© AP/Geert Vanden Wijngaert
U.S. President Donald Trump arrives for a press conference during a summit of heads of state and government at NATO headquarters in Brussels, July 12, 2018.
In an age where people around the world want to avoid war and to focus instead on the climate chaos that threatens future life on earth, NATO is an anachronism.
It now accounts for about three-quarters of military spending and weapons dealing around the globe.
The three smartest words that Donald Trump uttered during his presidential campaign are "NATO is obsolete." His adversary, Hillary Clinton,
retorted that NATO
was "the strongest military alliance in the history of the world." Now that Trump has been in power, the White House
parrots the same worn line that NATO is "the most successful Alliance in history, guaranteeing the security, prosperity, and freedom of its members." But Trump was right the first time around: Rather than being a strong alliance with a clear purpose, this 70-year-old organization that is meeting in London on December 4 is
a stale military holdover from the Cold War days that should have gracefully retired many years ago.
NATO was originally founded by the United States and 11 other Western nations as an attempt to curb the rise of communism in 1949. Six years later, Communist nations founded the Warsaw Pact and through these two multilateral institutions, the entire globe became a Cold War battleground.
When the USSR collapsed in 1991, the Warsaw Pact disbanded but NATO expanded, growing from its original 12 members to 29 member countries. North Macedonia, set to join next year, will bring the number to 30. NATO has also expanded well beyond the North Atlantic,
adding a partnership with Colombia in 2017. Donald Trump recently
suggested that Brazil could one day become a full member.
Comment: At last!