If the US Leaves NATO, Europe Can Protect Itself

As a former supreme allied commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, I never contemplated the idea of the US leaving the world’s most vital security alliance. But the crisis over Greenland’s sovereignty of the last two weeks has me thinking seriously about what NATO would look like without its most important member.

NATO was formed from the ashes of World War II by a dozen nations, 10 European and two North American. Lord Ismay, the first secretary general, famously said that NATO existed to “keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” He saw the Cold War unfolding, the threat to Western Europe posed by the Soviet Union, and the danger of an unchecked Germany. He also knew the US might repeat the mistake it made after World War I: Simply walking away from the continent after the fighting was over.