Leaving NATO Would Be An Unforced Error
Republicans are once again pushing for the United States to leave NATO.
The case they make is built on misinformation, bad logic, and a misunderstanding of how the alliance actually works. Leaving NATO would not make America stronger or richer. It would weaken American power, reduce our influence, and make the world more dangerous in ways that would ultimately find their way to our shores.
The new grievance from some conservatives is that NATO countries did not join the United States in its war against Iran. But NATO is a defensive alliance. Its core principle is Article 5: an attack on one member is treated as an attack on all. That clause has been invoked exactly one time in NATO’s history, after the United States was attacked on 9/11.
NATO nations do not have an obligation to join fellow members in wars they start, such as when the US and Israel launched a bombing campaign against Iran at the end of February. In past conflicts, NATO members have sometimes joined the United States through separate coalitions and prior coordination outside of the alliance. Trump did not coordinate with, or even inform, other NATO nations about the attack against Iran beforehand. This war also followed recently after the US had threatened to invade and take over Greenland, which is a territory of Denmark, a fellow NATO ally.
Another false narrative is that the United States has paid trillions of dollars to NATO while other countries freeload. That is false. The “trillions” people cite are really total U.S. defense spending, which is fully separate from NATO’s common budgets. NATO’s common-funded budgets are much smaller, up to about $6.2 billion for 2026. Under NATO’s current cost-share formula, the United States and Germany each pay 15% of those common budgets. In other words, America and Germany pay the same share toward NATO, even though the U.S. economy is six times larger than Germany’s. That alone tells you America’s burden is not what critics claim.
Anti-NATO arguments take U.S. military spending, pretend it is money handed over to NATO, and then claim America is being robbed. But if the United States left NATO tomorrow, that would not eliminate the U.S. defense budget. America would still maintain its military and, based on the budget requests coming out of DC, would continue massively increasing that spending. Leaving NATO wouldn’t save America money. It would leave the United States with the same massive military costs and fewer allies helping extend American power.
The last misleading point concerns defense spending as a share of GDP. NATO has long had a guideline that members should spend at least 2% of GDP on defense, but it is a guideline, not a legally binding requirement for dues payments. Even so, all NATO members met or exceeded that 2% benchmark in 2025. At the top was Poland at 4.48% of GDP. The United States ranked seventh at 3.22%. NATO’s new target is 5% by 2035. Some nations are almost at that spending level, but not the US, leaving little room for complaining.
With the misinformation cleared up, let’s discuss the ways NATO benefits the United States.
First, NATO multiplies American power. The U.S. does not have to maintain global leadership alone because it works through an alliance of 32 countries, sharing planning, infrastructure, logistics, and intelligence. American power extends farther because of allied bases, militaries, and coordination. NATO also helps create a much broader intelligence picture through consultations, intelligence-sharing, and joint threat assessment. That makes the U.S. stronger than it would be on its own.
Second, NATO lowers the cost of American world leadership. The alliance allows the United States to share burdens with other wealthy democracies rather than trying to deter threats on its own. European allies and Canada have increased defense spending sharply in recent years. NATO says its combined defense spending reached more than $574 billion in 2025, and the U.S. share of total alliance defense spending has fallen as other members have increased theirs. That is what burden-sharing looks like.
Third, NATO has real economic value. The alliance has preserved a stable Europe, and stable allies make better trade partners and better places for investment than a continent shaped by insecurity and conflict. Allied defense spending also feeds back into the United States. SIPRI found that 58% of major arms imports by NATO’s European members in 2021–2025 came from the United States. NATO is not a weapons sales program, but allied military spending often supports the American industrial base.
Fourth, NATO helps prevent the kind of major war that the United States would get dragged into. That is one of the alliance’s core purposes. NATO was created not only to deter outside threats but also to help prevent renewed instability and militarism in Europe. That stability has been one of the great strategic bargains in modern history. It gave the United States a more secure Atlantic world, more reliable allies, and a much stronger position from which to project influence globally.
Fifth, NATO makes American diplomacy more effective. Sanctions, coordinated pressure, and deterrence carry more weight when they are backed by a bloc of major allies rather than by Washington acting alone. It is one reason adversaries like Russia benefit when Americans start talking themselves into abandoning the alliance.
Contrary to the complaints, US involvement in NATO is not charity requiring other nations to be beholden to everything we demand of them. It is one of the clearest examples of the United States gaining more from an alliance than it pays into it. America gets greater military reach, extensive intelligence networks, stronger trade relationships, decisive diplomacy, and a stable, prosperous Europe. In return, it pays a modest share of NATO’s common budgets while maintaining a defense budget it would keep without the alliance.
If the United States left NATO, it would be an unforced error. America would lose influence, creating an opening for Russia and China to expand theirs. The United States became the leader of the Western world not by isolating itself, but by building institutions and alliances that amplified its strength. Abandoning NATO would mean giving away one of America’s greatest strategic advantages.