Retired Air Force Gen. Blaine Holt told Newsmax on Friday it is “high time” for the United States to leave NATO, arguing the alliance has drifted far from its original mission and no longer serves America’s national interests.
Speaking on “Finnerty,” Holt said NATO lost its purpose after the Cold War when it shifted from a purely defensive alliance to what he described as an offensive one.
“I believe we should,” Holt said when asked whether the U.S. should withdraw. “I think it’s high time.
"The alliance lost its way when it switched from a defensive alliance to an offensive alliance, breaking every convention they had signed up for at the end of the Cold War.”
Critics point to Bosnia (1995) and especially Kosovo (1999) as the moment NATO shifted in practice from a defensive alliance to an interventionist one.
That shift, they argue, laid the groundwork for today’s tensions with Russia and the growing debate over whether NATO still serves U.S. interests.
Holt pointed to NATO expansion as a central problem, noting that Western leaders previously assured Moscow the alliance would not expand eastward after the fall of the Soviet Union.
“We won’t expand NATO — well, we’ve expanded the crap out of NATO,” Holt said. “And where has it gotten us?”
According to Holt, the result has been rising instability and an increased risk of direct conflict with Russia.
“Now we’re teetering at the edge of escalation with Russia,” he warned. “We’re in a milieu of financial breakdown across the world.
"So what are we doing, and how is this serving the United States?”
Holt rejected arguments from foreign policy establishment figures who defend continued U.S. leadership within NATO.
“The neocons would argue it is [serving us]; I would say it’s not,” he said.
The debate over NATO has intensified among some Republicans on Capitol Hill.
Republican Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Anna Paulina Luna of Florida this week introduced legislation calling for the United States to withdraw from NATO.
The bill would repeal U.S. participation in the North Atlantic Treaty and end funding for NATO operations, effectively removing the U.S. from the military alliance.
Massie and Luna say NATO has strayed far from its original Cold War mission of collective defense and instead has become a vehicle for endless foreign entanglements that put American troops and taxpayers at risk.
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