Jessica Berlin, a policy analyst writing in the Center for European Policy Analysis’ online journal, has proposed a NATO without limits an expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to all democratic nations. “The 21st-century threat landscape,” she contends, “calls for a global alliance capable of mutual defense.” “NATO must open its doors,” she writes, “to new members beyond Europe and North America.” Her proposal is breathtaking in scope: an attack on any democracy is an attack on all democracies. It is a recipe for endless wars on all continents and a reckless extension of America’s nuclear guarantee to all the world’s democracies. It turns John Quincy Adams’ prudent counsel on its head: America goes abroad in search of monsters to destroy and is the champion and vindicator of the freedom and independence of all democracies.
Jessica Berlin not only wants to make NATO permanent; she wants to expand it to geographical and ideological lengths that even its most ardent supporters and admirers should shy away from. Crusaders and ideologues make for dangerous statesmen.