U.S. Pressure on NATO: Betraying Friends or Building Up a Team?

Abstract The second Trump administration is widely seen as destructive of the liberal international order and, indeed, many of its actions are. On NATO, however, the United States may be poised to strengthen the alliance in unexpected ways. Two trends create an opportunity for NATO to be a stronger alliance of more equal powers. First, the United States needs to shift resources to East Asia, creating incentives to do less in Europe. Second, Russian revanchism is creating insecurity in European capitals without threatening core U.S. security interests. Combined, these two trends are creating political will to increase European defense spending and break NATO’s long-standing problem with buck-passing.