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By Michael E. O’Hanlon
Mr. O’Hanlon is the director of research at the Brookings Institution’s Foreign Policy Program.
The leaders of NATO, the world’s most powerful military alliance, gather on Tuesday at The Hague in the Netherlands for their annual summit. Their meeting doesn’t seem headed for disaster, as many had feared just a few months back.
Despite NATO’s success in winning the Cold War and remaining the most powerful community of nation-states in modern history, President Trump has openly questioned the alliance for years. He said that during his previous term, he told the leaders of NATO countries that he would “encourage” Russia do “whatever the hell they want” against NATO members not pulling their weight in military spending. He repeatedly questioned whether the United States should honor the alliance’s mutual-defense pledge under Article V of NATO’s founding treaty — the core idea that an attack on one is an attack on all — if members who did not live up to their financial obligations were attacked.
