The Story NATO Needs to Tell

A cursory glance across the American political landscape in 2026 will reveal a startling point of consensus between the Far Right and the Far Left: a deep, visceral, almost maniacal distrust of NATO. From the inward-looking America First and MAGA faithful, the chorus is both crude and all-too-familiar: NATO is a bad deal – a scheme where freeloading, emasculated European allies bleed the American taxpayer dry while taking military protection for granted. From the Left, the tired, decades-old ideological tropes about NATO as an engine of Western imperialism and an outdated relic of the Cold War designed to project American corporate power and provoke unnecessary global conflict have not only never faded but are gaining traction with a new generation of Americans with no memory of the titanic struggle between Western democracy and Communist despotism.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. The blind spot of misguided parochialism Isolationist traditions are deep in the American psyche. The America First Committee originally emerged in the late 1930s and viewed European alliances as dangerous. Many of the movement’s loudest pro-neutrality voices also harbored antisemitic and Fascist-leaning sentiments. The Left’s skepticism was shaped by the failures in Vietnam and its opposition to the secret interventions by the intelligence services during the Cold War. In addition to having positive views of Communist China, the Soviet Union, and Fidel Castro’s Cuba, the Left cultivated a permanent suspicion of US military entanglements abroad. Other Topics of Interest Russian Phishing Drones Target Kyiv With Malware QR-Codes in Pro-Ukraine Pamphlets Flyers pushed a false narrative about a “new” combat unit of traitors fighting for Russia, possibly in hopes readers would be angered and scan a QR code without thinking. The two fringes’ similar views are particularly striking – and most tragic – in their ideological refusals to be empathetic to aspiring future members like Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova. These are emerging, but still vulnerable democracies that stand directly in the crosshairs of autocratic aggression. Their service members have fought, trained, and died alongside American forces in international missions from Afghanistan to the Balkans, carrying more than their share of the load to prove their readiness for the Western alliance. This has meant little to the MAGA-led Right and Woke-guided Left. For both, these sacrifices are viewed not as heroic bids for self-determination, but as a genuine human desire by smaller nations to choose their own destiny. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, both fringes assumed NATO’s purpose had died with it. But in the decades since, as the alliance’s borders expanded into the former Eastern Bloc, both sides have embraced a dangerous foreign policy myth: the idea that the West made a legally binding promise to Russia that NATO would never expand closer to Moscow’s borders. Trump regularly refers to NATO as if it were a protection racket. Moscow’s myth makingNo treaty, no formal document, and no binding agreement was ever signed committing NATO to frozen borders. What the critics cite were informal, exploratory discussions in early 1990 between then-Secretary of State James Baker and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev regarding the reunification of Germany. Gorbachev himself later clarified in an interview conducted more than three decades later that the issue of broader alliance expansion was not on the table at the time because the Warsaw Pact, the Soviet equivalent of NATO, still existed. The enlargement that followed in the late 1990s and early 2000s was driven by a simple reality: sovereign, democratic nations in Eastern Europe, having survived decades of Soviet oppression, wanted to join the alliance for their own security.Vladimir Putin has now weaponized this myth. Indeed, a core demand made by the Kremlin to end its invasion of Ukraine is an immediate rollback of NATO’s borders to their pre-1997 lines – effectively stripping Poland, the three Baltic states, Sweden, Finland, Croatia, Albania, Montenegro, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Romania of their alliance protections.Such a demand can never be up for discussion. To trade the security of sovereign and loyal allies for a temporary peace with an aggressor would instantly destroy the credibility of American commitments around the globe.To prevent future political blackmail, the alliance must reaffirm a foundational principle: the revocation of a member’s security guarantee must be prohibited by the NATO charter unless a removal is unanimously decided by the entire alliance. Security cannot be held hostage to the political whims of the day.For an aspiring NATO country like Ukraine, defending its very existence means facing an unforgiving political reality. Kyiv must do everything it can to hold the line through the remainder of the Trump presidency as the US chief executive will continue to throw his diplomatic weight behind Russia, in the hope that Ukraine will finally capitulate and agree to Putin’s demand that it permanently scrap its constitutional goal of joining the alliance. For Ukrainians, surviving this diplomatic pressure is just as vital as hurling back the Russian Federation’s occupation forces.Financial fiction versus factsPart of the Woke skepticism and MAGA hostility stems from fundamentally incorrect assumptions about how NATO actually functions. Right-wing critics and Donald Trump loyalists, including White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, as well as Trump himself regularly refer to NATO as if it were a protection racket, claiming allies owe the United States billions in direct payments.NATO does not have a pool of cash that nations pay into. The alliance’s direct administrative budget is small, $5.3 billion for all 32 members. The 5% GDP benchmark is a target for national defense spending – money spent by allies on their own troops, hardware, and force posture. When NATO members bolster or resupply their militaries, they buy overwhelmingly American-made arms, supporting defense industries across the United States. Unlike the European Union – which operates as a vast, consensus-heavy legislative bureaucracy tangled in regulatory red tape – NATO is a lean, task-oriented military alliance. Decisions are made by consensus, but execution is swift and operational. NATO’s joint operations and shared command structures make it remarkably efficient.Unwitting Kremlin mouthpiecesWillingly or unwillingly, domestic critics have adopted talking points that come directly from the Kremlin. When political commentators echo Moscow’s line that NATO “provoked” the invasion of Ukraine, or that the alliance is an aggressive military threat to Moscow, they are reading from a script written by Russia’s vast state propaganda machine. Fire-eating activists on both sides choose to overlook certain fundamental truths about NATO: it is a defensive alliance. No nation has ever been invaded by NATO; nations volunteer to join so they will not be invaded.This alliance is not an American charity project; it is a force multiplier. Because of NATO, US forces operate out of strategic bases far from American shores, easily projecting power into the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. It allows Washington to deter aggression globally or address its national security interests at a fraction of the cost of acting alone – a cardinal rule that Trump’s Department of Defense under Pete Hegseth has ignored in the ongoing war with Iran. Willingly or unwillingly, domestic US critics have adopted talking points that come directly from the Kremlin. Changing perceptions from the frontlinesLeading and maintaining the NATO alliance is vital to the American economy and its projection of soft power. In an era where anti-Western autocracies – Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran – are forming an increasingly assertive bloc, NATO serves as the economic and security anchor of the free democratic world. It secures global supply chains, protects maritime trade routes, and sets technical standards that favor open societies over autocratic control.Emerging democracies that are knocking on NATO’s door will be key to changing the public’s perception of the alliance. Nations like Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova understand what life is like without a security guarantee – NATO membership is not a luxury, but a shield against national extinction.If aspiring members and associate nations want to shift public opinion and ensure that the United States leads the alliance, they must speak directly to the American public. They must demonstrate their commitment to democratic reform and anti-corruption measures and show that they are ready to contribute to collective defense.When Americans, even those who support Trump’s transactional isolationism and nativism, see emerging democracies fighting for their very existence, paying for their own defense. Eager to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with American soldiers, their opposition ends. In their minds, NATO will then go from what they see as an abstract burden to what it always has been – the greatest freedom-defending alliance in human history. The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.