The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was founded on 4 April 1949. Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States signed the treaty. Since its founding, Greece, West Germany, Turkey, Spain, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Finland and Sweden have joined. Since its founding, no country has left the organization.
On April 1, The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about NATO’s current actions.
The article reports:
The U.S. supports our NATO posture in Europe in part because it provides us with strategic military bases and operations that are considered vital to our national interests. However, as outlined in the Iran conflict, when we need to use those strategic bases the NATO member states withdraw previous permissions. France has blocked us from flying over their airspace, Spain and Italy have said the U.S. cannot use our military bases on their soil for operations. The U.K has refused to protect and/or escort their own energy assets.
The NATO membership is now a one-way street where they demand our military protection, but Europe blocks us from using our own military assets for our independent operations.
Europe, while hiding behind the NATO protection skirt of the U.S, is simultaneously telling the U.S. what we can and cannot do with our own military. Secretary Rubio and President Trump are now confronting this very visible one-way benefit head on.
The article includes the following video:
America has been protecting Europe since World War II. Our military bases there boost the local economies. The decision of some of the NATO counties to deny the use of bases in their countries to deal with the threat of Iran makes it very hard to justify our continued membership in the organization. I think Europe needs to understand the threat posed to them by Iran (if Iran’s missiles can reach Diego Garcia, they can reach Europe) and help with the war effort. Europe is much more dependent on the Strait of Hormuz for its oil than America is. It’s time for the NATO nations to step up to the plate. Otherwise, why should America be a member?
