Vice President J.D. Vance speaks in front of the NATO logo in February 2025 at the 61st Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany. (Tobias Schwarz – AFP / Getty Images)
By Johnathan Jones April 1, 2026 at 2:57pm
NATO was created in 1949 to meet a real and immediate threat.
Europe was in shambles after the Second World War, the Soviet Union was expanding, and the United States stepped in as the stabilizing force.
That mission made sense then, but it does not make the same sense now.
Since its founding, the U.S. has been the largest military spender in NATO. It has provided the bulk of troops, the logistics, and the nuclear deterrent that have propped up the entire alliance.
Truthfully, without America, NATO is not even a serious military force.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump told the British news outlet The Telegraph that the alliance was “beyond reconsideration.”
“I was never swayed by NATO,” Trump said. “I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way.”
He added NATO “wasn’t there for the U.S.” when it mattered, while referring to our current engagement in Iran, where we’re ridding the region and world of the menace that has sought to destabilize and kill for decades.
“It was a test, and we were there for them, and we would always have been there for them. They weren’t there for us,” Trump pointed out.
Trump has been saying some version of this for years, and it made as much sense Tuesday as it did a decade ago.
The difference now is that more and more Americans are noticing the imbalance.
To be fair, NATO did invoke Article 5 after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. But that moment of solidarity does not erase decades of a commitment disparity that is frankly insulting.
The financial gap is a slap in the face, while the actions of some NATO countries in recent weeks have been a gut-punch.
As the U.S. eradicates an Iranian regime that poses a global threat, Spain and the U.K. denied our pilots the use of runways.
A 2025 report from The Heritage Foundation found that European NATO members have underfunded their defense commitments by $827 billion since 2014.
Germany fell short by $249 billion, Italy and Spain each by $150 billion, and the Netherlands and Belgium by tens of billions more.
During that same period, the U.S. averaged 3.42 percent of GDP on defense.
The average NATO member spent just 1.59 percent.
The result is exactly what you would expect — a spoiled, dependent continent that assumes America will handle everything.
Now, let’s layer in the uncomfortable cultural reality, which is that there is a growing gulf between the American people and a large swath of Europe.
The U.S. and much of Europe no longer operate from the same understanding of core freedoms and responsibilities. Free speech in America is rightly treated as a fundamental human right, while across parts of Europe, it is increasingly restricted and punished.
In parts of Europe, people are routinely investigated and jailed over social media posts and benign opinions.
Governments over there are allowing the breakdown of public order and safety while policing words typed out online.
Meanwhile, the foreign so-called “refugees” and “asylum seekers” that run around in packs in European cities, menacing women and children, are essentially a protected class.
That is a completely different set of values, and it raises serious questions about what, exactly, this antiquated alliance is even standing on anymore.
Even on a personal level, the disconnect is hard to ignore. Over years of interactions with Europeans, whether online or in person, the tone is so often one of contempt and mockery.
In my experiences with people from the United Kingdom to Germany, Americans are chided as stupid, overweight bumpkins who are ignorant beyond redemption.
People who rely on our tax dollars, troops, and technology for security do not even respect many of us on the most basic level.
The goodwill our grandfathers and great-grandfathers built with people they twice liberated from tyranny has largely been forgotten by those who grew up under the umbrella of prosperity and peace provided to them.
After the fighting ended in 1945, NATO emerged, fully prepared to prevent a third global conflict.
But that world was arguably gone when the Soviet Union collapsed nearly four decades ago.
What we have now is an arrangement where one side carries the weight and the other side sits around with its hands out.
Europe is not unlike a spoiled adult child who needs to be cut loose to succeed or fail alone.
It’s past time to cut the cord.
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