purpose of NATO for U.S.

This is a sincere question. What reasons did the U.S. have for getting into the NATO agreement? What was the U.S. expected to get out of it? I mean clearly it is intended for us to protect Europe, not for Europe to protect us. So why couldn't we do this if we desired without a written guarantee that we will? In almost all cases we would anyway right, with or without a contract? It just seems foolhardy to make a promise to defend someone no matter what the conflict, whether they're in the right or the wrong. And of course everyone in the world wants in so the U.S. can protect them. But...what do we get out of it? I hope I don't sound unpatriotic. I know it's considered heresy to question this. I'd just like to understand it better.

 

The isolationists posed this same sort of question before World War II. They thought we could ignore Hitler and Japan because of the two large oceans. That idea was shattered with the attack on Peal Harbor.

Russia has been a nasty rogue nation from the Russian Revolution to date, except for maybe a decade. Russia’s goals are clear. The basic question is how to best contain Russian aggression. The safety of Western Europe has long been a concern for the United States. Now that the former Soviet satellite states have won their freedom, they are our concerns too.

 

The purpose was to keep the Germans down and the Soviets out.

I don't know if that's been updated.

 

But seems like we don't have to ignore anything we don't want to ignore. I started to think a lot about this after the attacks on Israel and Turkey has made various statements in favor of hamas. So if Turkey were to get into war with Israel, would we be required to defend...Turkey?

 

Yet Germany was let into it?

 

And who decides who is admitted? I know there's a vote, but do countries whose dues aren't completely paid get to vote? In my husband's union, if your dues aren't paid, you don't get to vote on stuff. Just sayin

 

Trump pressed that issue, much to his credit when he was president. His language on the campaign trail this year was unfortunate.

 

Turkey has become a dictatorship and a pain in the butt. If Turkey starts a war with Israel, they are on their own.

 

I think they were kind of forced into it.

 

If you think that than either Turkey should leave the alliance or we should. It doesn't make any sense that World War is going to depend on the the most authoritarian state in the alliance.

 

That's my opinion too. But I fear the Biden administration would use NATO membership as an excuse to go against Israel, in order to appease his far left base.

 

In WWII it required the bombing of Pearl Harbor to get US public support…after Germany and Japan already expanded into empires and conquered most of their neighbors including virtually all of Europe in Germanys case.

Basically: the US public is really Fin stupid and we don’t want our President to be hamstrung until it’s too late and we lose 450,00 Americans in one of the most brutal wars imaginable.

If we are in an agreement to act however upon first violation of our allies, that gives our leaders political cover as well as power to act quickly and decisively whether our idiot public likes it or not.

IMO

 

We were screwed from the getgo because every country is expected to ante up 2% of their GDP to pay NATO's expenses, which means our 2% adds up to way more than anyone else's 2% and that is for us to defend them. Add to that that many of those countries don't even ante up their required 2% and we are footing most of the bill to defend them. Now democrats are getting their panties in a wad because Trump says we shouldn't defend those countries that won't pay their fair share. Why should we defend those who won't pay us for their defense?

 

Your first paragraph may be true. But might I remind you that this country actually belongs to the U.S. "idiot" public?

 

What does that have to do with my point?

 

That idea would have held true, if not for the oil embargo placed on Japan in response to Manchuria(and in of itself, the idea was broken not by the European war but by the Asia-Pacific(though we definitely needed to establish freedom of the seas, which Germany historically dating back to the Kaiser did not allow.).

So inarguably, the dispute at sea would have brought us to war with Germany anyway(or we would've had to be neutral to GB, so as to assure the Germans that GB couldn't use US naval power/civilian shipping to bypass the German blockade.)

In any event, the common thread that holds that "we had to, so we should to the present day" is a GROSS miscalculation that has the US at wartime to the present.

And to paraphrase the OP: What are we in wartime for? It's not 1941-1942 anymore, the US fleet is absolutely by far and superior to any power. Freedom in the Atlantic has been established for shipping and trade. Heck, you can argue too well(the consumer economy)

If anything, any real danger comes from where it truly came from back then: Not Europe, but Asia!(even Obama recognized it, in the Asia Pivot.)

We have always been most vulnerable in our Pacific. Where the Atlantic is mostly bordered by friendlies, the Pacific had Imperial Japan(who we were allies with, and if you can stomach the humanitarianism, it might have been better to look the other way while Japan liquidated China, and to establish even closer ties.)

We obviously did not do that, and now China took Imperial Japan's place, and our ties to Japan have grown stronger, but she's not the power she used to be. Something Japan is addressing, and we need to aid them in addressing it sooner.

China's puppet state North Korea allows it to project projectiles to the US, while feigning ignorance at best or fecklessness at worse.

https://www.worldatlas.com/regions/pacific-states-united-states.html

That's 51 million of our brethren to protect, and it's time to give them the same safety and security that those in the Atlantic, the South and mid-west enjoy.

To do that, China has to either become an ally or neutered. And that's work that I'm sorry can't be divested into the European conflict.

 

There are no dues.

 

The purpose of an "attack one, you attack all" pact is that it provides maximum deterrence for anyone contemplating attacking one in the alliance. What we get out of it is that it stops the expansion of Communism or anything else that pops up in opposition to member countries.

Rather than us having to jump in late in the game when the enemy is well entrenched to save their bacon like in WW1, and WW2, we can put out the deterrence in advance, in the hopes of deterring the conflict before it begins.

 

You know what I mean though.

 

Good point. So we shouldn't be worried about Russia advancing farther than Ukraine? I suppose this theory did work out until the last three years.

 

Russia is not going to attack a NATO member country. You can take that to the bank. They are not anywhere near strong enough to do so.

What do you mean it has not worked out in the last 3 years?

 

There is no logical reason for the U.S. to belong to NATO, only a political one. The Europeans want American money and power on their side in the event they have to defend themselves militarily. Oddly we complied. See the gift we made to Europe in the image of NATO HQ. There are images on the internet.

 

Immediately at the end of WW2 there were two requirements, an immediate one
for economic reconstruction of Europe including food production, and the other
for military security from the risk of resurgence in Germany or aggression from
the USSR.

The Marshall Plan was a big help in economic reconstruction, and NATO was
started to avert any possible threat from the USSR.

The aim of NATO as summarized by it's first Secretary General, Ismay, was:
"to keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down,".

 

What do we get out of it? It adds some 6 million personnel to US military capabilities, - 2 million active military personnel + over 2 million more in reserves, and with addition of Finland that number is even greater.

If Russia and China team up against the US, we'd have a hard time repealing them without NATO.