This is not a one sided thing. The US has been allowed to do a lot of things under the NATO umbrella that it benefited from (such as: selling a vast quantity of arms). Soft power is a thing and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization came into being to deal with exactly the kind of situation that we are viewing today. To see the US bow out, and in fact threatening allies is duplicitous at best.

6 decades before NATO was formed, Britain was the largest economy and financial empire. The US was up-and-coming but had not yet had its war with Spain to demonstrate their arrival. Nato was formed "To keep the US in, the Germans down and the Russians out" (per Ismay). The first clause is now inoperative. The second clause is being reversed by the various Euro states and the third, unfortunately, remains.

There was also a benefit to the US maintaining NATO - it could nudge/encourage/guide other countries into doing things it wanted done (such as Afganistan). This soft power is being discarded with NATO.

Last time the US won a war without the assistance of any allies (and not against yourself), it was 1848 and you were fighing Mexico.

The US economy is only the largest if you don't adjust for purchasing power, at which point the US and EU are in joint second place way behind China, and separated from each other by a rounding error despite Brexit.

If the US wants to go alone, sure we'd miss you, but it's welcome to go in peace… so long as it doesn't steal Greenland on the way out.

I wish europe was out of NATO. It does nothing to defend europe, bring us in wars we didn't ask for, and manufacture crisis European still suffer from (Syria refugee). It force its "allies" to buy defective weapons that are basically spyware, and still spy on them just in case. It force other allies to spill their blood in the middle East.

The only "good" thing it did was breaking Sarajevo's siege in the mid 90s, but event then it isn't actually clear if the Serb wouldn't have backed off anyway at the end of the month because they couldn't progress due to the UN presence. Still saved a few hundred civilian lives, in exchange for a thousand of proto-nazi, so i can't say it was bad.

No one will attack any EU country anyway, as long as france doens't change its nuclear doctrine, which, i will state here once again, include a "warning shot".

NATO is a rootkit, a foothold for lateral movement in a literal sense, for the US in Europe. Is is not "critical" for anyone, in some theoretical sense, but it has proven very effective over the better part of a century to keep European military in check and guaranteed not to form any other alliances than with the US.

The EU itself was viewed critically from Washington until it could be proven that it had no intention of becoming a military alliance. So while it could be true that the US does not need NATO in a strict sense, the idea that it has not been net beneficial to the US is absurd. No Danish soldiers would have died in middle eastern wars if it wasn't for NATO.

> The US had the world's largest economy six decades before NATO existed.

Only because Europe was intent on destroying each other.

Just a reminder that NATO troops have always been rallied by Washington and on top of that the US is the only country to have ever invoked article 5.

The European allies have put their money and more importantly blood into these conflicts.

Yes, we can all look at a geographical map and state that the USA is blessed geographically by being split by two oceans from anything major in the world and thus conclude that the US does not need Europeans to defend its borders.

In essence you're completely ignoring how US allies in form of NATO allowed US to thrive as the global military power by providing a deep web of support, logistics, bases, ports, intelligence and allowing the US to have a huge influence it has consistently leveraged for decades to its own benefit or needs. And that includes financial reasons (like buying US weaponry).

If US wants to pull out of NATO it is what it is, but this whole nonsense of NATO benefitting only the European allies when it's always Washington asking for other's blood and bases and logistics is just it: nonsense.

To be fair, the user can speak to NATO's value without assigning it a 'critical' value.

> You're assuming NATO is somehow critical for the US. It is not. NATO is critical for the European powers

only 1 country invoked article 5 until today and it's not in Europe)

Borrowing money from the rest of the world is critical to the US…

> NATO is critical for the European powers (those not named Russia).

To be pedantic, Canada is a major non-European NATO member.

And then there are allies, some of them designated by Trump:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_non-NATO_ally

Or, they were, as there is no certainty under his rule.

The US does not benefit from a stronger, more unified Europe. Thanks to NATO, "the west" has effectively become an empire in all but name, with the US having enough influence to be the de facto leaders of this empire.

If US pulls back from NATO, and Europe builds up military power to compensate, then the US loses this de facto leadership seat of an empire.

Today, the US appears in parallel to be doing two things:

1. Causing fragmentation in Europe, by promoting right-wing nationalist politics in the EU

2. Threatening to drastically reduce their role in NATO

At the very least we can both agree that these two efforts are completely in contradiction with each other, and it's very unlikely that Europeans will want to go for more fragmentation without the military power of the US on their side, right?

USA had this because it manufactured everything and got rich doing so.

NATO is / was USAs way of controlling Europe to have something against Asia.

It's time for us / Europe to let the USA being whatever and kicking them out

We (Germany) are quite well equipped making guns and tanks.

And btw it was our strategy to try to win over countries by NOT being the big bully but sure Russia and USA made it clear that this no longer works.

I hope USA leaves NATO and we kick them out sooner than later