It's Time To Leave NATO

By:Matthew Brodsky(@matthew_brodsky15)

NATO or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was made in 1949 to combat the USSR and its Eastern bloc it was forming in Eastern Europe. Obviously now the USSR has now fallen and NATO now has most of the countries that were once in the USSR. The US now carries a huge weight load in NATO spending 650 billion out of the 900 billion that all of NATO budget. Now do the math and you should get that the US spends about 72.2% into the NATO. That means the other 27 countries put in about 27.8% into the NATO budget. That is a huge amount put in from the US alone and it's an insane amount for us to put in to this organization. This debate sparked up a little when Trump tweeted that the US should leave NATO or not put in as much into NATO in general. This begs the question should the US really leave NATO.
​Now why do countries join NATO. Well lately most of the countries that are joining NATO now are joining for the same reason NATO was formed in the first place and that was the fear of Russia and they wanted protection from Russia. Most of the countries that joined NATO post USSR were once either in the USSR or in the Eastern Bloc. They joined after it collapse for military protection because they were weak and still feared that maybe Russia could go back after them. Most of these countries that did join NATO have a very small or weak military and a weak economy and these countries basically leach on NATO like an insect for support. This has been a big burden for America mainly because it puts in a huge amount of money to support NATO and these countries do absolutely nothing to contribute to the organization. The amount of money we put into this organization is huge and way to much for the United States alone to contribute to.

​NATO hasn't been helpful to other countries either, all it has done is raise tensions with countries like Russia, Iran, Syria and on so. For example last year we had Turkey shoot down a Russian jet but luckily that has been improved but still it raised tensions. Still with NATO taking control of countries bordering Russia this has began to anger the Russians now feeling they are being threatened by the NATO and it allies as NATO basically completely surrounds them so they start to build up at the fear of NATI and with Russia building up NATO begins to build up more and then you throw in Syria which we have NATO funded rebels and a Russian backed Syrian government so they cause even more problems, add on the potentially disastrous Iran-nuclear deal you now have a bunch of failed foreign policy problems from NATO that throw the United States into it. NATO is suppose to help other countries out now a days and they have not done that but instead raised tensions with other countries around them. This needs to stop and we either need to stay out of these problems or actually find smarter ways to deal with them.

Now leaving NATO may not be that best idea at this current situation. If the US was to leave NATO, NATO would more than likely fall apart and those countries would not a strong military alliance to fall back on if something was to happen. Granted most of them have the EU but that's for the economy not the military despite there are debates for an EU military but that's more than likely not going to happen. So those countries near the Russian border are very vulnerable without NATO by there back and the only reason Russia probably hasn't attacked countries like Latvia or Estonia is more than likely because NATO had there back. Now Russia probably wouldn't invade those countries still even if NATO fell but you really don't know what to expect with Putin leading the country and at the moment Russia is still a threat and we really can't take our chances with Russia. Still we need to stop the fear mongering NATO has been doing with Russia if we ever want to improve relations with them.

​What we should do maybe is starting cutting down on the amount we spend on NATO and demand that other countries start paying more. We should also possibly put in a minimum amount of money that countries should put into NATO to stay in. These other countries need to start paying there fair share to NATO if they want to stay in and if they can't they simply can't stay in NATO these countries can't just rely on the US for everything and the US needs stop giving them everything. With the foreign policy part we should stop intervening in other countries businesses like Syria and worry about the countries in NATO problems and only get involved when NATO countries has the chance of being threatened or are being threatened for example Iran if they continue to build up nuclear capabilities even with the deal that's when NATO maybe needs to get involved, but then stay out of things like Syria were we just threw ourselves in there and just caused complete chaos in the country.
​In conclusion I believe we shouldn't leave NATO just yet but instead work to improve relations with other countries and start to pull out funds from NATO and have other countries contribute.
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