Could NATO Really Protect its Members?

NATO Military Prowess Was Never Really Tested

This post isn't about how bad NATO is, but about how really military CAPABLE the alliance is - since I hope that there are no deluded NATO cultists in my friend list who idolize NATO and truly believe that it is 'defensive alliance committed to protection of democracy and democratic values'. I mean, after countless NATO invasions into the Middle East and sometimes even into Serbia, it is crystal clear that it is certainly NOT a 'defensive alliance' and that it is not committed to ANY values. So, I hope my friends well remember this and don't have any illusions about NATO and US - the superpower behind it.

However, my friends while realizing how imperfect NATO and US in truth are, might still have a very strong argument in favor of NATO - that is, US, the driver of NATO, is the ONLY superpower which could resist such allegedly malevolent powers as Russia or China. Everyone else would be just helpless before China or Russia. Hence, even if NATO sucks, and a lot, it is STILL necessary because it is the only defense tool which say Europe has against Russia, or Asian countries against China. This argument is much more solid and requires much more detailed debunking.

First of all, we need to ask yourselves - could NATO REALLY protect ANY its member from say alleged Russian invasion? I know, NATO is 'obliged to help' in those cases and blah blah blah. However, NATO was NEVER CHALLENGED before, so we don't actually know, how NATO would act if it would be challenged, say by China or Russia. I mean, would NATO indeed come to help its invaded member, or would it renege on its obligations? And even if it would help, COULD it actually protect any country, does it have enough military capacities to do that? And if it has, UP TO WHICH POINT would it be doing that - up to nuclear point, or how?

We never asked those questions before, since we believed that nuclear weapons protect countries which have it better than anything, and, hence, that any open confrontation between NATO and any other power is impossible by default - or, more precisely, no one would be as mad as to start it. Now, however, we're not SO sure of that anymore, hence we should ask ourselves those uncomfortable questions.

Because indeed, as a defensive alliance (its proclaimed primary purpose), NATO was never challenged. No NATO member was EVER attacked or invaded by any other country. So we have NO IDEA how NATO would actually react if its member would be invaded. That is, NATO might renege on its obligations to avoid an open potentially nuclear confrontation for all we know. Yeah, reneging would perhaps break NATO as an alliance but it would prevent a nuclear destruction though.

Then, not only NATO was never challenged as 'defensive alliance', it had never attacked strong enough opponent as an offensive alliance (which it really is by the way). That is, NATO never attacked say Russia or China, or even India or Brazil. It was always choosing small, poor, weak countries to attack, countries which would be completely helpless before NATO and couldn't resist it at all - countries like Iraq, Libya, Syria...That had secured NATO victory (though in Iraq and Afghanistan US and NATO somewhat fucked up, ironically - even with WEAK opponents!) but didn't really test NATO military prowess.

This raises the key question - does NATO have enough military prowess to say defeat Russia or China provided that nukes wouldn't be used? The point is that WE DO NOT KNOW THAT EITHER. It wasn't tested. Nothing about NATO was. All notions about NATO - that 'NATO would help any its invaded member', that 'NATO would have enough power to defend any its member', etc. - are just ASSUMPTIONS WHICH HAD NEVER BEEN TESTED! Doesn't that scare you at all? Sigh. What if NATO actually would indeed either renege on its obligations, or FAIL to protect you as its invaded member even if it won't renege? Then WHAT?

Oh yeah, you might say that Ukrainian war had already somewhat tested both NATO and Russian military capacities. No, it didn't. This is a proxy, clown war, where BOTH Russia and NATO DO NOT USE ALL THEIR MILITARY CAPACITIES. They do not use even half of them! There is no full mobilization in Russia, and not even all Russian professional army and military machinery is used in Ukraine. As for NATO, it's not even officially a part of the war! So what are you talking about? How is ANYTHING been 'already tested' in this war? Nothing was.

My chief point is that y maybe we people RELY ON NATO TOO MUCH without having enough grounds for it. We in truth have no idea whether NATO could protect you or not, and whether it would even try to do that, or simply renege on its obligations and leave you to your own devices. And what would we do then?

Again, my point is NOT that we should give in to Putin or China. But it's only rational though that we should think of alternative ways of protection apart from NATO, and that you should have a back-up plan in case NATO would fail to protect us or even lead us into more trouble.

And do we have this back up plan? I somehow don't think so. All our back up plan is 'holy almighty NATO, save us from Putin and Xi'. Well we're as good as dead then with this attitude.