All in all, it seems that NATO as the cornerstone of European security is crumbling under the combined weight of Trump, the East-South divide and Turkey. Allied declarations and statements express the principles of solidarity and mutual support, but in reality the Alliance has become a family characterised by mistrust and serious tensions among its members. NATO has gone through several internal crises in its long history, from Suez (1956) via the French withdrawal from its command structure (1966) to the cruise missile debate in the 1980s. Today, it is facing several internal problems at the same time, while Russia is closely watching the weakening of the Trans-Atlantic Alliance. Most likely NATO will survive, but the question is what kind of alliance that will be. Closer defence cooperation among EU nations can certainly help to strengthen the Alliance, provided it is carried out not in competition, but in cooperation with NATO. The bottomline is that without a stepped-up European contribution, the future of NATO as a credible and effective defence alliance is at stake.
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