Two years ago, in the Chinese language popular question-and-answer website, Zhihu – China's equivalent to the popular English language Quora Digest, someone asked the question “What is NATO?” “On April 4, 1949, the United States, Canada and ten European countries including the United Kingdom, France, and Italy signed the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington. Further, they decided to establish the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. On August 24 of the same year, all the member countries completed their respective domestic ratification procedures of the Convention, and NATO was formally established,” Zhihu explained. Elaborating the present-day nature and role of the North Atlantic alliance, Zhihu further said: “After experiencing the baptism of the ‘Cold War’ and several twists and turns in the post-Cold War era during the past three decades, NATO has become ‘immortal.’ It continues to be proactive in the global geopolitical game and remains a driving force for Western civilizations’ global dominance.”
What Zhihu explained on the current status and nature of NATO largely echoes the ongoing debate in the West, especially in Western Europe. Nearly a decade ago, the NYT had invited a number of experts to discuss if the time had come to disband NATO? The theme and the core argument put forward by NYT was, “with the Soviet Union gone and austerity challenging security, should NATO be disbanded?” Invited to join the debate, Camille Grand of The Foundation for Strategic Research in France dismissed austerity as the reason for disbanding NATO. “To argue NATO has become irrelevant is missing the point. But I do agree it is high time to re-examine the role and purpose of NATO in the twenty-first century,” Grand argued.
Recalling Lord Ismay’s classic formulation that NATO’s founding purpose was “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down,” Boston University’s Professor Andrew J. Basevich joined NYT debate strongly advocating “it was time for the United States to leave NATO.” Basevich, who had been a US Army colonel, emphasised: “The united and democratic Germany of the 21st century poses no security threat whatsoever. Meanwhile, an implosion of the Soviet Union has yielded a Russia that possesses no military or ideological wherewithal to threaten Europe. The achievement of these two great objectives renders redundant the third remaining item in Ismay’s triad. The United States has done its job and ought to go home.”