Here we go again with bad geopolitics headlines. Yes, the US “ideological loyalty test” below is impolitic, impolite, and will ruffle feathers to put it mildly. I’m not advocating for it here. As Bloomberg puts it, “Linking America’s long-standing security commitments to such fealty would upend the post-World War II transatlantic relationship, which was built on US military guarantees that superseded many political disagreements.” Yes - and no. NATO is not a book club, student union, or gym: its preamble in 1949 states it is “determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage, and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law.” Would NATO use that language again if recreated today? It was also specifically created as an *ideological alliance*, which its own website states was to: 1) “Deter Soviet expansionism” - i.e., anti-communism. You couldn’t join NATO and lean Soviet or trade much with them. (But, yes, France and Italy had strong communist parties that their security services and the U.S. kept eyes on; and Europe tried for USSR trade regularly despite US naysaying.) 2) “Forbid the revival of nationalist militarism”- i.e., anti-Nazi. 3) “Encourage European political integration” - i.e., again ideological. One can argue that NATO now needs to find a new ideology for itself at a time when the West is widely seen to be threatened far more broadly than by Russia. We’ve seen vociferous disagreements in the past over other wars/actions, such as Vietnam and Iraq, but they were at a time that both U.S. and Western hegemony looked unrivalled: do they today? Clearly, the U.S. can’t carry the same burden as before alone - yet its allies are making it abundantly clear that if they get the muscles to act independently, that’s what they want to then do. How does that build trust any more than what the U.S. is doing? Those new muscles will also require the whole *West* to integrate to scale up vs a Chinese giant with a Leninist neomercantilist model that crushes industrial opposition. (That’s now an emerging Establishment view, years late to the party.) Isn’t the U.S. then perhaps pushing for Europe (and Canada) to: - look at threats *globally* while acting locally; - forbid the return of “international pacifism” or defence “Build Back Better”; and - integrate with it (on its terms)? That doesn’t mean this U.S. approach is nice; or easy to swallow for the others; or that it will achieve its goals. You can make the argument it is nasty, and people will choke on it, and so it will do the exact opposite to what the White House wants. Even so, distorting the past to mis-explain the present to avoid a future some don’t want is also not nice, hard to swallow, and unlikely to achieve any security goals in the long run.