OPINION:
Rep. Thomas Massie, Kentucky Republican, calls NATO a “Cold War relic,” but that characterization collapses under the weight of current events.
The Soviet Union may be gone, but the danger NATO was built to deter is not. Moscow has simply traded Marxist slogans for nationalist ones. The ambitions are the same, the methods are the same, and the victims are the same.
The threat today is Russian territorial expansion — naked, unapologetic and backed by nuclear coercion. That is not a relic of the past. It is the defining security challenge of our time. To pretend otherwise is to misread the moment and mislead the American people.
Eastern Europe understands this with a clarity born of experience. For them, there has never been much difference between czar and commissar. Both marched armies across borders. Both crushed national identity. Both treated sovereign nations as expendable buffers. The Kremlin’s flag changes; its behavior does not. That is why NATO is not an antique alliance but the first reliable shield many of these nations have ever had.
Mr. Massie’s bill to withdraw the United States from NATO, paired with a companion bill in the Senate, would begin dismantling the most successful defensive alliance in modern history. Dismantling it would abandon our allies, embolden our adversaries and destabilize the very order that has kept the peace for generations.
We are not witnessing the end of an era. We are witnessing the return of an old one. The Kremlin no longer speaks in communist terms, but its appetite for territory is unmistakably familiar. This is Cold War 2.0 — same threat, different ideology.
NATO is not optional, outdated or expendable. It is necessary. We cannot emphasize that strongly enough. At a moment when Russia is waging the largest land war in Europe since 1945, the alliance remains the single most effective barrier against further aggression. To weaken it now would not bring peace; it would invite catastrophe. Our allies are holding the line. America must stand with them because the security of free nations, including our own, depends on it.
ROBERT E. LANE III
Janesville, Wisconsin
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