How do you feel about the NATO alliance?

Like the UN, ultimately nothing more than a tool for colonial imperialism.

Necessary deterrence to ANY threat anywhere. It was born from the alliances of WWII, because of the lack of strong alliances before WWII. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

@kritiper Well, sort of. It was born of the alliances from WW2, but as a counter to the perceived Soviet aggression. (And, to be fair, they were aggressive, with the Berlin Blockade of 1947–8). Then when the Korean War broke out, NATO really got going. Germany, at the time, was still considered a threat (and under occupation) so they weren’t admitted in the first round.

Now, 60 years later, the Soviet’s don’t exist, several of the Warsaw Pact members are now NATO members, and NATO has been used, as Rags has implied, in operations not in the Alliance (Afghanistan comes to mind).

The purpose of NATO a a mutual alliance. There was an interview on NPR where a NATO commander was talking about the Baltic States, and if Russia were to invade the Baltic states that NATO would respond. Fair enough. But should NATO be used as a hammer in remote places because we don’t like the boss?

Weak and ineffectual, largely because the Europeans are wimps and cheapskates and would prefer to outsource their defense to the US, instead of managing it on their own.

The Europeans (with the exception of the UK) ceased to take responsibility for themselves after WW2.

Trump is right, but it isn’t exactly genius to recognize that NATO is fairly useless as a counterterrorism tool. His claim that bombs detonated in France and Belgium vindicate his position is vacuous and revealing on his lack of insight.

IMO the UN is still a very effective tool to employ sanctions upon misbehaving countries. The economc sanctions against N Korea and Iran were and still are very effective at making their leaders to think twice about pulling any stunts.