https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Treaty#Article_...
> Article 6 states that the treaty covers only member states' territories in Europe and North America, Turkey and islands in the North Atlantic north of the Tropic of Cancer, plus French Algeria. It was the opinion in August 1965 of the US State Department, the US Defense Department and the legal division of NATO that an attack on the U.S. state of Hawaii would not trigger the treaty, but an attack on the other 49 would.
A similar scenario with Taiwan would not mean "Finland and Sweden would have to send their troops to fight and die there too" as you asserted; they'd have the option to join in if they saw fit.
I'm not saying it would be a verbal and written requirement to participate, and yet, they might have to for other political reasons, like a supply of additional defensive equipment or maintenance programs. For instance, some countries did participate in wars on the side of NATO even though they are not even a part of the alliance. All at the expense of human lives and taxpayers' money [1][2].
Before you say that the US interventions are not NATO interventions, could you name at least one instance from this list [3] where the US was not an active participant of and was actually disapproving of other members' actions? I'm asking because there's a valid growing sentiment with an element of truth in it that NATO without the US is not a potent alliance.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5th_Mechanized_Brigade_(Ukrain...
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6th_Mechanized_Brigade_(Ukrain...
Well, now you're arguing something entirely different - that NATO will rope you in without being a member. Hard to say it's a downside of joining if it happens anyways.
> if NATO gets into a conflict with China over Taiwan, there's a highly chance that Finland and Sweden would have to send their troops to fight and die there too
Nothing in NATO's organization or the Treaty itself supports that assertion; in fact, it explicitly says otherwise.
Yugoslavia was not an Article 5 action, it arose out of Article 4 regional security consultations. It is important to remember that NATO is not, even in theory, a “defensive alliance” it is a regional security organization with a mutual defense commitment.
There are a lot of conceivable scenarios where the US would not make the case and even where the other members might disagree.
Hawaii isn't even covered under NATO, even if someone attacked the US: