From Truman to Trump, why Kansas City matters to NATO

Last week in Washington, D.C., representatives from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 29 member states marked the 70th anniversary of the transatlantic alliance. They celebrated the stability it has fostered and the shared democratic values so important to its membership. It was a time to reflect on NATO’s successes, but also its future and the new questions that animate debate on both sides of the Atlantic.

All this might seem quite removed from Kansas City and its environs, but to conclude so would be to ignore history. Winston Churchill gave his famous “Iron Curtain” speech in Fulton, Missouri, presaging the descent of the United States and Europe into Cold War. The Kansas City suburb of Independence was home to Harry Truman, and just a two-hour drive away is the boyhood home of Dwight D. Eisenhower in Abilene, Kansas. These leaders understood the dangers facing the transatlantic democracies and the need to exercise allied leadership in their defense. NATO today stands among their greatest accomplishments.

We lead two Washington-based national security think tanks keenly interested in the discussion among Americans about their country’s foreign policy. Our institutions, the Center for a New American Security and the German Marshall Fund of the United States, have teamed up to get “outside the Beltway,” to talk, in this case, with Missourians about the broad questions attending America’s role in a rapidly changing world. This week we will hold a free public session, “NATO at 70,” Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at the Truman Library. We will also have private meetings with an array of local officials and others, including several visiting European officials.

We aim to speak, to discuss and to listen. The transatlantic alliance will be among the chief topics on which we hope to focus.

It’s certainly the right time. NATO has transformed in ways far beyond what Truman and Eisenhower imagined. Yet seven decades in, NATO’s fundamental purpose still reflects their pragmatic, Midwestern sensibility: that the U.S. is better off working with friends than without them, that we are tied to our allies shared interests and values, and that everyone needs to do their fair share.

In both the U.S. and Europe today, some are questioning NATO’s fundamental value, asking whether the shared sacrifice is worth it.

Despite commitments by Europeans to spend more on their own defense, too many continue to fall short. President Donald Trump’s singular focus on increasing their share of the burden stands out, but he is just the latest in a long line of presidents from both political parties to implore the Europeans to step up. For the good of the alliance, and to ensure its political sustainability on both sides of the ocean, NATO’s financial and military burdens must be more equitably shared.

At the same time, many Europeans express deep worry about Trump’s commitment to defend Europe in a crisis. His comments and tweets disparaging key European allies, and casting doubt about how ironclad the mutual defense pact remains, have raised genuine alarm bells. Add to this the complexity of creeping illiberalism in key NATO members such as Turkey, Hungary and Poland.

For all these challenges, NATO’s underlying strategic logic remains sound. That is why there exists broad bipartisan support in Washington and across the country for the alliance. In Congress today, support for NATO seems to be one of the few things upon which politicians can agree. And the two of us have personally seen, in our government service for both Republicans and Democrats, how the drive to work in concert with America’s closest allies can transcend the usual political fault lines.

Defending our European allies is neither an act of charity nor an anachronistic artifact of the Cold War. When Truman signed the treaty establishing NATO in 1949, he described it as a “shield against aggression and the fear of aggression.” Eisenhower went on to stress the “enlightened self-interest” of American leadership in the alliance. Many things have changed in the intervening decades, but the essential truths of their statements remain.

Today the debate over America’s proper place in the world is broad, with citizens and lawmakers asking fundamental questions about the country’s foreign policy, its success rate and its costs. It’s critical that those of us who engage such questions in Washington take them with the seriousness they deserve and discuss them with a broad spectrum of voices. We and our colleagues are visiting Missouri as an initial effort toward that end, and we hope all interested will join the dialogue.

This story was originally published April 7, 2019 at 8:26 PM.