A real threat to NATO

The NATO summit in Ankara is underway (July 7-8), but the alliance faces a problem far more serious than Russia or China: NATO members no longer have a common and harmonized understanding of the values, economic order, geopolitical vision, and legal principles the alliance was created to protect.

The durability of any military alliance essentially depends on the answer to a seemingly simple question: what is it protecting? Without a clear answer, the alliance loses the initiative; it is then defined by its opponents, not by a common goal.

When NATO was founded in 1949, its purpose was clear. Born out of the ruins of World War II, it was created to protect the “free world,” as its founders called it, from Soviet expansion. More fundamentally, NATO sought to protect a liberal international order based on four interconnected and mutually reinforcing pillars: democratic governance, economic openness, Western geopolitical dominance, and international law based on the United Nations Charter.

Today, all of these pillars are under intense pressure. This is most clearly reflected in the alliance’s political identity, which is weakening due to the decline of democracy and the rise of authoritarianism. NATO may remain the most powerful military alliance in the world, but its moral legitimacy depends on whether its members continue to embody the democratic values ​​they publicly advocate.

The reaction of many NATO member governments to Israel's military campaign in the Gaza Strip has exposed the growing gap between the values ​​the alliance proclaims and the policies of its members. While the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court continue to consider charges of genocide and other serious violations of international law, some leading NATO members (notably the United States) continue to provide political support and protection to the government of Israel.

An alliance whose historical legitimacy rests on the post-war rejection of fascism and genocide cannot afford to be selective in its protection of universal human principles. Moral consistency is not an ethical luxury; it is a strategic resource, the rejection of which places NATO at serious risk.

The pressure on the liberal economic order is also increasing. Ironically, the main challenge to that order is not NATO's opponents, but its own members: their protectionist policies, tariff wars, and politicization of international trade are undermining the rules-based system that Western countries have built and maintained for decades after 1945.

Meanwhile, the center of gravity of the world economy has shifted decisively towards Asia. When NATO was founded, its members accounted for approximately two-thirds of world GDP. Since then, their share has fallen to less than half, while Asia has become the main engine of global economic growth.

The third pillar of the post-war order - geopolitical leadership - also seems increasingly fragile. The Cold War gave NATO a clear strategic structure. However, after the collapse of the USSR, the belief that US dominance would endure became widespread, and it was this belief that became the basis for new waves of NATO expansion and the belief that the outcome of international events can be determined solely by military superiority.

The war in Afghanistan exposed the limits of such an understanding. Following the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, NATO launched the largest and longest military operation in its history. However, despite twenty years of its overwhelming military and technological superiority, the Taliban returned to power. The lesson is not that force has lost its importance, but that battlefield successes are no substitute for political strategy. Lasting security requires diplomacy, institution-building, regional cooperation, and a long-term political vision.

This lesson is particularly relevant in today's multipolar world. While deterrence remains indispensable, the principles of the Cold War are no longer relevant to a world shaped by economic coercion, migration, energy insecurity, technological competition, and cyberwarfare. NATO must therefore complement its military power with geopolitical foresight and the skill of statecraft.

It is also increasingly difficult to ignore the strategic contradictions in Europe. Ukraine, the Black Sea and the Middle East today form a single, interconnected zone of instability, but the EU continues to ignore Turkey - the only country located on the tri-border of this area.

A Europe striving for strategic autonomy cannot afford to remain strategically fragmented. The accession of Finland and Sweden has strengthened NATO's northern flank, but the security architecture of southern Europe now depends on Turkey's integration into EU institutions - both political and security.

Ultimately, the international legal order is increasingly giving way to great power politics. The authority of any alliance rests on its willingness to uphold the norms it advocates. However, US President Donald Trump’s threats to take over Greenland (an autonomous territory of Denmark) call into question one of the fundamental principles of the UN Charter – the territorial integrity of sovereign states. When the leading NATO power threatens the sovereignty of one of its members, commitment to international law becomes an empty phrase.

These structural problems are further exacerbated by growing disagreements about NATO’s strategic purpose. Disagreements among allies are, of course, nothing new. The war in Iraq, for example, led to a deep rift between the United States and its European partners, but both sides continue to see NATO as indispensable to transatlantic security. Today, these disagreements are much deeper. Under President Trump, the United States is increasingly taking a transactional approach to NATO, making key foreign policy decisions without consulting key allies.

A striking example is the war with Iran. This conflict, which could fundamentally change the security architecture of the region, has already caused serious disruptions in the world economy and will have far-reaching consequences for all NATO members. Yet the alliance itself seems to play no role in the decision-making process. An alliance whose members could be drawn into a regional conflict that they did not jointly choose or politically approve of risks losing the mutual trust necessary for security cooperation.

Since the crisis in NATO is primarily a crisis of identity, not of military potential, its overcoming cannot be achieved simply by increasing defense spending or strengthening deterrence capabilities. NATO must renew its normative foundation, based on democratic legitimacy and human rights, and reaffirm its commitment to international law and economic principles that are in line with an era of changes in the global balance of power.

These cannot be seen as a set of separate issues. Without a comprehensive strategic philosophy, with democratic legitimacy, human rights and the rule of law at its core, NATO risks becoming nothing more than an instrument of shifting national interests. Its future therefore depends less on the external threats it faces than on its ability to redefine what this transatlantic alliance stands for and what it is prepared to defend.

The author is a former Turkish Prime Minister (2014-2016) and Minister of Foreign Affairs (2009-2014)

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2026. (translation: NR)