America runs NATO and does not have a perfect history of only getting involved in justified wars itself. Being a NATO member means that other members can drag you in to something you wouldn't join yourself. For example, NATO helped in Iraq and Afghanistan (in small ways, by supporting the US-supported local forces), which weren't going to attack France for example any time soon.

What Russia has done is made the odds of NATO dragging you in to something (which hasn't really ever happened in a major way) look much smaller than the odds of them invading you (which is happening to a NATO nonmember today).

I think part of this is that the non-US NATO countries basically let the US run it. The only NATO countries which seem to meet the financial and military requirements of the organization are the ones on Russia's border. So the US pays the money to support the alliance while Germany uses the money it's saved to purchase gas and oil from Russia so it can close down it's nuclear plants.

I have wondered if the NATO system would be better-designed if it had specific defense requirements from all countries, but I presently think its current structure (where Germany is allowed to reduce military spending because they're surrounded on all sides by other NATO countries) prevents a worse outcome, where they'd find it in their interest to leave NATO and get the buffer states anyway. Voluntary multilateral treaties like this only work when every signatory believes they're benefiting, and if you asked Germany to raise defense spending they'd respond with "okay, and how will we be compensated?"

Then, you'd say "nevermind, I'd rather spend it on my own armed forces," and you arrive back at NATO.

It does have specific requirements. It just doesn't meet them.

No penalties for not meeting requirements sounds like these requirements are suggestions.

>Being a NATO member means that other members can drag you in to something you wouldn't join yourself.

Of course? That's the entire point of it isn't it? NATO is primarily about "dragging the United States into European war" if you want to phrase it that way, though equally the point is that the threat of doing so prevents a European war involving alliance members in the first place. But the USA is at absolutely zero risk of direct invasion by Russia (or China for that matter). America is the only nation on the planet right now with any significant conventional power projection and logistics capability. NATO members all certainly kind of hope America would nonetheless come anyway.

Along with that is the risk that they'd be called on in turn, so that's a tradeoff but an obvious and straightforward one. When you sign up for insurance, you constantly must pay even if you never collect. Indeed most people very much hope never to need to collect. Hedging against black swan events costs money with by definition a low likelihood of return, but can be worth it anyway at a high enough cost (particularly since the insurers themselves have incentive to prevent rather then react).

Yeah, America's track record of invading countries without cause is kind of appalling over the last 60 odd years.

Similarly their use of International Criminal Court for non-americans followed by claims that the ICC should not be used as it is not-elected when America has been caught committing war crimes.

America has not done a whole lot to help its own reputation in these matters :-/

> NATO helped in Iraq and Afghanistan

A number of NATO countries joined both Iraq wars, but not all. The only one where Article V was invoked and NATO was officially involved was Afghanistan.

NATO was officially involved in several post-invasion support missions in Iraq; not every NATO mission (not even combat missions) results from Article 5.

american here: excellent answer and i'd say most here agree

Sweden was a participant in ISAF too.

There are many pros and cons, but from a Swedish perspective, one of the obvious "downsides" would be an end to the idea of Swedish neutrality, which has been a thing since the early 1800's. This may be a hard thing to relate to if you're not a Swede, but if you imagine any political tradition in your country that's over 200 years old, you may understand that the idea of changing it generates some reluctance. I would argue that Sweden is a constitutional monarchy to this day for the same reason, most people simply do not like change unless it's obviously necessary, and Russia may have just given people in Sweden that sense of necessity.

Had a Swedish colleague and he said he did a military service. Answering to the question "why" he told us that Swedish must prepare not for the if but for when Russia invades. That was before the Georgian war when Russia seemed to be less aggressive. I guess the perspective should be changing within the country.

Swedish foreign policy and neutrality originates from all the wars they fought against Russia prior to the 1800s.

The major downside is that Russia might invade you if you make noises about joining. See: Georgia, Ukraine, Finlandization.

... That card's been played out, though, because it's only credible if you don't invade regardless.

Practically speaking, Russia wouldn't be able to do anything about this.

NATO was made for this kind of mutual defense. Unfortunately, NATO is a massive political force that can also be abused for political ends, and no country wants to commit their armed forces to be used as pawns in someone else's war.

NATO has not been viewed favorably in recent years, and some of it is for good reason. As much as I dislike Trump, he is right that many NATO members don't contribute their fair share. Many countries, even wealthy, highly developed ones, are missing the 2% target by a wide margin. On the name and shame highlight reel is: Norway, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the list goes on.

I suspect we will see a renewed interest in making NATO a stronger alliance after this dust settles.

Most European countries have surprisingly dinky armies today. Germany has only 60,000 troops for a population of 83 million. Norway has only 3,725. France has 118,000. The UK has 82,000. There hasn't been much for them to do in decades. That just changed.

Sweden has 24,000 on active duty. Finland has about 21,000. Large for the size of the countries. Both have a draft. Switzerland has 120,000 troops on active duty, a draft, and a large, regularly exercised reserve, for a country with only 8 million people. All are outside NATO and prepared for self-defense.

Of the big powers, the US has 1.3 million. Russia has about 1.4 million, and China has about 2 million.

> Sweden has 24,000 on active duty. Finland has about 21,000. Large for the size of the countries. Both have a draft. Switzerland has 120,000 troops on active duty, a draft, and a large, regularly exercised reserve, for a country with only 8 million people. All are outside NATO and prepared for self-defense.

I think active duty numbers can be misleading, since I believe many countries rely on military reserve forces, especially ones with smaller populations, e.g.:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Defence_Forces#Militar...:

> At the completion of the service, the conscripts receive a reserve military rank of private, lance corporal, corporal, sergeant or second lieutenant, depending on their training and accomplishments.[24] After their military service, the conscripts are placed in reserve until the end of their 50th or 60th living year, depending on their military rank. During their time in reserve, the reservists are liable to participate in military refresher exercises for a total of 40, 75 or 100 days, depending on their military rank. In addition, all reservists are liable for activation in a situation where the military threat against Finland has seriously increased, in full or partial mobilization or in a large-scale disaster or a virulent epidemic. The males who do not belong to the reserve may only be activated in case of full mobilization, and those rank-and-file personnel who have fulfilled 50 years of age only with a specific parliamentary decision.[25]

Wikipedia has a list that allows sorting by "per 1,000 capita (active)" [0] – scroll to the table and click the rightmost column to sort by active per 1k capita.

By this measure, the US is 51st on the list with a value of 4.2, behind many European countries and NATO members, e.g. Greece is #7 with 13.3.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of...

I don't know where you got your numbers, but the german Bundeswehr has a total strength of about 185k and is limited by the two plus four treaty to a maximum strength of 370k. Way less than the 500k and up the old west german Bundeswehr had.

64,036 in the the army (Heer) only.

The target date for the 2% is 2024. They haven't missed it yet, although several are likely to.

As an American I hate NATO, that's a great way to start another World War.

On the contrary: NATO is what has stopped another world war. For decades. Non-agression pacts with mutual defense clauses are a pretty stiff deterrent.

It is the exact opposite!

You'll get nuked if Russia and the West ever are stupid enough to start WWIII.

Even if you were correct, does it matter that your European country is not nuked when the rest of them are?

Yes. You'll have to shetler in place for several weeks until radiation recedes. Your economy will be ruined. And you'll have one hell of a refugee problem. But that is still a lot better than having all that plus your cities burned to ground.

There is a very big difference between being nuked and not being nuked

Everyone dies in that scenario