• NATO celebrated its 70th birthday in April 2019 - a remarkable age for an alliance of states. In recent months, however, there has been increasing criticism: US President Donald Trump has repeatedly questioned the meaning of the North Atlantic Pact. French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron complained of a lack of cooperation and a lack of trust: it is unclear whether one can really rely on assistance in the event of an attack. But what if NATO actually no longer existed?

In addition, the vast majority of the $ 984 billion in NATO's budget in 2019 comes from the United States: 685 billion, or almost 70 percent. The remaining 30 percent are shared between the 26 European NATO countries and Canada. The dominance of the United States is even greater when it comes to troops, with 1.3 million military personnel there, and all other NATO countries totaling 1.9 million. NATO does not have its own armies, but coordinates the troops of the member states; however, there is a command level with around 6,800 military personnel.

"European NATO members alone are hardly capable of being defended," says Major. A very likely consequence of the alliance breaking apart would therefore be that smaller countries, especially in Eastern Europe, conclude bilateral agreements with the United States in order to continue to enjoy their protection. This would make it difficult to establish a European alternative to NATO. "If Great Britain would then also cease to exist because it is no longer in the European Union, a defense alliance within the framework of the EU would initially only be able to act to a limited extent," says Major. "Even if everything went well, it would take around 15 to 20 years to begin to develop the strength that NATO has today."

It would also be expensive: A study by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) showed that Europe would have to spend between $ 94 and 110 billion just to secure the trade and communication channels in European waters and the maritime infrastructure there. To fend off a single country attack on a European ally, the study would require between $ 288 and $ 357 billion.

Legally, paragraph 7 of Article 42 of the Lisbon Treaty could serve as the basis for a European defense alliance: “In the event of an armed attack on the territory of a member state, the other member states owe all their help and support (…). “Such an“ Eto ”alliance could also be of interest to countries such as Finland or Sweden, which are EU but not NATO members.

The question of who would have the say in such an alliance would undoubtedly lead to disagreements - and whether it would be possible to prevent old conflicts between member countries, such as between Turkey and Greece, from escalating.

Some critics see NATO as outdated. They either consider them too sluggish to respond to modern challenges such as cyber attacks. Or believe that it stands in the way of long-term peace: "To prevent attacks on countries, it would make more sense to promote the rule of law, diplomacy, cooperation and aid and stop attacking countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan or Libya," said the American Anti-war activist David Swanson in an article for the Pressenza news agency.

Would the European arms industry benefit from the end of NATO? Major is skeptical: "Especially if some countries turned away from European formats and secured themselves bilaterally with the USA, it would be likely that they would also invest more in US armaments."

Donald Trump often complains that the US has to pay so much. But the United States' savings were limited in the event of a NATO resolution. At the same time, the country would lose a certain guarantee of political stability and access to military bases in Europe - be it in Rammstein in Germany or in Sigonella in Sicily.

Although for a long time it was the western counterpart to the Warsaw Pact, which has not existed for almost 30 years, according to Claudia Major, NATO has not become obsolete following the end of the Cold War. "NATO has reinvented itself several times over the past decades," she says. "It has become a motor of stabilization, taking over crisis management in the Balkan wars, Afghanistan and Libya - completely different tasks than the one for which it was created."

Since the Ukraine conflict in 2014, there has been a return to old tasks, albeit with changed framework conditions. "For Poland and the Baltic States in particular, NATO is something like life insurance."

The alliance has been declared dead many times, but so far it has survived all crises. The US journalist Jim Hoagland once said with a wink years ago: "Whenever nothing exciting happens for a day, we publish a piece about the future of NATO in the" Washington Post