NATO’s Struggle for Relevance

This policy outlook examines the crises NATO faces today and aims to analyse the alliance’s future and relevance in world politics.

This policy outlook examines the crises NATO faces today and aims to analyse the alliance’s future and relevance in world politics. In its seventy-one-year history, NATO has passed significant tests and maintained its relevance through important transformations. Faced with scepticism from key member-states, most notably the US during the Trump presidency, a rising China and what arguably amounts to a strategic overreach, NATO’s cohesion and unity appear to be diminishing. Although Joe Biden’s victory in the recent US Presidential Elections has increased optimism for NATO’s future, its relevance in world politics seems to be contingent upon the extent of China’s challenge and the ability and willingness of the US to sustain its commitment to the alliance.