There are conservative thinkers one debates, and then there are conservative thinkers one approaches with a kind of intellectual deference, not out of blind loyalty, but out of earned respect. Victor Davis Hanson has long belonged to the latter category. For decades, he has been among the most articulate defenders of Western civilization, reminding a forgetful culture that strength, not apology, sustains a nation, and that history has little patience for those who indulge in fantasies of permanent peace. It is precisely because of that track record that his growing dismissiveness of NATO, and his calls to let it “die on the vine,” demands a response, not in the spirit of casual disagreement, but with a sense of urgency that borders on alarm, because while his diagnosis of Europe is often correct, his prescription for what comes next risks leading us into a strategic error from which there may be no easy recovery.
Let us begin by conceding what must be conceded, because the conservative case is strongest when it refuses to pretend. For decades, the United States has carried a disproportionate share of the defensive burden for the Western alliance, underwriting a security framework that allowed Europe to divert resources away from military preparedness and toward expansive social programs, all while enjoying the stability guaranteed by American power. This arrangement, comfortable for them and costly for us, has produced precisely the kind of dependency Hanson criticizes, a system in which European nations often fail to meet even modest defense commitments while expecting the United States to remain perpetually vigilant, perpetually present, and perpetually willing to act. That frustration is not only justified, it is long overdue, and any serious conversation about the future of the alliance must begin with the recognition that a partnership in which one side carries the overwhelming burden is not sustainable indefinitely.
And yet, it is here, at the moment when the frustration is most understandable, that the danger becomes greatest, because it is tempting to allow irritation to dictate strategy, to mistake the failure of allies for the failure of the alliance itself, and to conclude that what has been imperfect must therefore be dispensable. That temptation must be resisted, because the world in which such a conclusion might have been safe no longer exists. We are not living in the long shadow of the Cold War, when the United States stood alone as the unchallenged center of global power, capable of projecting force, shaping markets, and imposing order with a confidence born of unmatched supremacy. That era, whether we welcome its passing or not, has ended, and in its place we see the early formation of something far more complex and far more precarious, a world in which rival powers are not merely competing, but aligning, not merely testing boundaries, but constructing alternative systems that reduce their dependence on us altogether.
Consider the emerging reality with clear eyes. China is no longer a distant competitor gradually integrating into a Western-led order, but a fully realized rival with the demographic scale, industrial capacity, and technological ambition to challenge American primacy across multiple domains. Russia has abandoned any lingering illusions of partnership and returned to a posture of open revisionism, willing to use force to redraw boundaries and test the resolve of the West. Iran continues to extend its influence through proxies and destabilizing activities that reach far beyond its borders. These powers, distinct in their histories and ambitions, nevertheless share a common interest in weakening the system that has long advantaged the United States, and increasingly they act with a quiet, pragmatic alignment that should give us pause, not because it constitutes a formal alliance, but because it reflects a shared understanding of where the future is heading.
That future will not be defined by isolated contests between individual nations, but by the competition between blocs, and once one begins to think in those terms, the arithmetic alone becomes sobering. A loose alignment of adversarial powers, even without perfect coordination, represents not merely a challenge but a structural shift in the balance of global power, one that cannot be met by a single nation, however strong, acting alone.
The threat posed by such a bloc is not limited to military confrontation, though that risk remains, but extends into the economic and technological spheres, where the consequences may be more subtle but no less profound. There is no immutable law that guarantees the continued dominance of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, no assurance that global trade will continue to flow through American systems, and no reason to believe that technological leadership will remain concentrated in the United States if alternative networks emerge that deliberately exclude us. A nation carrying immense debt and facing coordinated competition cannot afford to assume that the structures of the past will endure indefinitely.
It is in this context, and only in this context, that Hanson’s suggestion that NATO might be allowed to wither must be evaluated, and when viewed against the reality of a world organizing itself into competing blocs, that suggestion reveals itself not as a bold assertion of independence, but as a form of strategic contraction that would leave the United States more isolated at precisely the moment when isolation carries the greatest risk. Alliances are not rendered obsolete by their imperfections, nor are they invalidated by the frustrations they inevitably produce. They exist because no nation, however powerful, can shape a complex and interconnected world alone, and because the aggregation of strength, even when unevenly distributed, creates a force that is greater than the sum of its parts. The alternative to an imperfect alliance is not a cleaner or more efficient system of bilateral arrangements, but a fragmented landscape in which coordination becomes more difficult, influence more diffuse, and the ability to respond collectively to emerging threats significantly diminished.
None of this requires a naive or sentimental view of alliances, nor does it demand that the United States continue to bear an unfair share of the burden without protest. On the contrary, a serious commitment to the alliance requires a willingness to confront its shortcomings directly, to insist on genuine burden-sharing, to align policies in areas such as energy and defense, and to ensure that membership carries with it not only benefits but responsibilities. But reform is not abandonment, and the recognition that an alliance must be strengthened does not justify the conclusion that it should be discarded. If anything, the changing nature of global competition suggests the opposite, that this is the moment to deepen and expand our network of partnerships, to bring into closer alignment those nations that share our interests, to reassure old friends and find new ones, and thereby build a coalition capable of balancing the emerging blocs that would otherwise dominate the international system.
This is not a call for globalism, nor is it an argument for endless entanglement in conflicts that do not serve American interests. It is a recognition that American interests themselves are best served not by standing apart, but by standing at the center of a network of alliances that amplify our strength, extend our reach, and reinforce a system that has, for all its flaws, produced a level of stability and prosperity unmatched in human history. Ronald Reagan understood this when he spoke of peace through strength, because he recognized that strength was not merely a function of military capacity, but of the alliances and institutions that magnified that capacity and made it effective on a global scale. The Cold War was not won by America acting alone, but by America leading a coalition that its adversary could not match, and it is difficult to see how the challenges of the present moment can be met by abandoning the very principle that proved decisive in the past.
There is, finally, a deeper temptation at work here, one that extends beyond any single policy debate, and that is the temptation to equate independence with strength, to believe that the refusal to rely on others is itself a demonstration of power. In a simpler world, that belief might have carried some truth, but in a world defined by interdependence, complexity, and the emergence of competing blocs, it risks becoming a dangerous illusion. Strength today is not the ability to stand alone, but the ability to build, sustain, and lead alliances that reflect our interests and shape the environment in which we operate. To withdraw from that task, whether out of frustration or principle, is not to assert our power, but to diminish it, and in doing so, to concede ground to our enemies, who have no such hesitation about the value of collective strength.
