This week, The Vandenberg Coalition hosted a fascinating discussion between Danielle Pletka, Marshall Billingslea, and Bradley Bowman on the U.S.- NATO relationship. While all agreed NATO has been foundational to America’s past success, the question for the panel centered on what role NATO should play in America’s present and future.
Our namesake, Senator Arthur Vandenberg, was known as a leading isolationist for much of his career. And yet, he would become one of the architects of the NATO alliance. In his view, the alliance system was not a step toward a grand utopian vision of world-statism, but instead a necessary shield against aggressive adversaries with no regard for American sovereignty. “Oceans have ceased to be moats which automatically protect our ramparts,” he declared in 1945. His observation remains true now, as Russia and China have breached our borders not through direct military action but through countless cyber-attacks, weaponized immigration, and support for transnational criminal organizations that threaten American lives.
America needs allies in such an environment. And yet, alliances are not guaranteed to last in perpetuity; they remain only if shared values and interests exist. While The Vandenberg Coalition broadly supports the transatlantic alliance, we must be responsive to the counterarguments. There are compelling criticisms, if not of NATO itself, then certainly of the behavior of individual NATO member states. It is, after all, infuriating to watch Pedro Sanchez refusing to spend even 2 percent of Spain’s GDP on defense, failing to pay hundreds of millions in owed arbitration costs to the United States and the EU, and preventing the United States from using our own shared bases in our operation against Iran. Or to watch Recep Tayyip Erdogan undermine U.S. security by directly cozying up to Islamists and revanchist Russians. Or to witness Americans working for a full five years longer than French citizens, whose enjoyment of an early retirement age comes in good part from the U.S. subsidizing their defense. And it is impossible to watch as the United Kingdom imprisoned more people in 2025 for free speech violations than were blacklisted through the entirety of the decade-long Red Scare in the United States and not wonder whether our values indeed are still aligned.
But as came out in our discussion, as much as there is to criticize, there is more to praise. Russia’s capabilities and resolve have been enormously depleted thanks to the resilience and dedication of both our Ukrainian allies and the support of critical eastern European NATO members like Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. For decades, U.S. soldiers’ lives and limbs have been saved thanks to our bases in Europe, European rescue pilots, and NATO partners standing side by side with us on the front lines of many conflicts. Yes, there are problems. But in the face of deepening ideological threats posed by Russia, China, Iran, and their partners, the defense of the West has become one of our most critical responsibilities. While we may not agree on everything, as Brad Bowman pointed out, we still can agree on the founding premises of NATO—to “safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of [our] peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law.” While we should continue pressuring NATO members to carry their fair share, these principles are hallmarks of the West, and nothing would undermine our cause more than to try to go at it alone.
If you are interested in learning more about our NATO event, stand by for a video recording in the coming weeks, including recommendations on how reforming the alliance may be precisely the solution we need.
