The U.S. Needs to Refocus on European Foreign Policy
There’s far more to NATO than just containing Russian aggression
When Russian president Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February of 2022, he brought the U.S.-European partnership into the foreign policy spotlight, and forced a reexamination of the relationship between the two regions. Within that partnership, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, stands at the forefront of their cooperation, and the invasion of a country close to many NATO members has tested the relationship. NATO was originally founded as a way for North America and Europe to work together to contain the Soviet Union and protect democracy, and now that those threats are returning in the form of Putin’s Russia, NATO and the U.S.-European partnership are once again important foreign policy arenas.
On the part of the U.S., its current interests in the region come down to countering the rise of Russia and preventing a direct war with another superpower. As a result, the current issues of the Ukrainian conflict and NATO’s reliance on the U.S. for security are particularly relevant, especially as the U.S. will need to rely on its alliance with Europe in the future in order to deal with issues of Arctic security and China’s rise — both of which will require the U.S. to weigh its own interests and the current…
