As the 70th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) approaches, the world’s oldest and most successful military alliance of democratic nations faces serious and complex challenges to its purpose, effectiveness and unity in 2019.
Ambassadors Douglas Lute and Nicholas Burns' new report, NATO at Seventy: An Alliance in Crisis, launched at the recent 2019 Munich Security Conference, highlights ten major challenges to NATO and offers recommendations to bolster this critically important alliance.
Based on extensive discussions with current European and North American leaders, former senior officials, academics and journalists, Burns and Lute recommend that Congress pass legislation this year to protect NATO, such as requiring Congressional approval should President Trump attempt to alter U.S. treaty commitments to NATO allies or seek to take the U.S. out of the Alliance altogether. They also offer recommendations on how NATO should cope with low European defense spending, Russia’s continued aggression in Eastern Europe, anti-democratic governments within NATO, Afghanistan, China and more.
Read the report here.
