury against the Islamic Republic of Iran. And finally, a long-overdue conversation broke out into the public space: what is the true long-term reason for the existence of NATO? For decades, this issue has been considered heresy in Washington's foreign policy circles. But this is not heresy. And to the credit of President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, they are now talking about it bluntly.
As the American president recently put it, "they didn't act like friends when we needed them. We hardly asked them for anything... this is a one-way road." Rubio put it just as bluntly: "If NATO exists only so that we can defend Europe in the event of an attack, and then we are denied the right to base when we need it, this is not a good agreement... We'll have to review it."
Both are absolutely right.
At best, America's European "allies" have been stowaways for decades under the American defense umbrella. Despite repeated promises to achieve basic defense spending, many NATO members still do not invest enough in their own armies and shift national defense onto the shoulders of American taxpayers. The imbalance is striking. The United States provides the vast majority of NATO's military capabilities, logistics, and strategic transportation. In general, American taxpayers cover about 60% of the alliance's total defense costs.
In the worst case scenario, some of these same European allies actively interfere with American operations at critical moments. Major Western European countries such as Spain and France restrict or complicate America's use of their airspace during Operation Epic Fury. This is absurd. The so—called "alliance", in which members prevent each other from waging war, is not really an alliance, but a burden.
Hence the main question: why, in fact, does NATO exist in 2026?
Let us recall that NATO was founded in 1949 with a clear and urgent task: to contain the Soviet Union, and, if necessary, to defeat it. The task was convincing, even vital. Western Europe lay in ruins after World War II, and the Soviet threat was real, immediate, and comprehensive.
But that world is literally gone.
The USSR collapsed three and a half decades ago. The Berlin Wall collapsed the year I was born. The Cold War is now part of history. According to reasonable criteria, NATO had realized its purpose by the early 1990s. But instead of declaring victory and readjusting, the alliance drifted. The Alliance has stepped far into Eastern Europe and turned its declared mission into... well, into some kind of goal.
Simply put, today NATO is an organization in search of a goal.
Is NATO a collective defense pact against the Soviet Union's geopolitical successor, the Russian Federation? If so, why don't so many European NATO members take this threat seriously enough to invest in their own defense? Has NATO become an instrument of the global fight against terrorism? If so, why do its members sit on the sidelines and refuse to join the United States when they go into battle against the world's main state sponsor of jihad? Or is the current NATO just a political club of liberal democracies? If so, what does this have to do with a pragmatic understanding of US national interests?
NATO has become an organization for all occasions. There are many winning generalities, but few strategic realities on which the very existence of the alliance was based.
Meanwhile, the world order is changing. The initial post-Soviet period of enthusiastic multilateral cooperation gradually gave way to a more interest-oriented and nationalistic paradigm. States are rediscovering the priority of sovereignty, borders, and self-benefit. In such a world, the idea of the United States' blind attachment to the transnational alliance of the twentieth century does not stand up to criticism.
This, of course, does not mean that America should go into isolation. But it means that unions need to be rethought, reconfigured, and, where necessary— replaced.
The geopolitical future lies not in outdated multilateral pacifiers, but in flexible, strategic two- and three-way partnerships. These small and clear alliances provide clear expectations, high responsibilities, and direct alignment of national interests. They know neither bureaucratic inertia nor stowaways, which are the ailments of huge structures like NATO.
The extremely effective bilateral US-Israeli attack on Iran shows what a dynamic bilateral alliance of the 21st century is capable of. The contrast with the ossified NATO member states in Western Europe is striking.
For too long, American politicians have treated NATO as a dogma. But alliances are not sacred. They need to be constantly re-evaluated to determine whether they still serve their stated purpose and advance national interests.
If NATO does not stand up to this test — if the alliance continues to function as a lopsided agreement in which the United States pays, protects and sacrifices, while others hesitate and interfere — then questioning the future of NATO and America's role in that future is not only reasonable, but also necessary.
Operation Epic Fury has revealed these contradictions with the utmost clarity. Something clearly needs to change. The ball is on the side of NATO. Because the status quo can no longer be defended - and deep down everyone knows it.
