U.S. President Donald Trump
By Geo Kerry
The argument between President Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart at the White House caused serious damage to an alliance at the heart of the post-World War II order: NATO.
The American president’s embrace of Russia, an adversary that has worked for years to undermine U.S. global leadership, runs counter to decades of Western policy.
The U.S. and its allies founded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization 75 years ago as protection against Soviet Russia.
NATO is based on the idea that the U.S. would use its military might, including its arsenal of nuclear weapons, to come to the defense of any ally that is attacked.
That bedrock assumption has now been called into question.
“I worry that we may be in the last days of NATO,” said retired Navy Adm. James Stavridis, who served as NATO’s supreme allied commander.
He said the trans-Atlantic alliance “may not be about to collapse, but I can sure hear it creaking louder than at any time in my long career in the military.”
