You hear politicians and diplomats say NATO guarantees the security of its members, with all pledged to go to the support of any member attacked. President Biden recently claimed our willingness to defend “every inch of NATO territory.”
Article 5 of the NATO charter supposedly spells out that guarantee. Here is Article 5, courtesy of John Hinderaker at Power Line, read it for yourself.
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Requiring each member nation to take “such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force” doesn’t exactly sound like a total guarantee to fight for another member. What if going to war to defend, for example, Latvia isn’t “deemed necessary”?
What if a member country “deems” a non-binding resolution of support all that is “necessary”? Attorney Hinderaker thinks that clause can be interpreted in many ways, depending on who does the interpreting.
I suspect many European leaders have privately viewed Article 5 as “we agree to hold Uncle Sam’s coat while he fights the Russians or Soviets or whoever.” And our Cold War presidents acquiesced in that interpretation.
Post-Cold War presidents have been more insistent on non-trivial European military contributions to its defense. None more so than President Trump whose insistence earned him few European friends.
Recent unfortunate events in Ukraine have proven Trump was right and his European detractors wrong. It seems they believed their own ‘post-history’ propaganda - always a bad idea.
